Last season was a disappointing one for a Manchester United team with such high expectations. Although there was the FA Cup trophy, a very expensively assembled side never truly threatened for a title (this in a season where most traditional powerhouses struggled), and finished fifth, missing out on the UEFA Champions League through goal difference.

Defensively, the side conceded only 35 times, tied with Tottenham for the best record in the Premier League, but offensively they were the lowest scorers in the top eight. Predictably, the board responded to last season by splashing the cash on a new manager and several new attacking threats, and are amongst the bookmakers’ favourites to challenge for the title this season.

The only defender bought thus far is 22 year old center back Eric Bailly for £6.8m. Small change compared to the £35.7m spent on Henrikh Mkhitaryan and the huge wages on 35 year old Zlatan Ibrahimović. Not to mention the impending arrival of Paul Pogba for £93m.

On the face of it, it appears that Manchester United are addressing their problems in front of goal while hoping the arrival of Jose Mourinho sees them keep the defensive solidity that characterised Louis Van Gaal’s reign. However, another way to look at the summer thus far is that a lot of resources have been spent on a few vanity players, without truly changing the side for the better.

Last season’s defensive prowess wasn’t because Phil Jones and Chris Smalling were superb defenders, it was a complete team effort. Van Gaal’s side made a conscious decision to hold on to the ball as much as possible, eschewing risk. If your opponent does not have the ball, they cannot score. Similarly, if the whole team is massed behind the ball because they are threatened by United’s probing, then they cannot get behind quickly.

Now United have brought in three players who are not used to playing like that. Ibrahimović is a supremely individual player, who wants to be the focal point of a team’s strategy. Mkhitaryan was used to frenetic pressing at Borussia Dortmund, and Paul Pogba was one of the key players involved in Juventus’ heavy pressing game first established under Conte. They are three very physical players, who want to get at the opposition with thrusting runs and direct passing, risk-takers who do not fit in the mould of last season’s United side.

SEE MORE: Schedule of Manchester United games on US TV and live streaming

The obvious hope of higher-ups at Manchester United must be that bringing in Jose Mourinho will cause a style revolution. The summer signings would not fit in last season’s side, but this side must not play in the same way as last season’s side. Furthermore, Mourinho’s strength of personality should prevent the discord within the ranks that Van Gaal had to deal with often last season.

It is difficult to expect that Mourinho can come in and alter a project that Van Gaal built for the past two seasons straight away. Especially with only one preseason under his belt.

Perhaps Mourinho wants to turn Manchester United into a more muscular, physical team. But it may have been wiser to buy several players who could help adapt United to that style rather than two hyper-expensive ones that may have to adapt before they can flourish.

After the disappointment of Euro 2012, World Cup in 2014 and Euro 2016, Roy Hodgson’s position as England manager had become untenable. If anything, he had been given too long a rope. The team’s tactics were confused and difficult to fathom. Plus difficult selection questions, such as what to do about Wayne Rooney, were repeatedly dodged.

At first glance, Hodgson’s replacement, Sunderland manager Sam Allardyce, is a similarly underwhelming appointment. As with Hodgson, Allardyce has mainly managed underdog teams, setting them up to avoid defeat and relegation over 38 game seasons. While both have been broadly successful at these efforts, Allardyce famously never having been relegated from England’s top-flight, international football is a different beast.

Teams will not treat England like Sunderland. The vast majority of opponents at tournaments have even more limited squads than England, and will sit deep and wait to be broken down. England sitting deep and waiting to break on the counter will not work against them. People point to Portugal’s unlikely triumph in the most recent Euros as an example of how defensive football can achieve victory, but they forget to mention that every other champion since the turn of the century has won major international tournaments with proactive, fluid soccer.

In international football, there are no transfer windows to buy strikers. There is no time to work with players on offensive patterns.

Hodgson and Allardyce teams are dire offensively at the best of times. Without day-in day-out coaching, fluent attacking play will be almost impossible to achieve.

There are a few myths about Allardyce, enhanced by his temperament in interviews and the style his teams play with. He is actually a very forward thinking manager, one of the first to embrace modern data analysis methods and Prozone. Specifically, he is a big fan of POMO (Position of Maximum Opportunity). It is the position on the field where a player has the best chance of scoring in specific situations. Obviously this works best when applied to set pieces, and logically then Allardyce made his teams set-piece focused.

One of the main worries regarding Hodgson was also how he fell-out with a lot of his Liverpool players due to his training methods and tactics, which did not suit players who thought themselves as top quality. Daniel Agger was very vocal about how Hodgson’s methods did not suit a top side, who were used to playing with the ball. Allardyce, despite his stubbornness, seems to have a way of getting on with players under his remit. Ivan Campo would not have swapped Real Madrid for Bolton if Allardyce was not persuasive, similarly French legend Youri Djorkaeff from Kaiserslautern and Nicolas Anelka.

Before the appointment, England’s players were apparently underwhelmed by the choice of English candidates and preferred the appointment of a foreign manager, but they’ve ended up with the most English of managers. Allardyce is meticulous in his preparation, stubborn, and sharper than most give him credit for, but it is doubtful that he can reverse the national team’s fortunes.

Cesc Fabregas has had an interesting career thus far. Bursting on to the scene at Arsenal as a 17 year old creative midfielder, he became one of the most exciting players in the Premier League. In the five years before he moved to Barcelona, he created 466 chances, scored 48 times, and had 86 assists. His role therefore, was to play the final pass, or to finish off moves. Bursting forward from the center of the park, he was basically the player that Arsenal built their team around towards the end of his time in north London.

Going to Barcelona in 2011 however, he was basically signed to bridge the gap between Xavi, who was 31 at the time, and the new young talents coming from the youth academy. Playing in central midfield, he had less license to completely dictate the tempo of play, often recycling possession and feeding the likes of Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi in advanced positions. He still got his fair share of goals (42 in three seasons) but midfielders will always find opportunities to score when playing with forwards who attract as much attention as Messi and David Villa.

A player as talented as Fabregas and playing in a team as talented as that Barcelona one didn’t have too much of a problem adapting, and many thought that moving into the ‘Xavi role’ in central midfield as he aged and became less mobile would suit the Spaniard. However, as the La Masia production line dried up (relatively speaking), and new Barcelona manager Luis Enrique introduced a quicker, more up-tempo style than his predecessors, Fabregas found himself unsuited to the system.

For all his strengths, the eye for a pass, the great touch, the ability to finish calmly if given an opportunity, there are some significant weaknesses to Fabregas’ game, especially as he enters his 30’s. He is not particularly quick or mobile, as evidenced by his second season at Chelsea, where he was constantly the weak link in the midfield, unable to track runners bursting beyond him. There is also the lack of willingness to track back, or the lack of “tactical intelligence” as Jamie Carragher said, that means he does not see the threats and is late responding to them.

This means the new Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has a very interesting decision to make regarding Fabregas as he starts his tenure at Stamford Bridge. At France in the recently concluded European Championship, Conte had his Italy side extremely well drilled. Midfielders always tracked their counterparts and still found the energy within themselves to spring forward on the counter when Italy won the ball. It is unlikely Fabregas will have the energy to do both sides of the game with such intensity.

Looking back even further still, as Juventus manager, Conte was so consumed with the desire to have his midfielders hunt the ball in packs that he switched to a three man backline in order to flood the midfield with strong running players such as Arturo Vidal and Paul Pogba. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Fabregas is not in his new manager’s plans at all. At Juventus, Conte also had Andrea Pirlo, who at that point in time was in a way the freest moving of players. Yet, by protecting him with two runners either side, Conte was able to use Pirlo purely for his intelligence and passing range to control the tempo of the game. There may be a similar plan for Fabregas.

Chelsea already have Nemanja Matic, the Serbian defensive midfielder, and have just signed Leicester City midfielder N’Golo Kante. Kante, excellent in Leicester’s ascent to the title last season by hunting the ball down and shielding his back four and other midfielders, may be just the player to protect Fabregas with. Fabregas, already experienced in playing something similar to the Pirlo role with Barcelona, may be able to experience a renaissance in his career under his new manager.

The European Championships are almost upon us, and England go to France on the back of three straight wins in their warm-up matches. Amidst the optimism that comes with this good form, and a theoretically simple group to negotiate, there is some concern due to the fact that the team has not looked fluid offensively. They have not only struggled to score, but to create solid chances from open play as well.

There is no obvious reason why this should be the case, for the first time in a long time England has a deadly squadron of forwards. Daniel Sturridge, when fit, scores goals for fun, Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy have had superb seasons as well. Marcus Rashford is lightning quick and scored five goals in his 11 league appearances for Manchester United, despite the side not being the most offensively gifted in the Premiership.

The main reason lots of fans have been excited about England’s offensive play going into the tournament was due to the team’s much needed youth and speed. Raheem Sterling and Deli Alli were supposed to have the pace and trickery to open teams up on the counter, playing balls inside for Vardy to finish as he did all season for Leicester City. The plan seemed to be working when England came from behind to beat Germany 3-2 in a thrilling encounter, with Vardy’s improvisational flick finishing off a fast-break to bring the teams level. High pressing in that game from youthful legs caused Germany severe problems, with several good chances missed to put the game beyond doubt.

SEE MORE: Schedule of Euro 2016 games on US TV and streaming

Against Portugal it seemed that this strategy was thrown out the window, and it was hard to see that the major difference between the two England sides was the addition of Wayne Rooney at Wembley. A decade ago, Rooney was perhaps the only England player capable of the sort of pace and directness that could give the opposition nightmares but ironically he is now the player depriving his own side of it.

He is England manager Roy Hodgson’s captain, and Hodgson says that he is a “mandatory starter”, who could play anywhere on the field, but the evidence thus far has shown that he has deprived England of some dynamism.

England lined up in a 4-4-2 diamond against Portugal with the strike pairing of Vardy and Kane, the same one that had sparked a comeback against Germany, but instead of playing the tricky Alli just behind with two water carriers as shuttlers; Eric Dier holding Alli was relegated to the periphery with Rooney at the point.

He didn’t exert the same sort of influence Alli would have. There was a struggle to get the ball into space for the strikers to run on to, and both Kane and Vardy were forced wide to accommodate the 30 year olds rampages into the box. England had almost 60% of the ball, in no small part due to Rooney’s skill in holding on to it, but were not doing enough with the possession they had.

SEE MORE: Read our England Euro 2016 preview and predictions

Rooney can play in midfield, but this most recent season has shown that he is not as effective there as when he’s playing as a striker. He does have a football brain, and aside from his finishing he is far better when coming deep and setting up chances for midfielders running past than trying to be a true trequartista. In fact, against Portugal, England looked much better when Vardy went off and Rooney became a striker in his place.

Hodgson is reluctant to break up Kane and Vardy after seeing the damage they have done to opponents this season in the Premier League, and therefore the best option would seem to be relegating Rooney to the role of an impact substitute.

However, if he insists on shoehorning three offensive players into the side, it may be best to play Rooney on one of the sides of the diamond, and letting Alli push up to the point. Whoever is on the other side, most likely James Milner or Jordan Henderson, there will be more than enough running to ensure that Dier is not overwhelmed, and he can concentrate on playing intelligent balls into Alli or raking passes to the fullbacks. Vardy and Kane can stay closer together and occupy both opposition centre-backs without the threat of Rooney charging into the box and clogging up the works. Alli tends to stay at the edge of the 18-yard box, working the ball around and waiting for pull backs. Only when someone is at the byline does he move in to occupy space further up.

Some would say having a surplus of talented players is a good problem, but tournaments are often not won by the best squad. A clear system that has the confidence of the players is what really makes the difference in such a tight time period.

Although it hasn’t been officially announced yet, Jose Mourinho is basically guaranteed to be the next manager of Manchester United following Louis Van Gaal’s official departure this week. Despite winning the FA cup this season, Van Gaal’s time at United was tumultuous. He created a solid defense, took United back into the Champions League for one season, and promoted several promising youth players. However, he also splurged ~250m what should have been a title-challenging team, did not qualify for the Champions League this season, and played at-times dreary football that alienated supporters.

Mourinho comes with a reputation, but then so did Van Gaal. Mourinho comes with baggage and controversy, but as United fans found out, so did Van Gaal. Neither man will repeat the dynasty of Alex Ferguson, Mourinho has been around enough posts for everyone to predict how his tenure will progress, and end in three-four seasons.

Football expert Jonathan Wilson has already stated that Mourinho brings guaranteed trophies, nearly always winning the league in his second season with a team. While the Premier League, with six sides all with spending money and top managers next season, might be too difficult for him to repeat his success with Inter Milan, where he never lost the league, a title is not unforeseeable.

Leagues and cups are expected at United, and can be delivered through financially backing Jose Mourinho (already sources state £150m in spending is planned this transfer window). However true success will be found in two other categories.

The first real challenge is to win the Champions League. European competition is the one football arena where United can never make a claim to being the best. Even during Ferguson’s 27 year reign they only won two Champions Leagues, without being dominant in either final. It could even be said that Ferguson’s teams, despite normally being the best in England, could never claim to be the outstanding side on the continent, except perhaps from 2008-2010, and even that is in doubt because of the rise of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona.

Mourinho won’t be competing in Europe’s top competition next season, however this may be an advantage in a sense, as he will have an extra year of investment and instilling his methods on the players before they make a proper fist of it in 2017-18. This is also an extra year for something to go wrong in the three teams that United will have to go through in order to win (Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich).

Mourinho knows how to win in Europe, having achieved success in the competition with Porto and Inter Milan. His cagey style and motivational techniques naturally lend themselves to cup competitions. Although with similar resources behind him in Madrid he never lifted the trophy, there should at least be some deep campaigns with United.

The harder challenge will be to keep the fans onside. United fans do not mind abrasive characters, the amount of feuds Ferguson got involved in with opponents as wide ranging as the BBC and Arsene Wenger certainly didn’t do him any harm with the supporters. If anything Mourinho’s siege mentality tactics will help the fans see his inevitable feuds as sticking up for them and the club that they love so much.

Where their relationship will be more difficult is the style of play Manchester United fans are used to. Although Van Gaal has built the best defense in the league, in three seasons under David Moyes and Van Gaal United have scored 170 league goals, an average of 57 per season. Ferguson signed off from United with his team scoring 86.

There is enough pace and trickery within United’s current squad, not to mention the reinforcements that will invariably arrive, to put out a vivacious team every week. Even if Mourinho sticks to his favored 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 formation as below:

This is even without factoring in how Wayne Rooney has evolved in midfield this season, or Marcus Rashford’s potential development. There is pace, technical skill, and creativity in the team above, the question is whether they will be allowed to express themselves under Mourinho.

It has been well-documented how restrictive Van Gaal has been with United. Wingers were not allowed to take on their man, they had to wait for fullback overlap. Strikers were not allowed to make runs that weren’t predetermined, dribbling was limited. Some of this will surely change under Mourinho, his title winning Chelsea side scored 73 goals and Eden Hazard wasn’t stuck out on the left waiting for overlaps. However it is a stretch to think that he will make United freewheeling, he demands structure from his players just like Van Gaal. Juan Mata after all was only sent to United after Mourinho decided he wasn’t attentive enough in maintaining his shape.

There has to be a balance between Van Gaal’s polished but boring United and kamikaze entertaining. It will be interesting to see if Mourinho can find it.

Lost amidst all the excitement about Leicester City winning their first top flight title in their 132 year history was the fact that their closest challengers could have won their first top flight title in 55 years.

Tottenham have had a great season, a young team that is expertly coached and in a prime London location. They will have the Premier League’s new TV deal and the prospect of Champions League soccer to recruit new players as well next season.

However, this season they will end up finishing around 10 points behind the champions, which is a significant gap to make up. Eighty five to 90 points is what you traditionally need to win the league these years (Leicester could finish with 83), so what do they need to do to make up the gap, or even just consolidate and solidify their top-four standings?

Keep hold of seven players

It’s hardly rocket science, but the core strength of Tottenham and why they are a safe bet to shake up the established Premier League order is the fact that their best players are all young for their positions, and still to enter their primes.

The more that the core group (listed above) plays together (and the older ones, in Alderweireld and Lloris play positions that have more longevity in central defender and goalkeeper), the more they will have a chance to gain success.

Not only will they keep playing with each other, but they all have at least two seasons of full experience in the English game. This helps with the style of soccer and refereeing, getting used to how certain teams will play, and getting used to the different scheduling (three tournaments minimum and no winter break).

SEE MORE: Arsenal, Spurs, Manchester City and Man United’s top 4 spots up in the air in final week

What will help Tottenham is that there are no natural suitors for a lot of these players. Spanish sides are all relatively stocked with talent or facing transfer bans, and Bayern Munich, Juventus, and PSG also only require minor tweaks. Chelsea and Manchester United would be able to offer more money in the short-term, but look unlikely to have top level European soccer. Weighted against that are Tottenham’s new stadium plans and London revenue stream meaning that they can still pay extremely well.

Handle hard-pressing teams better

Two of Tottenham’s most disappointing results this season would have been against Liverpool, which saw four points dropped. Especially disappointing would have been the draw in Jürgen Klopp’s first match in charge of Liverpool when he wouldn’t have had a lot of time to work with the players.

Generally those two matches saw the teams cancel each other out, with Tottenham at times being unable to deal with a side that basically imitated their style. A worthwhile offensive strategy against teams that press high is to bypass the initial press with quick passing from the back, resisting the urge to punt long, and then opening up space due to a high line.

In both games, and the Europa League tie against Borussia Dortmund (although Tottenham were not playing with a first choice XI), they seemed unable to do this.

Additionally, away against West Ham, where they lost 1-0 but should have conceded more (to be fair, they were 4-1 winners at home), Tottenham were also done in by a team that prioritized quick passing and hard pressing.

Leicester’s triumph in the league and the huge influx of cash will mean that the default setting for teams without star power and crisp technique will not just be to sit and hope. They will look to counter swiftly and actively seek to press in certain areas of the pitch. If Tottenham cannot cope, they will not progress.

Find a second striker

This is something most teams are looking for, someone to reduce the pressure on their main goal scorer. But that does not mean the role is any less important.

Harry Kane went almost 800 minutes without scoring when this league campaign started, and by the time he found the net against Manchester City, Spurs were only achieving 1.7 points per game. The fact that since he’s scored 25 and Tottenham’s points per game have jumped to 2.27 underlines his importance to the team.

If there was another reliable goal scorer at the start of the season, it could have all been different. It does sound quibbling, but considering the huge mental pressure that has been on Tottenham to be always chasing, rather than setting the pace, it does seem that more points early in the season could have been crucial.

Tottenham have so far preferred to partner Kane with hybrid players, rather than pay for another proper striker. Both Clinton N’jie and Son Heung-min are combination players, who have the ability to score goals but are also happiest operating just behind a traditional forward and exploiting gaps created by his movement. While Kane would undoubtedly stay as the number one striker, and a back-up forward would have to accept his chances would be limited, a shrewd purchase of somebody like Graziano Pelle would help round out the squad.

Tottenham cannot take what happened this season for granted. They have been given a huge opportunity to get back into the Champions League in a season when Manchester United and Chelsea have both struggled. With the impending arrival of Pep Guardiola and Klopp having a full summer and preseason, there will be at least seven contenders for four slots next season, not to mention the improvements other sides will make as everyone realizes the importance of TV money.

It is very possible that Tottenham could have a better season in terms of performance but finish poorer in terms of points simply because of the higher level of competition. Equally likely, however, is that Spurs can use this springboard to consolidate a top-four position and prove themselves as a side that is capable of challenging for the title consistently.

With the awards season in full swing as the Premier League campaign draws to a close, there has been little surprise regarding the two big prizes given out thus far. Jamie Vardy has won the Football Writers’ award while Riyad Mahrez won the Professional Footballers’ Association award for player of the year.

It would always be difficult for panels to look beyond the stunning story that is Leicester City’s run to the title this year, but leaving aside for a minute whether the two were worthy winners, another point is worth making.

It is now over 10 years since a defender last won the PFA award (John Terry in a campaign where Chelsea romped to the title with 95 points), and since then the award has been purely the reserve of attacking-minded players. While the Barclays Player of the Season award is more well-rounded, with Vincent Kompany and Nemanja Vidic both winning relatively recently, almost half the 21 awards given out thus far have been won by forwards.

Robin Van Persie, Luis Suarez, Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs, Eden Hazard, Gareth Bale, and now Riyad Mahrez are all fine players who would have strong claims of winning the award regardless, but one cannot help but think their candidacies were helped by the fact that it is so much easier to measure an offensive player’s contribution to the team.

Reading Mahrez’s stats this year, you can see that out of the 64 league goals Leicester have scored, he has scored 17 and assisted 11, for a direct involvement of 44%. Aside from being directly involved in nearly half his side’s goals, his pass completion percentage and chance creation statistics too are known and his tricky style of play and excellent close control see him pass the eye test as well.

A defender will struggle to match those stats. Yes, tackles and interceptions are read out, but so much about defending relates to organizing a defense, communicating with the rest of your team, and what you do without the ball. It is not a sexy position. In fact, in some teams it doesn’t matter if the defender has a poor touch, a poor passing range, and can’t shoot or dribble, as long as he’s tall and strong he’ll serve his purpose as a brick wall.

Clean sheets, too, are a team effort. A central defender can have a perfect game but if his partner makes an egregious error, it can cost his side a goal and blot everybody’s copybook. Offensive players capture the imagination. Defensive players do the dirty work.

This holds true throughout the modern game as well. The discussion about who is the best player in the world always focuses on the attacking stars. The last defensive Balon d’Or winner was Fabio Cannavaro in 2006, and before that (leaving aside defensive midfielder Matthias Sammer) we need to go back to the era of Beckenbauer for a defender winner.

Other leagues and sports where attacking play takes most of the credit such as basketball and the NBA feature a Defensive Player of the Year award to reward this most overlooked side of the game. This, alongside a dedicated goalkeeping award would help to reward achievements and roles that are no less important than their offensive counterparts.

Who would be in the running this year? Whenever it is discussed who deserves to go alongside Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the names of Luis Suarez and Neymar, Gareth Bale, and Thomas Muller are often mentioned. Jerome Boateng doesn’t get serious consideration, neither does Giorgio Chiellini. Rounding out the nominations could be some defensive minded midfielders such as Sergio Busquets and excellent fullbacks (the hardest job in soccer) like Dani Alves and Phillip Lahm.

That is an illustrious list, and they do not get the recognition they deserve.

The Professional Footballer’s Association team of the year was announced this week, and, as expected with the league table looking the way it does, it was dominated by Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur players.

Most players can’t be quibbled with. However, it seems that the PFA have focused on trying to reward Leicester and Spurs for having great seasons rather than rewarding individual players for having an amazing season.

Take the strikers for example. One of Harry Kane or Jamie Vardy should be able to make the team. They have both had great seasons and scored over 20 goals thus far. But what about the striker with a better goals/minute ratio than both?

Sergio Aguero is the best striker in the Premier League, and although injuries have limited his appearances, he still has played over 2000 minutes. If anything, it is further proof of his ability that Harry Kane, with over 1000 minutes more, has only managed one more goal (and one less assist).

Manchester City have had a mixed season, to be sure. The satisfaction of a trophy in the form of the League Cup and a place in the semi-finals of the Champions League have been tempered by a very early exit from the Premier League title race. However a team of the year is rewarding 11 players for individual excellence in a team sport, and having Vardy over Aguero, while somewhat heart-warming, isn’t right.

A similar argument could be made with the selection of Dimitri Payet. West Ham are a club on the up and up, massively over performing this season regarding their league position, and preparing to move to a fancy new stadium next season. Arsenal by contrast, have had a typically Arsenal season, top of the league in January before a collapse that will hurt all the more this season because it is to an underdog and their North London rivals.

First of all, saying that Sanchez or Ozil couldn’t be a winger in an orthodox 4-4-2 is irrelevant as really it should just be around picking 11 of the most deserving players in a reasonable mix. Whether the team of the year lines up in a 4-2-3-1 or a 3-5-2 shouldn’t matter.

According to WhoScored data, Sanchez is the most potent goal threat out of the three and Ozil is by far the most creative. Applying the metric of minutes played still doesn’t see Payet top Ozil as the German has played around 400 minutes more. The fact that Ozil is Arsenal’s most creative hub, constantly playing defense splitting passes and still manages such a high pass success rate is simply amazing.

Danny Rose seems the biggest beneficiary of Spurs’ fabulous season that’s seen them achieve the league’s meanest defence. While Rose is extremely talented and at still only 25 only going to get better, he’s not been the best left back this campaign.

SEE MORE: Mesut Ozil wrongfully snubbed from PFA Team of the Year

Truthfully, there hasn’t been a really outstanding left back this season with Leighton Baines spending lots of time on the treatment table, but comparing to Rose to some other players in his position he seems middle of the range.

Both Moreno and Kolarov are much better offensively, and Moreno also matches Rose on tackles and betters him on interceptions. Granted Spurs have conceded nine goals less than Manchester City and 18 less than Liverpool but comparing the relatively calm and injury free campaign of Tottenham to those two clubs it would be a stretch to say that Rose was responsible.

So long the part of the team most derided for being useless, suddenly the part of the team most praised for being ruthless, England’s striking problem going into Euro 2016 this summer is a good one to have.

Six or seven players can make reasonable claims for contention, and quite a lot of the English players amongst the goals in this Premier League season play in different ways, making even the ones who do not fit into Roy Hodgson’s first XI useful ways to add a shock factor into the squad.

It can be reasonably assumed that England’s last competitive action, which included a morale-boosting come from behind win in Germany at the end of March, is how Hodgson wants to set his side up for the tournament in France. If that is the case, then England fans can expect a side that tries to keep the tempo quick, does not play technically refined football but rather runs and presses with great energy. With Liverpool and Tottenham players, who base their entire games around hard running and quick passing, making up a large chunk of the squad and possibly a majority of the starting line-up this should be a good thing.

The table above reconfirms what most observers already know, since getting regular game time Daniel Sturridge and Harry Kane have been deadly, Wayne Rooney has been one of the most consistent forwards England have ever had, and Jamie Vardy and Jermaine Defoe are having one of the best years in their careers.

SEE MORE: Schedule of Euro 2016 games on US TV and live streaming

The four taken to France purely on the strength of goal scoring and chance creating form would be Kane, Sturridge, Rooney, and Vardy. Sturridge and Vardy press well and have pace to burn and a fit and sharp Sturridge is a lethal finisher, Rooney offers set piece ability as well as experience, and Harry Kane is an all-around great striker.

The only questions remaining around this selection are fitness – Sturridge and Rooney have both missed significant time this season and Sturridge has a long injury history, and versatility. In some ways picking four reasonably similar strikers is the perfect selection because they can just be rotated out of the team depending on form without changing anything about the overall style of play, however what you lack is a silver bullet on the bench.

With Andy Carroll, one substitution can basically reorganize a whole team. Managers only have three big cards they can play during a game, and to completely change the style of the team on the park with just one of them is good to have.

While Carroll has never been a prolific striker, and does have injury and lifestyle problems, he does have a habit of scoring important goals. Last weekend’s hat trick against Arsenal and a winner for Liverpool in a cup semi-final against Everton come to mind. With battering ram strikers like Carroll seen less and less in the rarefied technical atmosphere of international football his surprise factor may be even more useful. His defensive contribution at set-pieces would come in handy as well.

However at international level, it is often more useful to keep steaming ahead with a Plan A, tweaking and modifying when required but not abandoning it at the first signs of an emergency. Carroll’s lack of mobility could just as easily confuse and disrupt the style England are trying to play, and as such is a left-field selection that probably won’t be considered.

Jermaine Defoe brings experience to the table as well and has been in better form than Rooney this season. If form is a criteria for Jamie Vardy’s inclusion surely Defoe should merit a mention as well. However Rooney’s capacity to fill one of the midfield places allowing potentially playing him behind a duo of Kane and Sturridge if need be should see him get the nod, even if he wasn’t captain.

It seems that the stars have aligned this season, after a slow start Harry Kane has rolled on to strong form, Jamie Vardy is having the best year of his career on the biggest stage, and Daniel Sturridge has come back and started scoring regularly just in time. Even Rooney, who scored seven in nine before his knee injury looked promising against Aston Villa.

With everything going in their favor and hopefully an English golden boot winner (if Kane or Vardy can hold off the challenge of Sergio Aguero and Romelu Lukaku) in their ranks England could be well placed to cause a stir in France. Winning the tournament is probably beyond them, but winning a group containing Wales, Russia, and Slovakia is not, potentially setting up a Round of 16 game with one of the third place sides and a favorable route to the quarters.

Occasionally soccer schedule computers throw up matches that seem too good to be true. A Jürgen Klopp homecoming to Dortmund for example, or a Liverpool vs. Manchester United clash or Real Madrid-Barcelona Clasico in Europe. How convenient was it that Liverpool started their league campaign this year against Stoke City, the side that thrashed them 5-1 towards the end of last season’s disappointing denouement.

Regardless of narrative, Liverpool have had an interesting week of games — playing Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield on Saturday before traveling to Germany four days later and taking on Borussia Dortmund at the Westfallenstadion. Aside from the fact that Dortmund and Spurs are second in their respective leagues and were always likely to pose a serious challenge, what was interesting about the matches was that Tottenham and Dortmund play exactly how a good, or seriously good Liverpool side under Klopp would play.

Tottenham have the best defense in England, despite not being a team that monopolizes possession. They commit the third most fouls per game, make the fourth most tackles, and the eighth most interceptions, speaking to the ferocity of their pressing game. As they’ve gotten more and more familiar with Mauricio Pochettino’s training methods and playing style, they’ve also been pressing faster and harder. No other top team runs as much.

Everybody watching the game on Saturday would have been surprised that only two goals were scored, even if they were goals of the highest quality, especially Harry Kane’s. Tottenham took 18 shots, Liverpool 15. The actions flowed rapidly from end to end, with Liverpool conceding possession to negate Tottenham’s pressing ability and careening around the pitch to make 29 tackles, six more than their season average.

And Liverpool created chances in a manner Tottenham would have been proud of, hustling the back line through Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana, winning the ball and then either running forward at pace or exploiting the high line through the speed of Daniel Sturridge. Twice quick through balls presented very good chances for Sturridge who was unable to stick them away.

Removing the lens of the result and the lack of finishing on both sides should leave Liverpool with lots of positives. Their offensive plan is starting to come together as they get more and more players back from injury, lots more of their shooting chances are coming from winning the ball high up the pitch and they are making smarter decisions with the ball after winning a tackle, something Klopp pleaded for after his first game in charge (also against Tottenham in North London).

However if reaching Tottenham’s stature is a stretch target for Liverpool, Dortmund are the gold standard. They demolished Tottenham over two legs in the Europa League, and it didn’t matter which Spurs players played or were rested because their league-leading defense was simply swept aside repeatedly.

There is still a strong imprint of Klopp on Dortmund, despite Thomas Tuchel adding a bit more refined possession to the German side, and one can easily imagine his ideal Liverpool team having Coutinho running through the middle as Henrikh Mkhitaryan setting up Roberto Firmino as the tricky and smart Marco Reus. Daniel Sturridge and Pierre Aubameyang would be the pacy and lethal finishers.

The initial press is extremely strong, and unlike with most other teams that hassle and harry once you break past it with swift passing the game still doesn’t somehow open up. Dortmund’s defensive positioning is so good, that even with a medium block on their back line it is difficult to move past them. By the time a through ball has been found the midfield has tracked back.

Offensively, matching their 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 doesn’t work because Mats Hummels often strides forward with the ball at his feet, and not only is his passing accurate he doesn’t allow the tempo to drop. His ball from the left wing to Aubameyang in the first half on Thursday was a thing of beauty, and could easily have come from Reus.

SEE MORE: Jurgen Klopp: You have to play soccer people want to talk about

Still, Liverpool’s progress was underlined by the fact they again imitated their betters, and again got a very positive result. A 1-1 draw in Dortmund is nothing to sniff at, the only Europa League game the Germans have lost this season has been a dead rubber. And since that game, Dortmund have only dropped points against Bayern Munich.

Liverpool did it by doing a very passable Dortmund impression, making 27 tackles and letting the visitors have nearly 60% of the ball. Crucially this was the only important stat that Liverpool won, despite not giving Dortmund a lot of chances to exploit their own pressing game they still only had a passing accuracy 73% and conceded 16 shots, a lot of them coming from Dortmund winning the ball in the final third.

But for a couple of smart blocks and interceptions by Mamadou Sakho and Dejan Lovren on Reus and Aubameyang the score could have been different, but again Liverpool’s offensive game plan showed its evolution under Klopp.

Giving up the ball in order to press Dortmund at every opportunity, and then after winning it immediately looking for Coutinho and Adam Lallana to run at the Dortmund defense or play a pass that eliminated a majority of the opposition players. Divock Origi’s opening goal came from just such an instance where Coutinho played a ball over the top for a James Milner flick on that eliminated three opposition midfielders. Origi’s strength and pace meant that he could get past the opposition defense, hold them off, and finish.

A second opportunity in the first half again occurred after winning the ball from Dortmund and Coutinho sprinting forward at pace, aware that the defense had to sag so that he couldn’t pick a pass early and exploit a defensive line that didn’t have time to reorganize during the transition phase. Advancing till just after the defensive line, he exploited the chaos caused by the rapid change of possession and again picked out Origi who this time couldn’t get his shot past Weidenfeller.

There is no question that at this moment in time both Dortmund and Tottenham are in more advanced stages of their development than Liverpool. However the Reds have only decided to play this way after Klopp came in mid-season. Brendan Rodgers was a possession oriented coach, who wanted ‘death by football’ for the opposition. If after only half a season his Liverpool side is capable of matching teams that have practiced this style for years the future has to look bright.

With seven games left in their season, Leicester City lead the Premier League by five points, and are 15 points clear of fourth place Manchester City, meaning they are effectively guaranteed at least some Champions League soccer next season.

Given that they haven’t been involved in any European competition recently, it is worth considering how Leicester would fare amongst the continent’s leading lights.

Something that works in the Foxes favor, aside from the fact that nobody knows much about them throughout Europe as they’ve not faced them before, is the old-fashioned English style soccer they play.

It is a style that will help them when they go up against teams from Europe who are by now used to seeing teams that generally all try to play the same way, keeping hold of the ball in midfield and probing.

They hassle and harry teams in the attacking half and quickly release the ball to Jamie Vardy or Riyad Mahrez sprinting at the opposition backline. Otherwise they will sit deep and narrow, heading balls clear and when they win the second ball hoofing it up to their forwards.

As the game has opened up more to globalization, and England has especially increased the number of imported foreign players and managers, the old-fashioned kick-and-rush style of British soccer has gradually disappeared.

Classic 4-4-2 soccer with flying wingers and balls hurtled into the box from all directions is now the preserve of newly promoted sides who are simply trying to stay in the Premier League. Generally these sides aren’t placing high enough to face European opposition and for the sides that do eventually grow into Premiership regulars, they use the aforementioned increasing budgets to start buying a more technically refined style (think Southampton or Stoke City).

As the table above taken from WhoScored data shows, Leicester by far see the lowest possession statistics amongst other Premier League teams with European pedigree. Leicester’s rapid ascension in only their second year back in the top-flight means they’ve skipped a stage in their development so to speak. Actually considering how little they have the ball, the fact that they create 13 shots a game is testament to the efficiency of their strategy.

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Often, the sides that this approach will be most dangerous against are those that try and clog the midfield and eventually get most of their side in front of the ball to recycle possession in the final third. Leicester’s quick transitions will catch them out before they have a chance to get set in a defensive shape.

Does this mean that Leicester will go far in the competition? Not necessarily. There are only three or four teams that can win the tournament, and anything above the first knockout round would be a spectacular success for a side that haven’t spent long in the Premier League.

It’s fair to say that Louis Van Gaal hasn’t had the best of times managing Manchester United. He’s been given large budgets, a long rope, and carte blanche to bring in whatever players he wants, regardless of fit or resale value. His accomplishments were a fourth place finish, admittedly getting Manchester United back into the Champions League at the first time of asking, and thus far being in sixth place four points off the top four this season.

This was not what was expected when he was brought in, a Champions League winner (nigh on 20 years ago now though) and serial title-winner with clubs like Ajax and Bayern Munich; he was known as a tactical genius. Somebody who could impose a philosophy on his team while adapting to different opponents through a canny football brain. His transformation of the Dutch side at the 2014 World Cup from a traditional 4-3-3 to a 3-5-2 was one of the most intriguing storylines through the tournament. The team still had numbers in midfield as the Dutch traditionally like, but with Van Persie and Robben playing up front, as against Spain, they also presented a more offensive threat occupying both opposition center-halves.

In the World Cup, his goalkeeping substitution just before penalties against Costa Rica was an example of him reading situations and the mental state of his opponent and reacting to them, the other half of a good tactical coach.

However, in England, where tactics are not so much revered as derided as a boring necessity, where the crowd would be happy to just see 22 men smash into each other for 90 minutes, his more thoughtful football hasn’t caught on. His possession football is derided as boring (Manchester United are the lowest scorers in the top eight) when actually it’s a very effective defensive tactic (Manchester United have the second best defensive record in the league).

English crowds and pundits want to see wingers and fullbacks flying down the pitch, engaging in 1v1 battles, and taking on players, even if this is sometimes an ineffective and risky route to goal. Whereas Van Gaal throughout his career has instructed his wide players to look to play balls behind the opposition defense or reset, so as to not be out of position. It’s a mismatch of ideals and nowhere was it more apparent than in the Europa League first leg at Anfield against Liverpool.

After a poor first half from United, where after a bright five minutes they were penned in by Liverpool pressure and couldn’t create a chance, Van Gaal brought on Michael Carrick as a center-half and switched to a three man defense for the second half. Covering the game for BT Sport, former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes didn’t like this so much.

According to Scholes, Carrick is a deep-lying midfielder who is supposed to come on and play forward passes, long raking ones to either wing. Not someone who can come in and shore up a backline under pressure. And his decision might have seemed vindicated when Liverpool’s second goal was Carrick’s fault. Trying to control a cross in his own box, the United player’s loose touch teed up Adam Lallana to center for Roberto Firmino.

However, I would argue that putting Carrick on as a center-half was the best move that Van Gaal did all night. While his starting line-up and first half tactics were poor, the switch to a three-man backline alleviated pressure and gave his side a chance to get back in the game, but they were too poor to take it on the night. The error was something you can’t legislate for. Sometimes players just make basic mistakes and managers have to live with it.

In the first half, Liverpool had 70% of possession and came at United hard. It was wave after wave of pressure and the two young wingers, Memphis Depay and Marcus Rashford, were unable to cope with the rampaging forward runs of Liverpool full-backs Alberto Moreno and Nathaniel Clyne. It was Clyne that won the penalty for the opening goal, going past Memphis yet again. Liverpool were rampant. There was too much space in the channels for Liverpool to run into, they were pressing high in classic Jurgen Klopp fashion, and they should have been more than 1-0 up at the break.

In the second half, after the Carrick substitution for Rashford, United actually had more possession than Liverpool, which again is more important defensively than offensively. For 20 minutes, they outperformed Liverpool at their own ground, restricting the Reds to just two shots (both from distance) and rather than simply resisting attacks, could construct their own offensive moves.

Here again, Carrick was key, and was United’s best player on the ball. Despite coming on at the half, he attempted 41 passes (second most on the team), completing 33 of them. Liverpool’s ethos is to press from the front, and you need brave players in your back line to actually pass through Liverpool to get to the space they left behind rather than just hoofing it.

The best United sides would have used that 20 minutes of consolidation as a route back into the game, to at least get an away goal to keep the tie poised going to Old Trafford. Of course, this side is not vintage United, and they didn’t deserve a consolation on the day. Their only shot on target came in their one good spell of the game.

Nor did Van Gaal have a particularly good match. His 4-5-1 to start the game was too slow and ineffective, and his other two substitutions didn’t alter the match at all. Arguably he should have switched formation even earlier than he did, but he was firmly right on the Carrick substitution.

Until recently, soccer punditry was seen as a joke by many, a last paycheck given to big-name players who contributed nothing someone who had never played the game in their life wouldn’t have known. What viewers really wanted, tactical analysis, anecdotes of having been there and done that, and a clear viewpoint on what the optimal course of action would be in a given situation were all lacking until the arrival of Gary Neville and then Jamie Carragher.

Thierry Henry has disappointed as a pundit in terms of his tactical analysis and opinions thus far, but as someone who played for Juventus, Arsenal, and Barcelona, and under luminaries such as Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola, he has no shortage of interesting stories.

One such was about how Pep Guardiola meticulously worked on his Barcelona side’s spacing in the first two thirds of the pitch, only allowing players of the calibre of Henry, Samuel Eto’o, and Lionel Messi freedom once the ball had been worked into the final third.

The wide forwards in a 4-3-3, even those such as Henry and later David Villa, who were running central all their careers, had to hug the touchline until the final third. This meant that fullbacks could never collapse narrow to support their center-half, who in turn could never advance up the pitch to get tight to Lionel Messi or Samuel Eto’o when they dropped deep to support Iniesta and Xavi. This gave Barcelona basically four men in midfield and complete dominance of the game.

During the above video, the perfect spacing is shown twice in beautifully picked examples. First, Iniesta is able to receive the ball on the halfway line from his defender because Henry has stayed on the left wing occupying the opposition right-back. If this was not the case and Henry congested the center, he would have been picked up by the spare central defender (remember Eto’o is ostensibly 1 vs. 2 up top) and the full-back would have pressured Iniesta into coming closer to his defense. Basically the forward pass would have been useless and possession rendered sterile.

Secondly, on the goal that Eto’o scores off Henry’s saved shot, when Henry talks about making his outside in runs in the final third, he only does so when Eto’o has dropped below the penalty area, pulling the defensive line up slightly above the 18 yard line and making space for a run behind. Henry also only vacates that space when Messi comes to fill it, the play has moved on from the middle third and Messi can now move wide from central and the ‘strikers’ can go to the box.

SEE MORE: Examining the genius of Pep Guardiola and his greatest tactical legacy

Good managers are obviously very useful. They have an eye for players that can improve the team, have contacts and a reputation within the game that perhaps help their team get players they otherwise wouldn’t be able to, and pick formations and a style of play that align to the strengths of their squad. However they cannot play the game for their team. They can only send 11 men out with a plan that gives them the best possible chance of success.

Their real contribution to the plan offensively is not their chosen formation. Formations are very fluid in soccer and really offer just a quick guide as to the general shape a side should be in with the ball and without. Set-piece strategies too are just useful a few occasions a game. Spacing is the key offensive weapon and Guardiola’s Barcelona are the finest exponent of perfect spacing in recent times.

Space doesn’t score goals, true, but every successful defensive side (especially the Italian ones down the years) has focused on congesting areas that their opposition likes to play through the most. How often have we seen a possession based side loaded with midfielders stymied when the opposition clogs the center and they can’t work the ball wide to where the space is (like through a Xavi-Dani Alves 50 yarder).

Furthermore, how often do we see offensive off the ball runs that aren’t congruent with each other, each run tracking another defensive player into the penalty area so ensuring that there are eight or nine bodies there and nobody can force the ball in, often hitting their own teammate with a deflected shot?

More up-tempo games such as basketball have already caught on to the fact that spacing is the key for a smooth offensive flow. Players now spend entire phases of possession without touching the ball, but rather making space for teammates by blocking off opponents or otherwise occupying them by standing in the corner. In soccer too, sometimes just occupying a defender and waiting for him to make the wrong decision before making a move can be extremely effective.

It is difficult to remember a time before Barcelona was an all-conquering force, and Pep Guardiola was hailed as a messiah amongst managers. The Catalan team has changed soccer as we know it both in terms of the way that they play, and the way that opponents need to play to stop them. Teams have been built from the ground up specifically with the idea of stopping Barcelona (Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid), academies have been set-up specifically to imitate La Masia (Manchester City), and their tactical formations have caught the eye of countless teams (Luis Enrique’s Roma, Brendan Rodgers’ Swansea City and early Liverpool teams, just to name a few).

This is in no way a eulogy, Barcelona is still the best team on the planet and will probably be so for many seasons (until England figures out how to use its economic clout). But Barca has changed. This is through necessity, one cannot keep expecting Messi and Iniesta, Xavi, and Busquets to roll off the academy production line in batches. And if you buy players, even great players such as Luis Suarez and Neymar, styles will have to be altered to accommodate them.

Barcelona now do not have any sort of sterile dominance, the pointless possession that was highlighted as perhaps their only flaw under Pep Guardiola. They move the ball quickly, hitting the feet of their magical South American forward line or sending balls behind the defense for somebody to run onto.

Of course, as the juggernaut kept rolling, people started to understand the point of what Pep’s “sterile” dominance really was, as much a defensive strategy as an offensive one. If you have the ball, you are the only person that can score, it’s a fundamental truth of the game. Why work on a defensive shape when your offensive shape is your defense?

But it is neither the tiki-taka passing nor the famous diagonal from Xavi to Dani Alves that is the greatest legacy of Pep. I would argue that it’s not the 4-3-3 either, teams have long known that the way to control possession is to outnumber the opposition in midfield. At this point the Barcelona academy is basically an intrinsic resource, even their top coaches can’t replicate the success at other clubs with greater resources (ask City). No, Guardiola’s greatest achievement has to be the reinvention of the three-man backline, even when he used a four man backline.

A three man defense is an odd thing, it was very useful in the 1990s when 4-4-2 was in vogue because a 3-5-2 had two forwards and outnumbered the opposition in midfield, while still having a center back in reserve to be a sweeper. When 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, and forwards playing as false nines became more popular (partly because the three man defense shut down the 4-4-2 to such an extent), it was not so useful.

It comes up every now and then as a tactical curveball in England, and has remained popular in Italy due to its ability to shift to a 5-3-2 and completely close down a game. However Guardiola was the person who brought the three man defense to the modern age, and proved that you don’t even need to line up with a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 to do it.

SEE MORE: Guardiola would ‘pep up’ Premier League, says Steven Gerrard

How was his 4-3-3 a three man backline? It was due to Sergio Busquets completely reinventing the role that Guardiola had made his own during his own playing days. In a 4-3-3 with two technically gifted and attacking full-backs (especially Alves at right back), and two wingers who wanted to move inside (Messi and Pedro, maybe Thierry Henry or David Villa), the natural solution to keep width during Barcelona’s offensive moves was to push the full-backs up.

Width was especially key for Barcelona because of the way they probed through recycling possession, getting the ball out wide and giving the players in the center time to drift away from their marker or start a run before it went back in. The downside? Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique would be left completely alone, with no Makelele type in front of them to scythe down opponents on the break.

The genius of Guardiola lay in realizing where he had a surplus and shortage of resources during this phase of play. Recognizing that Busquets was not adding anything in the opposition third of the pitch, where there were already eight of his colleagues buzzing around, Guardiola directed him to drop in between Puyol and Pique, ensuring defensive balance was restored. If somebody sprinted behind Alves’ advanced position, Puyol could now go and cover confidently in the knowledge that there were two people defending balls into the box behind him.

Why this development is so important is the fact that almost any team trying to break down a stubborn opponent can do it. Obviously not to the same extent and success because of differences in personnel, but Busquets’ move also redefined how a center-back is supposed to play in a top team that dominates the ball.

Liverpool’s team for the League Cup final featured Lucas Leiva playing center-back. Emre Can has also played center-back for Liverpool, and it’s because they were comfortable filling that role as holding midfielders first. Their vision and reading of the game was deemed more important than being big and burly.

Manchester United used to use Michael Carrick as their Sergio Busquets, and now they too play him as center-back in a pinch. Gary Cahill went from unfashionable Bolton to Chelsea specifically because of his comfort in playing high up the field (remember this was Villas-Boas’ Chelsea).

And as with competition in any industry, once you chance upon something that increases competitive advantage, others will try and erode it. Center-backs that are good on the ball and have good passing vision, but who aren’t strong in the air or muscular has led to a resurgence of bullying number nines. Teams like Watford and Leicester who play a rough and ready 4-4-2 have had success precisely because big teams who imitated Guardiola have forgotten how to deal with pure power. The tactical developments caused by this Barcelona team never cease to amaze.

This season has been one to make the Premier League weep with joy. Three establishment teams (Chelsea, Manchester United, and Liverpool) are having or have had dramatic troubles and it’s looking increasingly likely that the other pre-season title favorite, Manchester City, will have to make do with just a UEFA Champions League place.

Two out of the top three teams have never won the title in the Premier League era, and Leicester City, on top right now, barely avoided relegation last season. The teams outside of the traditional big four this season will surely see even more money deposited into their coffers. This is despite none of the best teams in the world playing in England, and none of the best players in the world playing in England, despite the fact that England has the most money. And even with all the resources floating around, English teams seem to consciously eschew the more refined, technical styles of the continent that leads to European success.

Aside from Arsenal and Manchester City, two teams that have experienced very little managerial or player turnover in the past few seasons and so have had a chance to embed styles, it seems the more possession you have the worse you do in the Premier League. But in other top European leagues, whether with Barcelona in Spain, Bayern Munich in Germany, or Juventus in Italy, those who have the ball are usually the victors. Why has the Premier League diverged?

One theory is just due to the turnover of personnel and a happy coincidence that there are so many managers of the same tactical school in charge at the same time. Due to the money in England, there is always a huge personnel turnover at some teams pretty much every transfer window. With large sums of money comes little patience on the part of owners and there is often a lot of managerial turnover as well. Amongst all this change, it is difficult to implement a system and ideology of passing patterns and rigorous offensive movement like Barcelona has managed. Similarly at Bayern, Pep Guardiola knew he was unlikely to be fired so he had the time and knowledge to implement a complicated philosophy. If your targets are more short-term, it is easier to focus on a defensive shape and let the offense take care of itself by allowing your players to run forward on the break when there is more space.

SEE MORE: Complete forward Harry Kane can make the difference for Spurs in the title race

Leicester City are the embodiment of this. They are almost bottom of the possession table with around 43% of the ball, but top of the actual table, taking 2 points a game on average. They are under a new manager in Claudio Ranieri, whose strategy early in the season was just to be defensively solid. (It didn’t quite work out that way with Leicester actually having a porous defense but there was no way their strategy was to outscore people). Having two forwards who hit form early and an easy schedule allowed them to gain momentum and now people are seeing the results.

Tottenham, another breakout team this season playing with verve and flair, have a manager heavily inspired by former Chilean coach Marcelo Bielsa. Mauricio Pochettino’s ideas center on winning the ball back and using it to score, not sterile dominance. Another Bielsa disciple, current Chilean coach Jorge Sampaoli once compared losing with possession dominance to spending all night flirting with a woman only to see her leave with someone else.

SEE MORE: Leicester’s N’Golo Kante turning into one of the transfers of the season

Another theory is the pragmatism helped by the fact that the financial gap in England grows ever wider, and trying to emulate the top teams’ style of play is all but impossible. As each season goes by, it seems fewer and fewer teams actually face the threat of relegation. Before the start of this season you could say that 70% of the league was safe before a ball was kicked. This has meant a very cutthroat mindset amongst the not-haves in England to get into that 70%, desperate not to be in with six teams confined to fighting it out not to be in three places.

Slaven Bilic at West Ham and Quique Sanchez Flores at Watford are amongst this new breed of Premier League manager that are not obsessed with aesthetics but with the short term results they are told to deliver. Long-term ideals like a possession oriented style of play filtering up from the academy have been quashed in favor of some effective fast-break football. In the table above, you can see that it’s mainly the establishment of the Premier League that is wedded to the idea that ball possession equals superiority. Pressure to keep up with, or to try and overhaul those above, is what caused teams like Watford, Leicester, and even Tottenham to innovate. Manchester United, growing fat on their laurels, have stagnated rather than adapting to a style of football specifically designed to get points off them.

This immovable object versus unstoppable force makes the Premier League exciting, but it is unlikely to serve up a team that can challenge the best across the continent, where Barcelona and Bayern Munich can hone and refine their style of play year after year.

Their last two league matches have pretty much summed up Liverpool’s season: dominating against a much better opponent (on paper) yet somehow throwing away a result at home against Manchester United; struggling against a team they should beat, looking unable to break down a packed defense before scraping through in 5-4 game of the season contender at Norwich City.

Liverpool look very, very competent in the middle of the pitch under Jürgen Klopp. The midfield presses well, and presses as a pack. The side remains compact and keeps its shape amid all that running, and when they win the ball, they make decisions quickly. After his first game in charge against Tottenham Hotspur, Klopp bemoaned the fact that Liverpool didn’t look up and use the whole breadth of the pitch when they won possession, restricting their game. Now they often switch the play and work it around comfortably.

At either end, it’s a different story. Offensively, the table above (compiled with stats from Transfermarkt) makes for grim reading. Liverpool’s attack has not functioned in a sane way for two seasons. Under two different managers, but without the genius of Luis Suárez, Liverpool have not been able to put chances away. Suárez was a monster, anybody who saw his goal against Norwich from halfway down the pitch would recognize that, and it’s no surprise that the shots decreased slightly with him gone. But the drop-off in chance conversion (admittedly with Daniel Sturridge also injured for much of the past two seasons) is breathtaking.

The cause of the problem is two-fold. Chance quality has gone down as Liverpool’s best players have left or been injured for the past two seasons, I’ve written before about Philippe Coutinho’s tendency to fire from the hip 30 yards away rather than play the defense-splitting through-ball he’s capable of. For every belter that goes in, there’s dozens more that fly into row Z and do not help the team’s cause.

But also, Liverpool’s players don’t get into the right positions enough to be fed good chances that are easily convertible. Goal poacher Danny Ings is injured, and Roberto Firmino is the one person that plays in and around the box, where the easy chances arrive. His two goals against Norwich were demonstrably the type of football Liverpool should be looking to play all the time. The first was breaking past the defensive line in the box, one on one with the keeper (albeit at a tight angle). Ideally someone would be in the middle for a cut-back or a rebound, but still a shot from there is better than one from the edge of the box.

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The second was perfect, a quick winning of the ball and flick from Firmino releasing James Milner, able to find Lallana breaking past the defensive line. Firmino then went straight into the box, running past the defense again to be first to a central position. His shot was taken right in front of the goalkeeper, the middle of the danger area where you have the absolute maximum chance to score.

Norwich are in the position they are in the league because they’re hapless, but this is the type of football that teams aspiring to the Champions League need to play. It’s easy to settle for curlers from 20 yards, but that doesn’t get you very far.

Again, the table above is such painful reading because, like on offense, at first glance Liverpool seem to be doing a lot right. The 13/14 season is difficult to compare because of all the fast starts Liverpool got off to, which meant they could sit back, absorb some shots, and pick teams off on the counter. However, the defense on the surface has been improving, opponent shots have decreased, and Simon Mignolet even had the most clean sheets in the 2015 calendar year (yes, you read that right).

However, when Liverpool do allow shots, they seem to be the worst type to allow. Eight goals out of the 32 conceded have been from corners (if you count Norwich’s first goal, which was from the second ball after Liverpool couldn’t clear). That by definition means shots have been in the box, very close to the goalkeeper.

Norwich’s first goal was a back heel right in front of Mignolet, their second almost exactly like Firmino’s opener, with Naismith breaking past the defensive line to be one on one from a tight angle. For large portions of the game Liverpool’s defense were in control, but when they muck up, they do so in catastrophic proportions.

Why? The side plays a high line (they have to in order to stay compact with a furious midfield press), they’re not very tall (so it’s difficult to win headers in the air, and to get enough power on clearing headers to remove danger), and the side is struggling with injuries (no center back pairing has played together for long enough to be comfortable).

There also seems to be a problem of concentration, individual mistakes that seem to always lead to goals. Alberto Moreno’s double foul against Norwich for their third goal was comical, while in the first Merseyside derby of the season, Emre Can panicked and cleared a ball against his own teammate, allowing Romelu Lukaku to sweep in the loose ball. At a certain point, these incidents stop being unlucky and start becoming systemic.

Finally, although Simon Mignolet has been faced with a lot of very difficult shots, he has not been up to par. At a time when the Premier League is flushed with excellent goalkeepers, Liverpool have one of the worst ones in the league. Mignolet has made about half the saves of the Jack Butland, who leads the league, and his save percentage (62%) is 18^th among goalkeepers. When the backup Adam Bogdan inspires even less confidence there isn’t a real alternative, but this is a position Liverpool must upgrade soon.

They’re an odd team Liverpool, a team full of Adam Lallanas. They do a lot of things well and are capable of great things, but too often they fail to reach the top.

When Jürgen Klopp was brought in by Liverpool, this author was one of those who thought that Adam Lallana was unlikely to fit into the German’s gegenpressing style. Not particularly pacy, rarely completing 90 minutes and, at 27, entering his prime as a footballer so he would be perhaps too old to learn new tricks.

However as Klopp has slowly set about altering this Liverpool squad in his image, with encouraging performances rather than mostly encouraging results thus far, Lallana has been one of his favorites. He’s in the top 10 for Liverpool in both appearances and minutes played, and as hamstrings have twanged up and down Merseyside, he has probably ingratiated himself with Klopp for keeping his fitness.

But is he just playing because there is nobody else, or does he truly add value to a side like Klopp’s? The German is obviously fond of him, an early image of Lallana collapsing into his managers arms after his opening game against Tottenham went viral as proof of how Klopp would get Liverpool players to run through brick walls for the team, but Lallana is an easy footballer to like. He rarely seems to lose possession and has an assortment of deft touches and fancy tricks in the locker. Aesthetically he’s perfect, but he hasn’t scored a Premier League goal yet and only notched up three assists, so there is a worrying lack of end product.

SEE MORE: Adam Lallana: Liverpool ‘was never going to just change overnight’ under Jurgen Klopp.

When Lallana first signed for Liverpool, an excellent post about it was written on Liverpool blog Oh You Beauty. The author did a comparison of Lallana with Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho to see what the midfielder’s strengths were.

The short answer is – he’s strong at everything, but not strong enough at anything. He can pass accurately, dribble, tackle and intercept. He’s intelligent without the ball, has intelligent movement to create some shots for himself, knows how to find a pass in the final third. But he doesn’t lead at anything. No metric really stands out.

Looking at the above table, it’s obvious that Lallana hasn’t really changed. This is despite moving to a better team, with better teammates, and growing more experienced as a player.

For an offensive player, he’s good off the ball, always making smart runs into good positions, but from those positions usually nothing happens. He’s taken 16 shots all season, he creates about a chance a game, and he doesn’t play defense splitting passes. He’s key in Klopp’s best side this season that involves Roberto Firmino as a striker and midfielders breaking beyond the defensive line. Occasionally Lallana does something breath-taking to remind you that he’s a talented player, a flick or turn out of a tight position. But Klopp prefers matches played at a high tempo. Players taking time on the ball to bamboozle defenders slow down the offense, and in this style of play Lallana seems wasted.

The problem this season is that there are not enough bodies to replace him. While Lallana isn’t excellent, he does a serviceable job in three of the six forward positions Klopp plays with. Short of trusting in a young Joao Teixeira or overusing Jordon Ibe, there isn’t much Klopp can do. Having a jack of all trades like Lallana as a squad player is something all sides would like, but for a side with Champions League ambitions, he can’t be starting every week.

Stoke City arrived in the Premier League in 2008, the club’s first season in the top-flight of English football for over 20 years. They’ve never left the top division since. The epitome of a club living within its means and playing a style utterly devoid of pretentiousness under Tony Pulis, they finished 12th in their first Premier League season with 10 victories, and they’ve never really looked back.

If anything, Stoke have been pushing further up mid-table, and as the Premier League TV money grows, so do fan expectations. Manager Tony Pulis did not play an attractive style of football, which was accepted when the club were just trying to establish a foothold in the division, but after four straight seasons of mid-table football, nobody could blame the fans for wanting a bit of expansiveness, which the club hoped to do when appointing Welshman Mark Hughes at the end of the 2012-13 season.

Granted, Stoke under Pulis were never the thugs that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger made them out to be, and their reputation was battered by a couple of high-profile incidents, notably Ryan Shawcross’ horror tackle on Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey. However statistics did prove that they consistently had the least possession among Premier League teams, and they played amongst the most number of long balls as well. Their most interesting tactical innovation was the use of Rory Delap as a long throw specialist, reinforcing them as a side that cared about territory, and getting the ball “in the mixer” as often as possible, rather than possession.

Defensively, they were always solid under Pulis, never conceding more than 55 goals a season (in their first season back up), and never less than 45 (in Pulis’ last season). Their direct methods also brought them modest goal returns, never topping 40 a season. Stoke fans don’t see their team winning the title any time soon, but never having a positive goal difference is not a route to progress into the top 8 or 10 consistently.

Mark Hughes not only added a bit of stardust to the unglamorous Staffordshire side. A striker good enough to play for Manchester United and Barcelona will do that. He quickly realized that there was very little downside to opening Stoke City up more. As defensively solid as they were under Pulis, they were not winning enough games or picking up enough points to threaten consistent progression. Sides always finished above Stoke despite conceding more, simply because all offensive potency was sacrificed in the search for solidity.

Hughes was proven right in his very first season in charge, as the club not only finally breached the 40 goal target with a tally of 45, scoring 11 goals more than under Pulis in his last season, but they conceded pretty much the same amount of goals they always did – 52. The following season was the Potter’s first ever Premier League season with a positive goal difference, 48 scored and 45 conceded. Not only were they scoring more, but having more of the ball and giving opponents less of the ball to hammer away shots meant they were also conceding less. Fifty four points was a record haul and Hughes’ effects were showing.

The appointment of Hughes and his pedigree as a player plus his big club experience with Manchester City also had a positive effect on player contribution. Technically skilled and gifted players who wanted the ball kept on the floor and played to their feet would never have signed for Pulis. Whereas Hughes more enterprising style, and his contacts at the Camp Nou, have seen Stoke sign four former Barcelona players and a significant coup in Xherdan Shaqiri from Bayern Munich via Internazionale.

Yes, Premier League money has made it easier for these players to turn down some continental leading lights for Stoke, but Hughes’ style and the promise of future improvement must have been an undeniable pull factor. Players like Bojan Krcic and Ibrahim Affelay have been able to resuscitate their careers and maybe attract some covetous glances from bigger names at a club that plays a style they’re used to, rather than wasting their talents away at a club not playing to their strengths.

Looking at the table above, even without the season descriptions on the left side column, the stats would make apparent who the manager was. Under Hughes, it’s been almost 100 more passes per game, and the increased possession means less time in the game for opponent’s to get their shots off. Three defenders (Ryan Shawcross, Marc Wilson, and Geoff Cameron) have all improved their pass accuracy by above 10% since Mark Hughes implemented a more pass-oriented style of football at the club.

Despite all the improvements made under Hughes, it’s clear that Stoke aren’t challenging for the title or top four. And although a tilt at the Europa League may be viable, the extra games could strain the club. However, supporters of a team that shouldn’t fear relegation and shouldn’t expect consistent trophies should at least be able to expect pleasing football, and a team that can stretch any opponent. As Stoke proved against Manchester City on Saturday, this is a team that does just that.

Since Jürgen Klopp arrived to manage Liverpool, a feeling of positivity and progression has reverberated around Anfield. Even during the sequence of draws before his first win, the squad showed encouraging signs of believing in his tactics, specifically the all-important gegenpressing. And while it is taking longer to mirror his old Dortmund team with the ball, without the ball Liverpool players have been working furiously to carry out Klopp’s desires.

It’s a widely quoted stat that Klopp has won his first two away games against two of the big four clubs that Liverpool are trying to break up, something that Rodgers never did. Even in the annus mirabilis of 2013-14, Liverpool lost 0-2 at the Emirates versus Arsenal, and 1-2 at Stamford Bridge and the Etihad against Chelsea and Manchester City.

The two wins against Chelsea and City this season were characterized by Liverpool completely outplaying the opposition. Even accounting for the caveats of the horror season, Chelsea are living through and the absence through injury or fatigue from much of City’s first-choice team, they were magnificent performances. Remember that Liverpool too didn’t play anything near their first choice XI in either game. Against City, Liverpool took nine shots on target compared to three for their opponents. Against Chelsea, the numbers were seven to two.

Those stats show these were no smash and grab victories. They were controlled performances, working to a game-plan that involved being direct in attack, and winning the ball back quickly when not in possession.

The striking difference between this Liverpool and the one under Brendan Rodgers is the attitude to possession. This is not to denigrate Rodgers — one style is not necessarily better than another. But he arrived at Melwood preaching possession as a means to victory, as a coach that had done his apprenticeship traveling around Spain and learning from the technical masters. It is difficult to imagine Klopp saying the following quote:

‘When you’ve got the ball 65-70 per cent of the time, it’s a football death for the other team. We’re not at that stage yet, but that’s what we’ll get to. It’s death by football.’ – Brendan Rodgers, September 2012

Ironically it was probably when Rodgers’ side played least like that in 2013-14 when they used the pace and trickery of three forwards to play directly and quickly that they were closest to achieving their aims of domination.

Klopp definitely values having the ball, otherwise his side would be running around for 90 minutes killing themselves pressing. However, possession cannot just be and end in itself. It needs to be a means towards putting the ball in the opponent’s goal. Under Rodgers, a common feature was that Liverpool’s leading passers of the ball were the central defenders and the central midfielders. The defenders or midfielders were passing it around to each other, patiently trying to drag opponents out of position.

Under Klopp last Saturday, Liverpool only had 42% of the ball, but Philippe Coutinho had the second most passes in the final third of anybody on both sides. Out of the top five chance creators on both sides, Liverpool contributed three (Coutinho, Emre Can, and Roberto Firmino). Can to Coutinho and Can to Firmino were tied for Liverpool’s second most frequent pass combinations (the first being Can to Milner).

The pass accuracy was only 65%, but 65% of shots were also put on target and the side attempted 46 tackles and 32 interceptions. These are staggering numbers not seen since two seasons ago when they swept all before them, scoring early and then breaking quickly once the opponent had to come forward. As the table below shows, under Klopp Liverpool have been much more the mongrel, tackling and intercepting more, and despite having less ball control over the game, are still taking basically the same amount of shots.

In fact the most impressive game this season under Rodgers was away against Arsenal, where they played most like a Klopp team, with 22 interceptions compared to an average of 14 under Rodgers and only 34% of the ball.

The one worry amidst all this positivity is that these tactics do seem more suited to a team playing away from home than at home. Under Klopp, Liverpool haven’t won a league game at home, and barely beat Rubin Kazan (1-0) in the Europa League. Generally, Liverpool’s potency has decreased the more of the ball they’ve had, with sides playing at Anfield content to sit back and deny Firmino, Coutinho, and Lallana the space they find on the counter with opposition committed up the pitch.

With the majority of possession, there isn’t really that much opportunity to press and intercept the ball with the opponent caught upfield. You have to create your own opportunities through measured attacking patterns. Liverpool generally have looked shorn of creativity, and recently found themselves on the receiving end of a Liverpool-esque counter-attacking performance against Crystal Palace at Anfield.

How can this be rectified? There is nothing that states that sides have to play the same at home as they do away. With a few players returning from injury, Liverpool should look to utilize the depth in their squad to change their strategy when playing at home. Christian Benteke does not really fit in with the fast-paced, fast-running style of play Liverpool have developed away from home. But at Anfield when getting the ball out wide and crossing it after a patient build up is actually a valid strategy, his power and pace can be very useful, as seen against Bordeaux in the Europa League.

In the long-run, Liverpool have to develop some tried and trusted patterns they can go to when having to break down a packed defense. The best teams have offensive moves and rhythms they go to, that they’ve worked on relentlessly on the training ground for exactly that situation. A prime example was the long diagonal from Xavi to Dani Alves that Barcelona deployed against a deep sitting side. Domination of the ball meant Alves had license to go as high as he wanted and in one move Barcelona shifted the focus of the play to a completely different quadrant of the pitch. Well-drilled sides can defend against the best if they’re allowed time to sit deep, but quick patterns of play can move them out of position for just long enough for an opening to be created.

Klopp has also talked about using the entire width of the pitch and shifting play to the weak side as quickly as possible, and maintaining the pace of their play no matter whether they’re at home or away, but perhaps so soon after his arrival it’s not come into place yet. It’s going to take time before they progress into making Anfield a fortress again but after a tough opening to the season, Liverpool have already travelled to the hardest grounds in the league. In January, Arsenal and Manchester United come to Anfield on consecutive weekends, with the league looking as wide open as it has for some time, Liverpool need to have a workable strategy by then.

For at least a brief while on Saturday, after a thrilling last minute goal gave them a win against Watford and before Manchester City and Leicester City played, Manchester United took a once-familiar spot on top of the English Premier League table.

Since Alex Ferguson ushered in an era of almost constant success in the 1990s and 2000s, United fans have been used to seeing their team atop the table, but normally with a style different than what’s currently being played. Ferguson’s sides always played fast-paced, offensive football, with pace and trickery out wide a specialty. In the club’s illustrious history of over a century, it was a Ferguson side that scored the most goals in a season (97 in a 91 point season in 1999-2000), and once Ferguson had properly cut his teeth in the job and Sky started the Premier League in the early 1990s, United never scored less than 58 goals and in 13 seasons topped 75.

This season they’re on pace for 55. Last season they scored 62. The year prior with David Moyes and Ryan Giggs, they scored 64.

It’s not as if United don’t have the opportunity. They have well over 50% of the ball on average, but they display a shocking lack of ambition with it, taking only the 16th most shots per game out of the 20 Premier League clubs.

While the table above doesn’t exactly correlate with the league ladder, it gives you an understanding about how teams want to play and where the problem lies. Jürgen Klopp for example, has already commented about his Liverpool team’s lack of patience and belief, which manifests itself in not having the patience to follow through with offensive maneuvers, instead taking shots from anywhere and any distance despite those being far less likely to be on target.

Meanwhile a counter-attacking team like Crystal Palace does not depend on volume of shots to get goals, but rather a few shots but with a high likelihood of being on target with the chance to score a goal.

Despite United being down with the dregs of the table in terms of shot volume, they only take one more shot per game than bottom placed West Brom and take almost 8 fewer per game than top place Arsenal. Their shots on target % is one of the highest in the league, in keeping with their contemporaries at the top of the table. It’s as if Louis Van Gaal wants to play the Crystal Palace way, defend most of the game and pick a few choice moments to shoot when you have a good chance of conversion, but United’s excellently groomed and expensive players do their defending with the ball, rather than without like Palace.

Defending with the ball is nothing new. Barcelona have been doing it for years. And if you’re good enough with it at your feet, then it makes perfect sense. With the ball, you don’t get tired chasing after it. With the ball, your opponent literally cannot score. With the ball, you are the proactive team that decides the tempo and where action can happen on the field. The famous Barcelona tiki-taka is “both defensive and offensive” as the team is always in possession, and thus does not have to waste time and expose vulnerabilities when shifting from an offensive to a defensive shape. Everything is fluid.

There was a time during the Ferguson blood and thunder years when you would expect Manchester United to lead or be close to the lead in the league in a few statistics, dribbles, shots, fouls against due to people constantly having to bring down a flying Ryan Giggs running past them. Now everything is more measured.

Again United is with the laggards in stats that detail attacking ambition, and it’s not because they don’t have the players to dribble or run past people and get fouled. Their squad is light years ahead of Watford, Sunderland, and Swansea. Van Gaal has obviously assessed his options, and thought that the chance of scoring 20 extra goals a season through improved offensive ambition is not worth the defensive headaches it would give the team.

Is he right about that? It’s a subjective question. United are conceding 0.7 goals a game, on track to concede 26 for the whole season. A low number to be certain, and tied for the best defensive record in the league with Manchester City.

But it’s also a defensive record that Ferguson matched or bettered four times, while also scoring 80, 68, 73, and 58 goals. Although given that United have not conceded less than 30 in the league for 5 seasons, perhaps Van Gaal is entirely right to start his rebuilding from the back?

The crowd at Old Trafford is demanding, winning is not enough. They expect to see young talent flying down the wings and players confident of turning and beating their marker. The enforced impotence of Van Gaal’s side is frustrating to watch, after all what could this hugely priced team do if properly let off the leash? But at the very least, it is all part of a plan. And given that this plan is seeing United make a proper title challenge for the first time in three seasons, it could be well worth sticking with.

The season, so far

I assumed most Liverpool fans don’t know what to make of the club’s start to the season. Great performances away to Arsenal and Chelsea have been mixed with horror shows at home to West Ham and a shocking lack of ambition away to Manchester United, the biggest fixture of the season.

It was a surprise to see Brendan Rodgers keep his job at the end of last season, with the club exiting the Champions League race early and Steven Gerrard’s farewell tour turning sour. It was even more of a surprise to see him lose his job after 11 games in all competitions this year, particularly as the club had backed another spending spree (albeit funded by the sale of Raheem Sterling) over the summer.

If any manager other than one with the title winning pedigree and charisma of Jürgen Klopp had been appointed, the feeling among fans would have been that the club was entering a spiral of negativity and confusion. Turgid performances on the pitch, with the side unable to create or finish many chances, would have been mixed with a feeling of confusion and panic at the boardroom level.

But Klopp has single-handedly managed to raise the mood of the place. Not necessarily in performances – he’s still not getting this team to score many goals, the defense still has manic moments — but he’s been positive, hugging everyone in sight, and talking about bringing belief and energy back to Anfield.

And with December yet to come, Liverpool have already travelled to the Brittania, Old Trafford, the Emirates, Stamford Bridge, White Hart Lane, and Goodison Park. The next game is at the Etihad. Out of those 18 points, they’ve managed to scrape nine, and a win at City would mean they’d have negotiated some of the toughest league fixtures credibly amid all the upheaval at the club.

With a good January transfer window, an easier fixture list in the New Year, and Klopp learning more about the players (and them about his methods), Liverpool could be up there in the mix for the top four places.

The road ahead

The hardest game left until the New Year is away to Manchester City, when the hosts could have Sergio Agüero back from injury. Both clubs generally have a lot of players away on international duty, and it’s difficult to ascertain before the break is over which club will be left in a worse shape by potential injuries.

The only silver lining is the game coming after Klopp has had two weeks to prepare, two weeks to get Daniel Sturridge fit, and two weeks to do further work on his gegenpressing. Liverpool have found it difficult thus far in deciding when they press and when they lay-off, often fading late in games (notably against Crystal Palace), and with a few fresh players after the break and with further training sessions, they might be more polished against City.

A point or three would be a great result in Manchester, but that game won’t make or break this period for Liverpool. At home to a struggling Swansea City, away to a terrible Newcastle United, at Anfield against a toothless West Brom, visiting newly promoted Watford, back home to Leicester City (who surely can’t keep their blistering form up for long), and finally away to bottom feeders Sunderland are the year’s remaining fixtures. On paper, this looks like an achievable 18 points. If six wins out of six are achieved and the club is on a roll heading into the January transfer window, it could spur more investment from the board to seriously challenge for the top four.

SEE MORE: Liverpool’s best starting XI of all-time.

In practice winning the seemingly easy games is always harder, particularly with Liverpool’s inability to score more than once on a regular basis. However, at least 15 points is a must, Chelsea have too high a wage bill to stay just outside the relegation zone for long, Tottenham have lost only once in the league, and the top three places seem sealed by Arsenal and the two Manchester clubs. Liverpool are 10th halfway through November. The push has to come now.

In addition to the very winnable league games, Liverpool are still in three cup competitions. They’re unbeaten in the Europa league but have won only once, so the home game against a struggling Bordeaux on Nov. 26 is key. Depending on other results, a win against group-toppers FC Sion on the last matchday could be key in finishing top rather than second and avoiding a high seed or a Champions League drop-out in the Round of 32.

The League Cup quarterfinals are on the first week of December, with Liverpool away to Southampton, though performance in the competition wouldn’t make or break the season. The club haven’t won a trophy since 2011, true, but this is probably the least important cup competition the team is in. The sheer reality is that players are attracted to and revenue is gained from being in the Champions League, and only the Premiership and the Europa League offer routes into that competition.

With four competitions, Liverpool will be faced with two games a week, with the busy Premier League Christmas period that sees Liverpool play on Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve making injury management crucial. Since Klopp’s arrival, players have been going down with knee injuries like flies. Daniel Sturridge and Jordan Henderson haven’t played a game for their new manager, Mamadou Sakho will be out for this crucial period, and the lack of squad depth caused by injuries means Philippe Coutinho, Emre Can, and the two fullbacks, Alberto Moreno and Nathaniel Clyne, have been seriously overworked.

On paper, Liverpool have the quality to compete with any team they meet over this period, with the exception of Manchester City; however, injuries, fatigue and misfortune could derail this run and their entire season. Klopp has persistently talked about belief and mental strength. This run is where it needs to be put into practice.

Come January

What the club does in January will be very much influenced by what happens during this season-defining period. If 14 or 15 out of 18 league points are taken and Liverpool progress in their cup competitions, Klopp is perfectly within his rights to demand reinforcements for a squad thin.

It is notoriously difficult to get quality players in during January, with other clubs trying to hold on to them until the summer to ensure their own good seasons continue. However, there are always a few gems available.

It’s tempting to say that Liverpool should bring in a striker, particularly if Sturridge and Christian Benteke continue to struggle to put in a run of games. But it would be difficult to convince Fenway Sports Group to bring in a fifth striker, basically ensuring they would have to move on one of Origi or Danny Ings soon after buying them (it would be difficult to find a buyer willing to take on Sturridge’s wages for a decent fee given his injury record).

MORE FORECASTS: Arsenal | Tottenham.

The big adjustment Liverpool need is a proper winger. The center is congested with Roberto Firmino, Adam Lallana, Coutinho, James Milner, Henderson, Can, Lucas Leiva and several promising youth players, all wanting to fill three or four slots. But out wide, there’s only Jordon Ibe for true width and pace. A top-tier player wouldn’t be necessary, just someone potent enough to ensure defenses can’t pack the middle and deny Liverpool’s creators room to operate.

If John Flanagan continues to be hampered by injuries, a utility fullback could be necessary as well, as Moreno and Clyne have been playing a lot of games in succession.

I’m sure FSG will temper their short-term buying January with their long-term plan for the club, but the goal has to be to make the top-four this season. Chelsea will be strong again next year, West Ham are moving into a big stadium and Tottenham is also planning future expansion. The top three are out of reach for the moment, and every year fourth place isn’t reached, the task becomes harder. Liverpool can’t afford to keep drifting away from where they want to be.

As their fans never fail to remind us, Liverpool are the most successful club in English soccer, if you add up league and European titles (the European caveat would be completely unnecessary if not for a certain Scot and American capitalism, but that’s another story). So it stands to reason that the club can put out a handy all-time XI. Hell, if this piece were to be trimmed down to a paragraph or so I could have just written out the team from 1977-1984.

Four times European champions, and to get into the competition for old big ears they had to win the English league first, anyway. They won the honor in consecutive years (1977 and 1978) and reached three more finals in the next seven years. But it wouldn’t be right to just write in that XI.

That team was the product of great management, togetherness, and a few superstars. Kenny Dalglish was Liverpool’s greatest ever player for sure, but you cannot, in my opinion, produce an all-time XI from the red half of Merseyside without names like John Barnes, Kevin Keegan and of course a couple of modern giants – Stevie Mbe and El Pistolero.

First things first, the formation. As tempting as it would be to cram Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen, Ian Rush and Luis Suárez into a 0-6-4 formation, pragmatism must win out. Liverpool have always wanted the ball, and as Bill Shankly once famously said: “If you’re not sure what to do with the ball, just pop it in the net and we’ll discuss your options afterwards.”

So it’s a 4-2-3-1, four or five players swarming the centre to monopolize possession, tricky and creative players out wide high up the field to receive quick passes, and a natural goal scorer to finish things off.

Goalkeeper – Bruce Grobbelaar

A 34-year career in three different countries, but it was the 13 in Liverpool from 1981-1994 that were really special.

Ray Clemence was the number one in the side that started Liverpool’s love affair with European cups, and he was a fine goalkeeper indeed. In modern times, Pepe Reina’s skill with the ball at his feet and ability to command a defense in the Rafa Benitez’s years were admirable. But there was nobody quite like Grobbelaar.

Acrobatic and capable of making saves that required immense agility and positioning, what really stood out were the intangibles. The character to put Roma players off their penalties in 1984, and the sheer terror he instilled in his own defense that made them want to be as perfect as him.

Full-backs – Phil Neal, Alan Kennedy

Fullback has been such a problem area for Liverpool in recent years that I seriously considered going with a three-man back line of Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson and Sami Hyppia; or worse, playing Jamie Carragher at right back. But this team has to attack in true Liverpool style, so defenders have to be goal threats from open play as well as set pieces. They must be comfortable on the ball, whipping it off opponent’s toes and then striding upfield.

The two fullbacks, Phil Neal (above) and Alan Kennedy certainly fit the criteria. Neal won four European cups and eight league titles, sometimes playing so high up he could be considered a right winger. He would have been excellent in the modern game that requires full backs to operate as auxiliary wingers, overlapping so attackers can cut inside without surrendering an offensive weapon on the flanks.

Kennedy scored winning goals in the European Cup finals of 1981 and 1984 and took the decisive spot kick against Roma in 1984 (not to mention a nifty goal in the 1983 League Cup final against Manchester United, which to some means more than all the rest). His goal against Real Madrid in 1981 epitomized what a Liverpool player should be about – instinctive and intelligent movement inside from the left, keeping his head in a tense atmosphere to get in position, and the confidence to shoot from a tight angle.

Central Defenders – Alan Hansen, Sami Hyppia

It was tempting to pair Hansen with his old colleague and media buddy Mark Lawrenson, and the team would be no worse because of it. However, the big Finn is a constant reminder that trophies are not the only way to judge careers (although his first season as captain was when Liverpool won a treble). For £2.6 million, Liverpool got a defender that wasn’t afraid to put his body on the line, could read the game and lead his fellow men. Thirty-five goals in 464 appearances was testament to the goal-threat he was.

Hyppia was no slouch on the ball, regularly taking ball-playing responsibilities from Jamie Carragher in the most productive period of his Liverpool career, but Hansen is the Beckenbauer of this team. To those who grew up watching him on television and hearing his constant moaning about defending in modern times, it may be surprising to learn that Hansen often was only too happy to faff about with the ball in his own box, playing it out along the ground, and leaving it to the less cultured defenders to put their head in the way of shots.

The difference, of course, is that Hansen was extremely gifted on the ball, calmly bringing it out of defense and distributing it sharply to teammates to start quick moves before the opposition had time to adjust. With Hyppia doing the dirty work for him, Hansen would be able to focus on getting the Liverpool engine moving.

Central Midfield – Graeme Souness, Steven Gerrard

It is not easy for me to put Graeme Souness in this team, leaving aside that his managerial tenure was the start of Liverpool’s decline. As a spectator, it is hard to reconcile his sometimes cruel treatment of fellow professionals with how I want the game to be played. He broke jaws, stamped, and was generally not very nice.

Yes, in that era everybody was much rougher than the sanitized game we have today, and that often Souness was singled out for special treatment by the opposition, but it is important to note that for all Liverpool’s brilliance over the years, they have always had players with a touch of the devil in them. And for all their attacking brilliance at their best, they have never been afraid to exploit the rules of the game and mix it up with anybody.

As a player, Souness’s value to the side is unquestionable. He not only has the technique to play in the team, but he is as good a shield for the back five as has ever played the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcZG4VU0P8w

As for Steven Gerrard, he was close to not making the team, to be honest. In many ways, he is one of the least talented players on the team, someone who was defined by a four-year period of exceptional form from 2005-2009, and someone who at times decided that he had to do everything to the detriment of the team – a product of an age where media attention and hype-building of players often obscures their objective contributions to the team.

But what a four-year period: goals, assists, tackles, vision. Gerrard was the creator-destroyer-passer midfield trio in a single player. With timing and a sense of occasion as well, he’s scored in the final of every cup competition. And when the situation demanded it, he was ready to put his ego aside and do what was best for the team. The man played right-back in a European cup final for goodness sake. We know the name, son.

Wide forwards – Luis Suarez, Kevin Keegan

It is absolutely ridiculous that I have to leave John Barnes out of this team. The man who was unfortunate to play in an era when his qualities were underappreciated was more gifted than most in this side, but he happened to play in a position where there is an abundance of options. Hell, Luis Suarez and Kevin Keegan are not really wide forwards (both would rather play as a central striker) but what can we do?

There is nothing to say about Suarez that hasn’t already been said. Like Souness he was a mongrel, someone who wanted to win so badly he did things incomprehensible to most human beings. But he was the greatest player to grace Liverpool this millennium, of that there is no doubt, and geniuses get leeway. His greatest compliment is the side Liverpool have been since he left: In his prime he took a seventh place team to the cusp of winning the title. Thank God he was born in the YouTube era.

Kevin Keegan would have been Liverpool’s greatest ever player if a certain someone didn’t exist. He was the original Sergio Aguero, a complete forward that could score with both feet and his head and the strength to hold off defenders. Don’t fear that his talents would be wasted on the wing. Two attacking fullbacks mean that he will have license to cut inside and play one-twos, maximizing his ability to operate out of tight spaces.

Trequartista – Kenny Dalglish

King Kenny is the ultimate example of Liverpool’s famed boot-room and the club’s best ever player (that’s why he gets his own section). Ostensibly a forward, he was comfortable dropping deep and playing between the lines, which he did to great effect partnering with Ian Rush. A favorite ploy was getting a defender to break the line by following him and slipping in a wide forward or midfield runner through the void just created.

Or, of course, he could face people up and dribble past them. Named by FourFourTwo as the greatest ever British forward, Dalglish didn’t have to leave it up to others to score.

Striker – Ian Rush

The old breed of striker is dying out. Wingers are scoring goals, midfielders are scoring goals, a goal-poacher who isn’t mobile enough to press and can’t do his share of defending on set-pieces is a luxury few teams can afford.

In some ways the false nine method of playing the position is the ultimate insult. Not using your striker to score goals but as a dummy so that others can do what he’s paid to. Not for Ian Rush. If you can only do one thing, do it really well. And nobody was better at exploiting space in the box to make a chance to shoot, and then finishing with aplomb.

Robbie Fowler as a great Liverpool player lived fast and died young, three straight seasons of over 30 goals and then never topping 20. Michael Owen’s body betrayed him, Rush’s career overlapped both, despite starting in 1978 and really that’s what separates him from the pretenders to the throne. 346 goals, in 660 appearances, topping 30 goals in every season with Liverpool except for 1984-85, when he disappointingly got only 26.

Manager – Bill Shankly

Liverpool’s Best XI

More Best XIs: Arsenal, Barcelona, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool.

Soccer is a fickle world. Mere months ago, Aston Villa under Tim Sherwood were playing exciting football, with 4-0 wins against Sunderland and a come from behind victory against Liverpool in a cup semi-final at Wembley. Sherwood was planning on building something over a period of time at Villa, already having put into place steps to promote more youth players to the first team. Yet now he’s out of the job, after six consecutive losses.

Simplifying it, teams that are at the bottom end of the table either can’t score or can’t defend. Villa have experienced both extremes in the space of little more than a year. Paul Lambert set Villa up in a hugely negative way, regularly with less than 40% of possession, even against sides with the same stature as them.

At times, this structure did translate into fast-pace counterattacking with Christian Benteke and Andreas Weimann at its forefront, but too often it was stale and uninspiring. Lambert won less than 30% of his games in charge, but drew almost a quarter of them. For a club with Villa’s resources (9th highest turnover and 9th highest wage bill), that’s poor to say the least.

Tim Sherwood entered and immediately scrapped the old formation. Gung-ho to the point of obduracy, he played a far more expansive game. This season, Villa regularly earned over 50% of possession, and had no trouble scoring. The club have scored the same amount of goals as Liverpool and more than a Watford side that sits 7 places above them with triple the points. The problem is that they keep conceding, even when discretion is the better part of valor.

At times this season, Sherwood played with three strikers on the pitch, and during games earlier this season he consistently withdrew midfielders for forwards, including in two games that were lost at Leicester and Crystal Palace. Removing a defensive midfielder in Carlos Sanchez against a team that breaks quickly in Crystal Palace was a mistake, and bringing on a forward in Jordan Ayew for a midfielder in Carles Gil against Leicester unbalanced the team when they were looking comfortable to win three points.

Even against Swansea on Saturday, Sherwood started with three strikers and Jack Grealish, none of whom do much defensive work, in his front four. And when one striker in Gabriel Agbonlahor was withdrawn, he was replaced by former Barcelona forward Adama Traore. Villa had no problem creating chances. They shot roughly the same amount of times as Swansea, were not drastically out-passed and had far more crosses, their preferred method of attack on the day when Rudy Gestede was the most central of their strikers.

But they did not devote much time to shutting Swansea down, and when a side’s offense revolves so much around physicality and battering opponents with big strikers and lung-bursting runs down the wing to provide crosses for them, it is natural that gaps will appear as players tire late on. It wasn’t surprising to see nobody keeping up with Andre Ayew as he was first to a cross to bundle in a late winner. Keeping this in mind, the fact that Sherwood only made two substitutions, and both offensive ones, was criminal, especially when Villa had scored first.

SEE MORE: 7 leading candidates to replace Tim Sherwood at Aston Villa.

Tim Sherwood did the right thing when he first arrived in Birmingham in making the side more open. After all, scoring a point a game isn’t enough to keep Premier League status when there’s three points at stake. And it’s telling that even after six defeats on the trot, his win percentage of 35% is far higher than Paul Lambert’s. However his refusal to take a backward step, to get the first goal and then man the barricades was costly.

It’s a pity for Villa because when a new manager comes in, the first thing he’ll naturally want to do (as a signal to the press that he’s a steady hand as much as anything) is tighten up at the back. Villa will be more compact. Jack Grealish may go unused, and creativity will be a very low priority.

But this may merely bring Villa back to the problems they had before Sherwood arrived in that their negativity was preventing them getting into winning positions. A new manager shouldn’t batten down the hatches immediately, but rather tweak things so as to ensure the club doesn’t squander the good positions they were getting into.

The frenzy that greeted Jürgen Klopp’s appointment as Liverpool manager always meant that the German’s first match in charge of the club would be somewhat of a let-down. The man is a very good manager, but not an alchemist. He has the same squad and resources to work with as Brendan Rodgers did after all (actually fewer, with Daniel Sturridge picking up a knee knock and Danny Ings and Joe Gomez suffering season-ending injuries).

But a top-flight English squad is composed of 25 players, not to mention various youth prospects so it’s always interesting to see what players a new manager brings in from the cold. For his part, Brendan Rodgers didn’t really rotate too much, but when the side was altered it was more to do with seemingly weird relationships with several players. Mamadou Sakho and Lucas Leiva constantly alternated between being out of favor and very much in favor under the Northern Irishman, despite evidence that Liverpool were much better with both in the side. Similarly, Jordan Henderson was at one point almost swapped for Clint Dempsey before rallying and becoming captain of the first team.

Klopp seemed to always have a more steady relationship with his favorite players, knowing exactly who he favors, why, and where they should play. As an example, his quote regarding Shinji Kagawa was particularly enlightening:

“Shinji Kagawa is one of the best players in the world and he now plays 20 minutes at Manchester United – on the left wing! My heart breaks. Really, I have tears in my eyes. Central midfield is Shinji’s best role. He’s an offensive midfielder with one of the best noses for goal I ever saw.”

Away to Tottenham Hotspur, Klopp’s selection in terms of names didn’t really spring too many surprises. Ings and Sturridge were unavailable leaving Divock Origi as pretty much the only fit center-forward at the club, while the rest of the players selected were all regulars under Rodgers. However how they lined up was interesting.

Everyone had predicted a change from a three man defense to a more traditional four at the back formation, but they thought Klopp would line up in a traditional 4-2-3-1.

Instead it seemed like a Max Allegri style Christmas tree formation, very narrow, with width really only provided by the fullbacks (and then only really on the left side through Alberto Moreno). Phillippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana played very, very centrally, while James Milner played a little wider but definitely not as a winger. Perhaps this was due to the fact Klopp wanted his ball winners to be close together to hunt in packs when Liverpool lost possession up field, or he wanted to focus the pressing on Spurs’ central spine players to force them out wide.

Another question seemingly answered (as answered as it can be with one game of evidence to rely on), is how Klopp dealt with three players that could have been used in many ways.

Milner came to Liverpool from Manchester City with the promise that he could play in his favored central midfield role, but Klopp has always liked hard-running wide players. A sort of compromise was reached with Milner playing centrally but often shuttling forward down the right hand side to put in crosses (five of them) but with two central midfielders alongside him to ensure his wanderings didn’t hurt the team.

Emre Can has been used as a right back and a central defender by Brendan Rodgers but Klopp put him straight into his preferred central midfield role where he was extremely impressive.

With Adam Lallana, it wasn’t where Klopp would play him but how often he would start as his fitness has rarely been up to the point where he could last 90 minutes for Liverpool. In a high-tempo strategy, Lallana might not have been risked but against Tottenham he was given a role mainly focused on improving Liverpool with the ball and closing down when they didn’t have it, without too much responsibility on tracking back to preserve energy (although he did track Dele Alli once all the way to his own box to make a much needed clearance).

Liverpool’s bench was also a point of interest. Jordon Ibe, someone who will doubtless get lots of game time for Klopp this season, was on the bench. So was Joe Allen, who will also get his share of minutes as he is the type of quick passing (if generally safe passing) and pressing midfielder that Klopp normally favors.

Aside from those two, Adam Bogdan as reserve goalkeeper, and Kolo Toure, there were not a lot of familiar faces. Exciting youngsters Jerome Sinclair, João Texeira, and Connor Randall were on the bench, but Pedro Chirivella and Jordan Rossitter, who had previously featured for Liverpool this season were not (Rossiter was injured while on England duty). Might Klopp’s watching of Liverpool reserve and youth sides over the international break be informing his opinions already?

As Klopp himself seemed to indicate after the game, the players followed his instructions on gegenpressing admirably, and were very good without the ball. They often hunted in packs, one or two players closing down the man in possession, one person running beyond the man to prevent a backpass, and a few others marking passing angles. With the ball there was some of the same lack of imagination as under Brendan Rodgers. Klopp wants fast transitions, in his own words, to win the ball and then make a quick switch to the other side of the field so the opponent has to run to catch up. At the moment Liverpool are still winning the ball and then looking up to play directly in front of them, rather than thinking laterally. But as Klopp also keeps saying, this will all come in time.

Contrary to most media attention, there have actually been two recent Premier League managerial vacancies. The same day as Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool departure, Dick Advocaat of Sunderland resigned from his post, saying the tools he was given to work with weren’t enough to keep the Black Cats in the Premier League.

“Our squad was simply not good enough,” the 68-year-old former Netherlands coach told Studio Voetbal. “The club knew we had to strengthen ourselves but the chairman never told me how much we could spend. The struggle against relegation is not my cup of tea. It was time for someone else to take over. I became negative and didn’t feel like myself.”

That the squad isn’t that great is easy to see; it’s propping up the Premier League table along with rivals Newcastle United. But for Advocaat to imply there hasn’t been any investment in the team is blatantly false. The club boasted the 12th highest turnover in the league last season along with the eighth highest wage bill of £70 million, up from £58 million the season before.

There has been immense investment in the team. It has simply not yielded returns. The club has been fighting relegation for years now: five points off the bottom three in 2013-14; three points in 2012-13. 2011-12 was the last time Sunderland achieved over 40 points, and even then it was only 45. Nine players came in before the start of this season, 16 last season and 18 two years ago. There is a squad full of internationals with plenty of options, in theory, How have most of these recruits failed to gel so spectacularly?

They’ve not bought from struggling clubs, either. Jeremaine Lens came from a Dynamo Kyiv side that had made the Europa League quarterfinals last season, while Adam Matthews would have been in Europe with Celtic. The players aren’t rubbish, Dick Advocaat wasn’t a rubbish manager, so why did it all fall apart with such depressing regularity?

One theory points to the huge amounts of player and manager turnover. The incomings every season are accompanied by lots of outgoings, often of players who have only just arrived the previous season. It’s impossible for a team to truly play together if they have an inkling that they’re just rentals to put out fires.

Another theory is that Sunderland have seemed to gone away from the style that they play best. Last year, when the team benefitted from Advocaat’s fresh energy and the desperation of a relegation struggle, they played a 4-3-3 formation that meant some big players had to swallow their egos and take one for the team. Jermaine Defoe, scorer of over 100 Premier League goals and who categorically stated he didn’t like playing on the left, had to play wide, along with Conor Wickham. They tracked back, defended diligently, and the focus was on defending deep and narrow. Opponents were encouraged to attack Sunderland through crosses, something their giant goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon was able to deal with relatively comfortably.

MORE SUNDERLAND: Short wants Allardyce talks | Black Cats cast wide net

With the focus on being solid, offensive play was distinctly a secondary concern. The team tied with Aston Villa as the lowest scorers in the division.

This season however, that unity has been lacking. They’ve conceded 18 goals, worst in the division (one more than Chelsea and Newcastle). They’ve scored eight. A goal a game shows that they’re concentrating on attacking play far more than they were last season, but they’re still not on the level of Leicester City, where their offensive guile can cover a lack of solidity.

This new firepower was on display in recent 4-2-3-1 formations, one which basically includes four forwards in Fabio Borini (or Jermaine Defoe), Steven Fletcher, and Jeremaine Lens and Ola Toivonen. While they are all reasonably mobile (aside from Fletcher), they have been pressing forwards this season and trying to win the ball from their opponent rather than dropping deep and daring the opponent to play through them. The discipline has also gone, encapsulated by Lens’ red card against West Ham, when pressing early and hard had seen Sunderland go 2-0 up (they could have been 4-0 up by the end of the half). The egos also haven’t been put aside. Defoe not tracking back like he was last season, when played on the left, perhaps because this early in the season the squad don’t think they will be in another dogfight come March and April.

On paper, this squad is easily good enough to stay in the Premier League. Playing a solid, compact 4-4-2 with Lee Cattermole and Yann M’Vila holding, Defoe and Fletcher as a strike partnership, and Lens and Borini on the wings focussed on tracking back wouldn’t be pretty, but it would be effective. That formation can be modified into a 4-3-3 by dropping a striker and playing another combative midfielder, but Sunderland shouldn’t be trying to fight for possession anyway.

The chance to keep playing in the same vein as last season while feeding off the positivity around Advocaat staying has been wasted. Whoever takes the job will need to pull off something special to keep the team in the top flight.

One month ago, I wrote about how Liverpool’s Brazilian playmaker Philippe Coutinho was a good, sometimes very good player, but didn’t affect games consistently enough to be considered great. I wrote:

“The fact that the Brazilian is the best player at a club of Liverpool’s ‘stature’ must be worrying. There was never any doubt that Luis Suarez was a great player, constantly influencing games in a variety of ways, or Gerrard at his peak. When it became a case of if not them then nobody, at least it was a comfort to fans that ‘they’ were extremely capable.”

Now six league games into the English domestic season, those comments look prescient. Coutinho has undoubtedly been Liverpool’s best player this season, but too often it seems like he has looked around him and decided that if he didn’t pull the game by the scruff of the neck, nobody else was good enough to. Scousers are used to seeing Steven Gerrard or Luis Suárez try to play Roy Race, the Roy of the Rovers comic book star who saved his team match after match by ignoring his teammates of lesser ability and taking shots from anywhere and everywhere, dominating the ball. But at their peak Luis Suárez and Gerrard were a world away from where Coutinho is now.

SEE MORE: Liverpool dismiss claims they have approached Carlo Ancelotti to replace Brendan Rodgers.

During Liverpool’s best season in recent memory, 2013-14, Coutinho realized that he was playing with a pair of forwards in Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suárez that would consistently score if they received enough service. He understood his role as a facilitator of offensive moves, not a finisher. In 33 league appearances that season, he created 64 chances, almost two a game. Even last season, when Steven Gerrard and Raheem Sterling were around him, he created 58 chances in 35 appearances, a drop but not a huge one.

However those players have now gone, and for the second season in a row there has been a lot of player turnover. Having arrived in January 2013, Coutinho is now one of the clubs longest serving players, and perhaps when he looks up with the ball and sees all these fresh faces, he feels a responsibility to go it alone and make something happen the same way Gerrard or Suárez did. This season Coutinho has only created 3 chances in 5 starts, but he’s been bashing out 5.6 shots per game, according to WhoScored — almost two shots per game more than last season, with quite a few being low-percentage options from outside the penalty area.

On Sunday in the 1-1 draw against Norwich City, he had 12 shots according to Opta’s StatsZone, but only put two on target. Four of his shots were well outside the box, and he created just a single chance. Alberto Moreno, a wing-back created six. And Lucas Leiva, the most defensive midfielder Liverpool have, created three.

The most glaring example of Coutinho getting his head down and being determined to go it alone, despite it being the worse option, was when set free by Roberto Firmino down the right-hand channel late in the game. With Danny Ings running alongside him and free for a tap-in if Coutinho had squared the ball, the Brazilian chose to aim an effort from the side of the goal and fired straight at Norwich goalkeeper John Ruddy.

Yes, Christian Benteke has looked isolated and starved of service, and his goals this season have hardly been down to Liverpool’s offensive game-plan. And Sturridge looked understandably rusty after making his first appearance for 163 days. But Liverpool played with two strikers for most of the game Sunday, and with Firmino starting on the bench and Coutinho behind them, his sole responsibility should have been to feed them. If Coutinho is constantly looking to shoot or run with the ball when in possession, that means he is not doing what this team needs most of all, incisive passing and through-balls to encourage and reward players for making runs beyond the opposition defense.

In six league games this season, Liverpool have scored four times. One goal was offside and shouldn’t have stood. Two goals have been screamers that nobody could legislate for. And Ings’ against Norwich was due to the opposition gifting Moreno the ball in their own half. Liverpool’s offensive game plan, the passing patterns and moves that they work on in the training ground, has not produced anything tangible yet, despite promising signs on Sunday. A large part of this is because the player who should be the fulcrum of these sequences is taking all the shots rather than setting them up.

As the UEFA Champions League started up again last week, fans of English teams were left with the now familiar sight of the richest league in the world being put to shame by decidedly modest opposition. Three out of four English clubs lost, and two to teams that have markedly smaller budgets (although compare Manchester City’s transfer window to Juventus’ and it is clear who held the financial advantage going into that clash).

English teams’ performances in Europe have been poor for several years, Manchester United reached the final in 2010-11, and Chelsea reached the semi-final in Jose Mourinho’s first season back at Stamford Bridge, but Arsenal and Manchester City have underachieved and Liverpool were dire in their return to the top-level of European competition last season.

Apologists believe that the reason English teams perform so poorly is because they are more fatigued than the other participants, but this argument doesn’t hold much water.

One side of it focuses on the supposed strength of the Premier League. The story goes that Arsenal spend so much time running around getting beaten by West Ham on a Sunday that they don’t have the energy to run around on Wednesday, and thus get beaten by Dynamo Zagreb.

SEE MORE: England is in danger of losing its fourth Champions League spot.

By contrast, Real Madrid/Barcelona/Bayern Munich/Juventus play their B teams, still walk-over the opposition 5-0, and then show up refreshed mid-week. It’s just not true.

Generally the winners of the top leagues in Europe finish with around the same number of points. Last season, Juventus and Chelsea both had 87, Barcelona 94, and Bayern 79 (which can be extrapolated up to 88/89 given that they won about 75% of their games but played four fewer). Surely in such weaker leagues, these teams should be racking up 100+ point seasons? Barcelona’s 94 points are not indicative of a weak league but rather of an exceptional team (because they beat the best every other league had to offer as well en-route to a treble). They were also pushed hardest out of all the title winners, while Chelsea won “the hardest league in the world” with 87, and they were strolling at the end with the title wrapped up well before the last or even penultimate game. The Catalan side had to expend additional effort on the Copa Del Rey (and the Champions League), playing more games.

The Premier League is only the third best league in Europe according to UEFA coefficients, and the leagues above it aren’t there because they’re full of mugs. La Liga has three potential title winners (2 and a half, if you want to be pessimistic about Atletico, but really that’s the same as the Premiership), and a further European champion in Sevilla. Valencia and Sevilla, consistently progress further in the Europa League than any English club as well. While Tottenham/Liverpool/Everton always get beaten just at the stage of the tournament when they ‘take it seriously’.

This season Juventus are pants in Serie A, fighting for their lives every weekend, but still managed to beat a City side that really could have played their B-team in most of their domestic matches this season and still romped home.

The other side of the fatigue argument is the additional matches due to a lack of a winter break, and an additional cup competition. However, more matches equal more money, and while the Premier League may not be objectively the best league in the world, it is certainly the richest.

SEE MORE: Premier League clubs are still failing Europe’s tactics tests.

With the huge budgets comes the ability to build huge squads, reducing the impact “tough” league games have, and reducing the impact more games have, because supposedly the depth is there to cope. Huge funds also supposedly attract top management, and top back-end staff, meaning quality recruitment and injury prevention. (Now whether the huge funds have been used wisely is another argument, and perhaps the only one that holds any weight).

Last season, with a much weaker squad than Chelsea and Manchester City, Juventus (who also finished their league with 87 points) played 57 games. While Chelsea, with a huge squad and far more money, didn’t really have tiredness as an excuse as they were out of the cups by March (out of the FA cup in January), they still did worse in Europe.

One reason why English teams aren’t playing to their potential is that they are misusing the resources that they have at their disposal. Arsenal are refusing to pay going rates for players, and City refuse to build a squad that is fit to play in both the Premier League, and in European competition. Referees behave differently domestically and in European cups, and the pace of the game and the strategies employed by opponents also differs.

Manchester City have been relying on the same spine (Kompany, Toure, Silva, Aguero) that won the club its first Premier League title under Roberto Mancini, and have consistently finished either first or second in England, to do the job in Europe as well for the past four years, and it’s just not worked out. Opponents attack and defend against City differently in different competitions, and relying on the same four players will burn them out and injure them, not because they’re playing harder games or the team as a whole is playing more games, but because the squad and coaching have not adapted.

Think back to when Manchester United were always contesting the Champions League and the Premier League to the end of the season, they used the resources at their disposal to revolutionize the concept of squad rotation. In 2007-8, they won the double while not playing the same XI in consecutive matches. In 56 games, shorn of captain Gary Neville through injury for the entire season, no outfield players aside from Wes Brown and Cristiano Ronaldo tops 40 appearances, and only Ronaldo and Vidic started over 30 league games. This was a club that knew it had the resources to build a squad that could go horses for courses to play against the continental style without harming domestic form, and minimizing the impact of lots of matches through rotation. The top Premier League teams of today need to do the same.

They aren’t technically local rivals (although England’s northwest is a small place), but it’s fair to say that Liverpool fans see their matches against Manchester United as more important than ones against Everton (and probably can’t remember the last time they played Tranmere).

With Manchester City’s recent rise, Manchester derbies arguably mean more in terms of final league position, but there are still two teams far away from the rest of the pack in English football’s trophy count. United fans know this only too well, this millennium overtaking Liverpool as the England’s most successful team in terms of league titles.

The rivals meet this weekend while in fifth and seventh place, with identical records aside from an inverted goal difference hinting at a subdued starts. Given the high correlation between wages and a club’s final league position, United can probably expect fifth as the lowest they’ll finish this season, while Liverpool will have to play exceptionally well and be exceptionally fortunate to break into the top four.

However, the beauty of soccer is that, in individual games of 90 minutes, any result is very possible. Neither West Ham nor Swansea City were favored against Liverpool or Manchester United, yet both won, and won well, against their more illustrious colleagues last round.

A goal-fest is unlikely, as both teams have had trouble scoring, and generally in big games managers don’t want the publicity of a tonking. Better to tell the press you were robbed on a poor decision that could have enabled a 1-1 than have to face them after a 5-1 pasting.

Even so, a win would really ease the pressure on both managers as they resume pivotal seasons after the international break, and out wide is the area where Louis van Gaal and Brendan Rodgers can let the handbrake off.

For Liverpool, starting Alberto Moreno over Joe Gomez at left back is key to giving the team a new offensive dimension. Gomez has been solid defensively, but going forward he has struggled to complement Philippe Coutinho, who he started wide left but constantly roams inside, interchanging with Roberto Firmino and trying and thread balls through for forward Christian Benteke (Coutinho will be suspended for Saturday’s match at Old Trafford). Moreno is less secure, and the knock-on effect this move will have is that Dejan Lovren will be shorn of protection to his left, but he is pacy and good technically at putting crosses into the box.

SEE MORE: What’s happened to the top of the Premier League?

Having someone stationed high up the pitch in a wide area means that not only is there always an outlet to recycle possession in case things become too cramped in the center (even Barcelona relied on Xavi diagonals to Dani Alves when things were tight), it gives the defense another thing to worry about. West Ham were comfortable defending deep and narrow, despite the aerial threat of Benteke, because they weren’t worried about Gomez or Clyne putting accurate, direct crosses in.

Manchester United would also benefit from a return to their Ferguson roots of playing with two out and out wide players. As mentioned above Moreno is not the greatest with defensive positioning, and even if Gomez retains his place, this is an 18-year-old who was playing in the Championship last season. Replacing Mata, who started wide right against Swansea, with Antonio Valencia backed up by the forward runs of Matteo Darmian could leave Liverpool’s left fullback outnumbered and overrun.

On the other side, Memphis Depay has a tendency to cut inside and shoot often, and telegraph when he’s about to do so. He’s athletic enough to succeed in getting a shot away often, but pushing Luke Shaw higher up the field would offer him an outlet wide left when he drags defenders inside.

Overall, width may be slightly less important as an attacking tool for Manchester United. They have more quality in their team, and will be playing at home so will expect to have more of the ball. But this makes it even more of an important attacking tool for Liverpool, because they cannot afford to look as sterile as they did against West Ham with far fewer opportunities.

Louis Van Gaal has a reputation for being autocratic and dictatorial. Although you wouldn’t know it during his brief spell in England as manager of Manchester United, as the Dutchman seems particularly willing to any and all media suggestions regarding where he should play his captain, (and thus the player who seems guaranteed to play the most amount of games), Wayne Rooney.

In his first season in charge, Rooney often played in midfield, either in the center as a box-to-box player, or on the right of a diamond. The press were not enamored. After a poor display against Big Sam’s West Ham United The Guardian wrote:

“This was another tortured attacking display in a 1-1 draw against a West Ham team who will be disappointed not to have won, and during which Wayne Rooney in particular was too often found lurking somewhere behind Antonio Valencia, United’s right-back. If Van Gaal really doesn’t want to play Rooney as a centre forward he should probably go all the way and drop him. It is hard to imagine Rooney not offering a more purposeful display of Premier League centre-forward play than Falcao here.”

Towards the end of the season, the same paper wrote:

“For years Wayne Rooney has scored and made goals, despite playing in front of a purported midfield that bore greater resemblance to the middle of a field. Relocating him to it deprived the team of its most likely scorer.”

SEE MORE: What is wrong with Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney?

Those astute observers! Barney Ronay, the journalist that penned the match report, had hit upon the strangeness of playing someone who will soon be his country and club’s record scorer in midfield. Rooney is a striker, and he should play as a striker.

Undoubtedly swayed by England’s sage media knowledge, Van Gaal decided Rooney is so much better as a center-forward that he is the only experienced striker left on the books at Old Trafford after the shutting of the transfer window.

The move has not had the desired effect. United’s attack is as stilted as it was last season with Falcao or Robin Van Persie leading the line, and arguably their midfield lacks the dynamism Rooney added.

The Guardian (who else?, this is a paper that devotes so much writing to football that it is a separate section, set apart from the Sports section that writes about more mundane activities), has expressed an about-turn from its previous declarations. Now Barney Ronay (the same guy from above) says:

“Let’s be honest, asking Rooney to play as Manchester United’s chief – and indeed only – centre-forward at this point in his career feels a bit like forcing a middle-aged man out on stage to disco dance.”

I could post contradictory quotes from a variety of football journalists working for a variety of publications all day, but they would all raise the same questions. How can someone who last year had to play as striker to be effective, now be completely useless as a striker when he’s not even a full year older? How as “this point in his career” changed so much from the last season’s point in his career?

This only further reinforces the point that the broadsheets and tabloids don’t exist for informative journalism, but rather to produce stories and opinions that sell and create debate, regardless of whether that requires ‘fluid’ opinions.

As for Wayne Rooney, who by the end of this international break should be his country’s all-time leading scorer, at least until January, there shouldn’t really be any debate about where he will play. He is the only experienced, proven, striker at the club. The alternatives are newly signed teenager Anthony Martial, slightly more experienced teenager James Wilson, or not-a-striker last resort Marouane Fellaini.

There may be a case for playing two up front, or with Rooney slightly behind Martial in a link role (but definitely not any further back), depending on how well the Frenchman adapts to Premier League football.

Due to the lack of evidence about his style of play and the runs he makes, Martial may hit the ground running (similar to Nikita Jelavic when he first moved to Everton and lots of defenders weren’t used to his habit of making near post runs). This would ease the burden on Rooney to play up top most of the time, but if that doesn’t happen he would have to be expected to be United’s main goal scoring avenue until January.

In any case this was a man who had a hat-trick in Champions League qualification not too long ago and would have opened his Premier League account on the opening day itself if not for an own-goal against Tottenham.

Rooney has never ended up with single-figure tallies in a Premier League season during his tenure with Manchester United, and even finished United’s disastrous David Moyes season with 17 strikes. He’ll be fine as a striker, no matter what the media would have you believe.

Monday saw Arsenal and Liverpool play out one of the better 0-0 draws in recent memory, with each side laying reasonable claim to dominating a half and finishing deserving winners. It could have finished 1-1, 3-3, or 4-2, to either side, and the fact that it ended goalless only added to the intrigue. Viewers were kept interested until the very last minute, when Arsenal only just failed to convert on a corner.

Through a combination of defensive resolve and sheer luck (a desperate clearance by Martin Skrtel could easily have gone into his own net), Liverpool recorded their first clean sheet against Arsenal since the 2011-12 season, and large amounts of credit for that achievement should go to the manager.

Brendan Rodgers refrained from making any David Brent-esque comments before the game, but rather spoke plainly about the need to dominate space against Arsenal, rather than control of the football. He said:

“If you assess games against Arsenal we have always had dominance of the ball, especially at home. If you assess the last 10 games Arsenal have lost at home, it was about dangerous possession for the teams who won.

They only averaged four shots on target with 43% possession. That tells you you don’t need to dominate the ball but you can dominate the space. That is important in the away games. Tactically we’ll arrive in a good mind about how we can win it. There are certain games you look at the approach to get you the result and that is something we have been working on this week.”

The Northern Irishman was true to his word. Liverpool didn’t seem to view holding possession with any importance on Monday evening, with 34% compared to the Gunners’ 66%. Yet they were almost as potent as their hosts, taking 15 shots to Arsenal’s 19 (far more than the four Rodgers estimated would be enough). And one more of Liverpool’s shots came inside the penalty box, 11 to 10 for Arsenal. On any other night, and if Petr Cech hadn’t been on top form, Liverpool would have scored despite completing over 200 fewer passes.

Rodgers’ point in his pre-match words was not just about conceding possession but about trading possession for dominance of key areas of the pitch. Despite not having the ball, Liverpool as a side still played fairly high up the field, with Skrtel acting as the deepest outfield player and a last-ditch penalty box protector (he made the most clearances in the game).

Liverpool allied their positioning with high pressing, reminiscent of their fast starts to the 2013-14 season, ensuring that Arsenal’s front six did not have a lot of time on the ball to thread a pass and expose Liverpool’s high line (aside from when Ramsey slid in a goal that was incorrectly ruled offside).

It seems like a fool-proof strategy, press high up the pitch, win the ball back close to your opponent’s goal and launch a counter-offensive. Why doesn’t everyone do it?

Because Arsenal had 19 shots, and 10 of them inside the box. Even though Liverpool matched Arsenal offensively, and had a great defensive strategy in theory, they were still worryingly open. A basic tenet of soccer is that the side without the ball cannot score. If one side doesn’t demand possession, they drastically limit the time within the game that they can score.

Only 34% of the ball meant that there was roughly half an hour of the match where a Liverpool goal was even theoretically possible, while Arsenal had an hour to work their way through the Liverpool rear guard. A few of Liverpool’s first half-opportunities came from Arsenal just giving the ball away under very little pressure, rather than any demon pressing.

Once Arsenal composed themselves after halftime, they were far more measured against Liverpool’s tactics, aiming to retain and recycle possession, and creating by far the better opportunities. Having committed to chasing the ball rather than keeping it, Liverpool were increasingly less influential, to the point where goalkeeper Simon Mignolet was booked for time-wasting in the 85th minute.

Ideally, Liverpool would have scored an early goal and then reverted to type, preserving their advantage and taking care of the ball. However, the gamble of heavy running early on didn’t pay off, and their tired legs were becoming increasingly easy pickings for Arsenal towards the end of the game.

Michael Cox, founder of the popular website Zonal Marking, and a respected journalist with a specialty in football tactics was unimpressed by Liverpool’s opening game of the Premier League season, a drab 1-0 win away to Stoke City lit up by a Philippe Coutinho shot from distance for the winner.

The 86th minute aside, nobody who watched that game could argue too hard with Cox’s assessment:

“Was really pleased about the return of the Premier League until I watched this Stoke v Liverpool game.”

However, the opinion that really caught the eye was his tweet on Liverpool’s Brazilian talisman Coutinho:

“Classic Coutinho – a moment of absolute brilliance at the end of a thoroughly poor performance.”

It is not so much the latter part of the tweet that rankles. Coutinho had been poor in a game that Liverpool as a whole seemed determined not to lose rather than desperate to win. Opta recorded him with less passes than five other Liverpool players, including both Liverpool central defenders, and less passes in the final third than James Milner. He created a single chance and played two throughballs. He did complete the most dribbles in the game (surprisingly one more than Glen Johnson who was second highest), but as Cox notes astutely, dribbles are not an end product or inherently useful in and of themselves.

Yet of course Coutinho caught the eye with the one bit of quality in the entire game. As one of the many Twitter users stirred into commenting by Cox’s tweet noted, it was 2010 Wesley Sneijder at his best.

Does Cox’s opinion hold water in this case? He drew the ire of more than a few Liverpool fans (some making rational arguments, quite a few simply aiming abuse in time-honored Twitter tradition) who see Coutinho as the team’s best player. A 23 year old who has been around long enough to adapt to English football and thrive, but is still someway off from his peak years. What’s not to like?

According to Cox, it’s his inconsistency. It is clear that this is a professional opinion. Cox states that he quite likes the player as a viewer, seeing someone who is a likable and hardworking player. However he is a player that produces great moments, rather than great games. Someone whose reputation has grown based on Match of the Day highlights that show his touches of genius rather than large periods drifting out of the game rather than imposing his will on it.

If great games are built on players having multiple great moments within the game, a steady influence rather than a moment or two interspersed with nothing, Cox may have a point.

As this article by Sam McGuire showed, compared to the top tier play-makers in the Premier League, Coutinho does have a long way to go.

He creates by far the lowest chances per game, and plays the fewest key and successful passes. Nobody can deny that he tries hard, winning the most tackles, and he also completes the most successful take-ons of the group. However, dribbling past someone in and of itself is not that useful. In fact, it could be argued that choosing this option is actually worse for the team when a simple pass could advance the ball further, faster, and with less risk. David Silva, Eden Hazard, and Mesut Ozil play in superior teams, but Coutinho is outperformed by Eriksen who plays with a similar (arguably lower) quality of teammate. It is also the responsibility of a playmaker to ensure a side is more than just the sum of its parts offensively.

Against Bournemouth, Coutinho was similarly ephemeral, a few nice dribbles and touches, one particular sharp pass to an onrushing Jordon Ibe split the Cherries defense. However there was no end-product, whether in terms of a goal or an assist, or even creating multiple clear-chances for his teammates. This not necessarily a huge problem in and of itself, a miniscule amount of footballers truly fit into the top bracket, Coutinho is 23 years old and merely in the ‘quite good’ category below it. What is a problem is that he has come to be Liverpool’s best player.

Cox noted this as well when considering the amount of angry replies his tweet got. The fact that the Brazilian is the best player at a club of Liverpool’s ‘stature’ must be worrying. There was never any doubt that Luis Suarez was a great player, constantly influencing games in a variety of ways, or Gerrard at his peak. When it became a case of if not them then nobody, at least it was a comfort to fans that ‘they’ were extremely capable.

This situation is only going to get worse, with spending power, and prestige gaps increasing every year Liverpool go without Champions League football. Unable to offer massive wages or premier competitions, Anfield may be stuck attracting quite good players rather than already great ones.

Only days away from the start of the 2015/16 Premier League season, Liverpool do not have the squad they would like. While there are reports that the spending, similar in scale to what happened last summer, may continue, more interesting are the departures, or lack thereof.

It has been widely reported that at least three players (Mario Balotelli, Fabio Borini, and Jose Enrique) have been told that they do not have a future at Anfield, but as of now significant progress on their exits hasn’t been made.

An intriguing subplot in the development of Liverpool’s squad and first-team is the fate of a player that is not rumoured to be on his way out, yet must compete with a host of others to play in his favored areas.

Only a handful of Liverpool transfers have been more than the £20m Liverpool paid for Lazar Markovic, and when the Serbian arrived at Anfield fresh off helping Benfica to the Portuguese treble and the final of the Europa League, he sounded confident enough to persuade Liverpool fans he was worth the money.

“I went to Partizan and won the title. I went to Benfica and won the title. Now I have joined Liverpool and want to win the title, 100%.”

Of course it wasn’t to be, Markovic was expecting to join the fast-paced Liverpool side that scored goals for fun and nearly won the league, the team he watched every game of when playing in Portugal. And Liverpool expected a left-sided winger with pace, trickery and an eye for goal. Neither got what they wanted.

Markovic didn’t even start until September, in a 1-0 loss to Aston Villa that left Liverpool stuck in eighth place, already behind the pace and with their new signings not showing much. His contribution to the game was limited to a poor shot from distance, and his stamina didn’t look up to the level demanded by the Premiership. WhoScored gave him the lowest rating (5.97 out of 10) for any Liverpool starter that match, and his ratings for the season in which he scored twice and had one assist didn’t get much better. Philippe Coutinho, for example, someone whose creativity Markovic was expected to complement and assist, scored five times and assisted five times as well, with an average rating of 7.34.

Comparing the Serbian to two other players who are also left-sided attackers, Alexis Sánchez who is ostensibly his ceiling, and Yannick Bolasie who has to be seen as his floor, it is obvious how far he has to go before he can justify the price Liverpool paid.

Belgium and Argentina were both among the favorites to win the World Cup before the tournament started, and both have underwhelmed through their four games thus far despite both winning all their games. Argentina, with a serious case of Messi-dependencia, have looked unbalanced and shaky defensively while Belgium have struggled to finish flowing moves and with their offensive Plan A.

Argentina will likely be the favorites for this game, mainly due to conditions and crowd support, but there is no doubt that Belgium have sufficient quality and strength to surprise.

How Belgium will look to score

Belgium have shown they can score goals in multiple ways this tournament, from the counterattacking football on display against the United States to the Route 1 football employed against Algeria, there is no dearth of alternative plans. The problem has been with how they begin games.

The Europeans haven’t scored a goal in the first half all tournament, and usually leave it beyond 70 minutes when their substitutes have had time to alter the side’s formation and tactics. The explanations for this are numerous, Eden Hazard the main creative force has failed to shine, only creating 12 chances so far in the tournament (Kevin De Bruyne created 10 alone against the United States), and the centre-forward options are an out of form Romelu Lukaku or 19 year old Divock Origi fresh from an underwhelming season with Lille in Ligue 1. At their best both forwards love to drive forward and relish physical battles with centre-halves, encouraging fast play and multiple balls into the opposition box. But without them at their best Belgium have been slow in their play, often only looking threatening from their opponent’s mistakes.

Against the United States it could be argued that both Belgium goals would not have happened if the opposition wasn’t throwing so many men forward. While Lukaku’s strength helped him get away from his marker on the halfway line for the opener, he didn’t encounter much resistance afterwards. Wilmots’ substitutions should be credited for helping Belgium play at a higher tempo, but taking advantage of tired legs and kamikaze offensive play by the other side isn’t the mark of a champion offense.

Luckily there are positives for Belgium, Lukaku’s goal likely helped him regain confidence and he was a menace against the United States. Kevin De Bruyne and Dries Mertens are creating chances, in fact Belgium have no problem finding shots, and part of their low goal return could be due to being up against goalkeepers like Tim Howard in the form of their lives.

Most importantly, Argentina will play like the US in the sense that they will commit seven players forward on each attack. Messi, Higuaín, and either Agüero or Lavezzi as the attacking players but also both midfielders aside from Mascherano and both fullbacks. As Marc Wilmots has already noted, this leaves Argentina unbalanced and susceptible to a quick Belgian break. They just have to play at a quick enough tempo to take advantage of their opportunities.

How Argentina will look to score

If Belgium are playing on the break then Argentina will be the team with the majority of possession. Generally, if you give Lionel Messi the ball for 60-70% of the match he will find a way to score, his genius has bailed Argentina out numerous times in the tournament already most notably against Iran and Nigeria. More of the same can be expected from the best player in the world but Switzerland showed that his moments of magic can be limited through essentially marking him with two players, because nobody else from Argentina is willing to come up and play between the lines with Messi to take advantage of the space.

Whether that is because they don’t want to get in the way or because Sabella hasn’t realised it, it renders quite a lot of Argentina possession sterile. Messi is hardly ever allowed enough time to run a telling distance with the ball or pick out a penetrative pass so attacks just get reset to Rojo or Zabaleta out wide, perhaps with an aimless ball into the box the end result.

Fernando Gago and Angel Di María both have the talent to overload the opposition between the lines but prefer to be static in their chosen positions. The Real Madrid player has been especially poor this tournament with his use of the ball. In fact it was probably only because he got so many opportunities through dominance of possession against Switzerland in 120 minutes that he was able to finally do something useful. In Spain he is used to playing a more reactive style, Madrid are almost as deadly from opposition corners as they are from their own, and perhaps having most of the ball is unusual for him.

Higuaín has also been missing chances that he would usually bury so Messi just hasn’t been getting support although at least his compatriots are trying gamely. It seems that the game is going to hinge on whether enough possession and probing will pay off for Argentina or whether Belgium can take advantage of one of the counterattacks they’ll be given.

Belgium have been international media and fan darlings long before this World Cup began. With a young core of exciting players fans were looking forward to seeing this side make its mark on the international stage. Belgium is a country with divides not only between immigrants and natives, but also French and Flemish speakers. The nation is represented by a united multicultural team, which has not always been the case in the past. More importantly, the team has been playing good, attractive stylistic football with considerable depth in most positions.

Of course as England fans can tell you, having a golden generation of players is not enough, you need an astute man-manager with a good sense of timing and tactics to truly turn a talented and skilled group of players into a side capable of going deep into tournaments. Marc Wilmots is undoubtedly a skilled motivator, a Walloon with a Flemish wife who could get the best out of a diverse group of players. But surprisingly for someone with very little actual managerial experience outside of the Red Devils, (his previous Head Coaching job ended in 2004 with a small Belgian club and was followed by an unsuccessful stint in politics), his substitutions and reading of the game have also attracted considerable praise.

Belgium have scored six goals in four games so far in Brazil, and four have been recorded by substitutes, including late equalizers and winners against Algeria and the USA. But, have his super subs been the result of fortune or acumen? For example against the USA he never relieved Axel Witsel or Marouanne Fellaini despite both being overrun and tired in midfield. Wilmots preferred instead to first bring on a striker in a like for like swap and then remove Eden Hazard to help his side sink deep into their own half and protect a lead.

But it is not so much about who Wilmots has selected and how they have done individually, although his knack for choosing the right players, especially in the case of Divock Origi who only scored five league goals for Lille last season, should be commended. It is more about how Wilmots uses his substitutions to achieve a shape and style of play that he wants.

Against Algeria, facing a packed, narrow, and deep defense Belgium took a great number of shots from long range, and did not effectively utilize the space on the flanks. Bringing on the tall and powerful Fellaini for the final half hour helped give the team an extra target in the box and a greater incentive to put crosses in. He used his substitution to initiate a Plan B, and Fellaini scored from one crossed set piece and almost had another through a cross from the right wing.

Against the USA, his use of Lukaku helped set the team up to play on the break with pace, knowing that the US was committing lots of men forward, and advancing slowly gave them time to retreat. Lukaku was constantly given the ball into space and allowed to run to the edge of the American penalty area before slipping in a winger. The substitution was of course also about fresh legs after Origi played 90 minutes but the fact that Kevin Mirallas, another player skilled at driving forward replaced Dries Mertens, a more creative player adept at keeping possession and playing slide rule passes, at the hour mark was also instructive as to how Wilmots wanted his side to play. Despite playing only half the match, Mirallas created the fourth most chances on the team and completed the second most dribbles, emphasizing that his role was to run forward at pace against the Americans before they could reset the defense.

This style could prove useful against Argentina, who push their fullbacks high and often just have Javier Mascherano protecting a fragile center half pairing. They have not looked comfortable against teams who look to break against them and Wilmots might use Lukaku and Mirallas as a Plan B again.

On paper, Germany should have enough quality in their squad to deal with Algeria no matter who starts, but the north African side has impressed in this World Cup, beating South Korea, drawing with Russia, and only narrowly losing to talented Belgium. Both teams have should have their first choice players available, which should set the stage for a fascinating knockout match.

How Germany will Line-up

Germany have an extremely settled team, with only 13 different players used as starters in their three matches thus far. The back four have remained the same throughout the tournament and with two clean sheets out of three, there isn’t much reason to change them against Algeria.

Toni Kroos will play as the number 10, and Philipp Lahm will take one of the two central midfield slots, so Joachim Löw’s main midfield decision will be whether to use Sami Khedira’s energy and running or Bastian Schweintsteiger’s ball retention ability. Against Algeria, Germany will have far more possession. And not giving the ball away in dangerous positions will be key due to Algeria trying to break quickly. Schweinsteiger, Kroos, and Lahm completely dominated the midfield against the USA and thus should start again, with Khedira making a substitute appearance where his late runs into the box could be useful against tiring legs.

Lukas Podolski is injured but did not look effective against the USA anyway, so Mario Götze should come back as a false nine with Thomas Müller and Mesut Özil going wide.

How Algeria will Line-up

Algeria have used many more players than Germany, but recently their side has started to get a settled look about it. Madjid Bougherra should return with the rest of the backline from the game against Russia keeping their places. Sofiane Feghouli, their best player this tournament will play in front of Bentaleb and Medjani in midfield with Abdelmoumene Djabou stretching play wide on the left.

Germany starting XI (predicted):

Algeria starting XI (predicted):

Italy against Uruguay was always marked as an important game, but perhaps not for the reasons that it will be on Tuesday. With Costa Rica surprising everybody and topping Group D going into the final round of fixtures, only one of the two previous champions will join them in the knockout phase of the World Cup.

Costa Rica are assured of first place in the group with any positive result against England, and their better head to head and goal difference with Italy and Uruguay means even in the case of a loss it’s highly unlikely that they relinquish the top spot. Italy need a point to progress due to superior goal difference, while Uruguay need an outright victory. That could figure into the South American’s thinking, but after making a raft of changes against England and with Luis Suárez fit and firing they have a settled side and a settled strategy. It is the Italians who so far seem unsure of their preferred lineup.

The main area of concern for Italy is in midfield, where they are unsure of who to partner Andrea Pirlo and Daniele De Rossi with. Against England it was Paris St. Germain’s Marco Verratti, while against Costa Rica they chose the more defensively minded Thiago Motta. Cesare Prandelli’s midfield trio against England was heavily criticized, because while De Rossi is an excellent shield for the defense both he and Pirlo are not very mobile, and while Verratti is an excellent passer with a lot of vision and creativity, his lack of positional discipline and running does make him a poor choice alongside Pirlo and De Rossi, especially against a strong opponent. The irony though is against Costa Rica, where Italy had 60% of possession and a high back line to exploit, Verratti would have been much more useful than Motta, who is technically limited but full of running.

De Rossi is injured for the Uruguay game so that necessitates a change in midfield, but that should be the only change Prandelli makes. His back line are settled, if not completely trustworthy, and Antonio Candreva and Mario Ballotelli have worked reasonably well together. The fact that a draw will be enough means Ciro Immobile and Antonio Cassano will probably remain on the bench.

Motta will keep his spot as De Rossi’s replacement, and Pirlo is also a guaranteed starter. The only dilemma is whether to bring back Verratti in a game that he might not be suited for, against a highly physical side who will defend deep and strike quickly on the counter. Due to the other midfield options available like Alberto Aquilani also being a lightweight, Marchisio could also be moved into the centre of midfield where he often partners with Pirlo for Juventus and Lorenzo Insigne brought on to the wings.

Diego Lugano may come back in for young Giminez but the success of the midfield diamond against England means that no other changes are likely to be made. Uruguay, despite needing a win, will not seek to play any differently than against England. Arevalo Rios will man mark Pirlo and try to take him out of the game, and the team will defend very narrow with Edinson Cavani desperately trying to link eight other outfield players with Suárez. If nothing happens then Walter Gargano may replace Rios in midfield and Diego Forlan may come on to play some more ambitious passes. The talisman’s legs are too far gone for a full 90 minutes though, and a super sub role could be the best he can hope for. Gaston Ramirez could also be an option to replace Lodeiro and try and play incisive balls to the Uruguay’s two star forwards.

After Brazil and Mexico played out a 0-0 draw leaving both with four points, Croatia and Cameroon has become an even more important fixture, especially for Croatia who have already played Brazil and thus gotten their toughest group match out of the way. Should Croatia beat Cameroon by anything less than three goals, it would set things up for a very interesting Croatia-Mexico match, with only a win good enough for the Europeans.

For Cameroon, the situation looks bleak, as they need to get something from their game against the hosts to have a chance of progressing from the group. For a side that could only manage one shot on target against Mexico and less than 40% possession, it might be time to start playing for pride. Further adding to Cameroon’s misery is that Samuel Eto’o, who looked lively and involved both with his offensive movement and link up play against Mexico, will miss the Croatia match with a knee injury. Although the heat and humidity of Manaus should favor the African side, Croatia’s sheer quality, especially in midfield and attack should be too much for them.

Croatia should rue their missed opportunity to gain something out of the game against Brazil, conceding to a soft shot from distance, a soft penalty that should have been saved, and finally once more when chasing the game in the 91st minute. But they can take heart from the fact that for long periods of time they matched Brazil in midfield and offensively, with 11 shots to Brazil’s 14 and three on target as opposed to the South American’s six. Essentially then it should be more of the same, but at a slightly higher level due to the return of striker Mario Mandzukic from suspension.

The formation will probably remain 4-2-3-1, with two excellent central midfielders in Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic controlling the game from midfield. The advanced midfielders who should play behind Mandzukic are interesting because the wide players, Ivica Olic and Ivan Perisic, are essentially converted forwards and Mateo Kovacic is an odd player in the number 10 position. Both Modric and Rakitic essentially play all the ambitious passes, both behind the defence and to the flanks, and recycle possession and so Kovacic basically has no purpose, he only passed the ball 17 times, mostly in the centre of the pitch and mostly short and back to the more elegant midfielders behind him. Cameroon showed a number of defensive weaknesses against Mexico, but what was most apparent was space behind the left-back Assou-Ekotto and an inability to deal with high balls into the box. This could tempt Croatia coach Nilo Kovac into playing both Nikita Jelavic and Mandzukic and try and overload the two Cameroon centre backs.

Rakitic and Modric were both superb against Brazil, the latter especially, completing 51 passes and creating four chances. Perisic was his most favoured forward target, Modric passing to the winger eight times trying to get behind Brazil’s advanced full backs to play balls into the box at pace and a similar plan is likely to be employed against Cameroon. The difference however, is that Croatia will have a lot more of the ball and a lot more time to play against a less gifted central midfield of Stephane Mbia and Alex Song. So the crossing could be varied with balls into the channels for Mandzukic to run into and hold up while Olic and Perisic use their forward instincts to get into the box.

Cameroon suffer from the same problem as a lot of other African sides with a smattering of excellent players paired with mostly serviceable teammates. It has been most evident with Yaya Toure of the Ivory Coast over the years, with the midfielder used to playing a defensive role with his club (sometimes even playing at centre back in Barcelona), but having to be more creative with his country simply because of the lack of quality of his teammates.

Alex Song suffers much the same problem with Cameroon. Used in a very limited destroyer or centre back role with Barcelona, he has to almost perform two jobs for Cameroon, supporting his midfielders and playing passes to his forwards, while simultaneously being expected to mark the opponent’s midfield and breaking up play. It is an impossible role, and against Mexico Cameroon were exceptionally poor defensively because Song offered no support to his centre backs and also did not track Mexico’s midfielders breaking into space. Alternatively, Song did create the joint most chances for Cameroon along with Benoit Assou-Ekotto, but if he abandons his defensive duties against Croatia’s midfield Cameroon will be torn apart.

Cameroon’s lack of midfielders accomplished in possession will also hurt them, because Croatia’s main weakness is that their midfield lacks steel without the ball. Although Modric and Rakitic are experienced enough to take up good positions without the ball, they are not overly physical, and can be bypassed easily, while Croatia’s other three midfielders are basically forwards with poor defensive awareness. However Cameroon simply do not have a midfielder capable of reliably recycling possession and holding on to the ball for long enough to exploit this.

Because the side sits so deep, whoever the forward will be in Cameroon’s 4-5-1 (most likely (Pierre Webo, although Cameroon brought on a second striker when chasing the game against Mexico) will often be outnumbered unable to do any damage to the opposition. With Eto’o this was less of a problem because he is a gifted enough player to drop deep and get other players involved, but Webo at 32 is far less effective outside of the penalty area.

While Cameroon will mostly be forced to defend deep, their main threat could come through the left hand side, where Assou Ekotto and Eric Choupo Moting combined well against Mexico to put some dangerous balls into the box. However Cameroon are unlikely to be strong enough to gain anything against a strong Croatia side.

Cameroon

Croatia

Recently in England there’s been an obsession with the playmaker. Every side has one or more, even teams fighting to avoid relegation like QPR and Southampton. The recent infatuation with creativity and technique is a classic case of sides copying success. Barcelona have won everything with small, technical players, so leading Premier League sides mimicked the Catalans, to be mimicked in turn by clubs lower down the table.

This recent love-in has had some interesting effects on the league. Due to the very nature of a number 10, a trequartista, whatever term you affix to him, games involving this type of player get more exciting. This is a role that rarely tracks back or runs hard, but focuses on playing risky passes with the highest possible reward. Since the influx of number 10’s to England, score lines have grown dramatically, often in favor of the big teams. Not only do they have the money to buy the best creative players in the world, their forwards and defenders are often better equipped to take advantage of having such a player in the side. Relegation-bound sides often can’t afford to have a Taarabt or Gaston Ramirez wasting the few opportunities a game where they have the ball and are not working hard without it. For sides scrapping to stay in the league with less gifted players, securing every point possible is paramount. And that means being hard to beat first and foremost.

For that reason it may be better to abandon the fixation with a trequartista and go with a different solution, ironically coming from one of the playmaker’s spiritual homes. Michael Cox has recently written about Italy’s falling-out with the number 10 just as the rest of Europe has become enamored. No team better explains his point than Milan.

This season AC Milan have normally lined up in something resembling a 4-3-3, where the side is connected not by a playmaker and not through creativity, but through energy. None of Ambrosini, Montolivo, or Kevin-Prince Boateng are exceptionally tricky players who can spot miniscule gaps to send forwards behind the defense. But they don’t have to be. Top class playmakers are expensive and in cash-strapped Italy they’ve had to create chances to score in a different way. (Fiorentina being an honourable exception.)

Like any strong side Milan bosses possession, with well over 50% on average. However, their offensive style of play can easily be adapted for smaller teams. Essentially when their central forward, normally a big strong player like Pazzini or Mario Ballotelli, drops away from a deep defense he receives the ball to his feet. The trio of midfielders and two wide forwards run around and beyond him and the striker lays the ball off. The team is still fluid and the tempo high, but the ball isn’t being sent into the final third with cute passes, but through aggressive movement.

For an English example, Newcastle United have never bought into the playmaking fad. Their most technically gifted player in Yohan Cabaye who sits slightly deeper than expected, retaining possession and playing the ball to the flanks, but he rarely springs offside traps. The Magpies have always relied on the strength and aggressive running of their forwards, whether it be Ba, Cisse, or Ameobi. This January window Newcastle also bought several strong midfield runners, such as Moussa Sissoko.

It’s far easier and cheaper to make a style such as this work because there is no need for extraordinarily talent or technique, although it’s doubtless that Milan will have more of this than most sides. For a rich side, able to afford the likes of Mata and Oscar, it makes sense to invest in the highest quality playmakers. But for smaller clubs, perhaps it’s better to try something different.

Queens Park Rangers struggles in this season’s Premier League are well documented. Despite having an expensive squad with several glittering names, the London club have been rooted at the foot of the league table for almost the entire season. Taking over from Mark Hughes with the aim of keeping QPR up, it initially seemed that Harry Redknapp had an impossible job, but the former Tottenham boss has gone about this dogfight quite pragmatically.

Since Redknapp took charge at the end of November, QPR have become much harder to beat. They’ve lost only three out of eleven in the league, despite winning only twice. They haven’t been scoring much, less than a goal per game, but it is clear where Redknapp’s priority lies.

Good teams take time to build. They need a clear vision and playing style along with several transfer windows of recruiting players suited to the playing style. Shorn of that, it is much easier for a new manager to focus on organization, defensive drills that any team can memorize. What Redknapp is doing is similar to what most international managers do before major tournaments. Without the luxury of having most of your first choice national players playing for the same side domestically, such as in Spain, it is much easier to use what little time you have to focus on solidity. When goals are scored it is usually the result of individual magic, rather than flowing team moves.

What Redknapp has done is have QPR defend very deep with two banks of four, leaving Adel Taraabt and a striker with pace (either Djibril Cisse or Loic Remy) slightly ahead of the rest to prompt counters. Flair players such as Esteban Granero and Alejandro Faurlin have been sent away or seen their minutes diminish and players comfortable defending deep such as Christopher Samba have been signed. Redknapp clearly expects his side to have to make plenty of blocks and last ditch tackles due to defending solely in their own penalty area.

What goals they will score are probably going to arise due to Taraabt playing through the lone striker or an onrushing midfielder, but the focus is obviously not on offensive fluidity. The longer Redknapp stays in the job the more expansive QPR will eventually get, but that takes time. With such a mismatched squad, being hard to beat for the rest of the season is probably the best QPR fans can hope for.

Will Rangers stay up? Probably not, they’re in quite a big hole. However with this new strategy under Redknapp they’re certainly giving a much better account of themselves.

Stability in football is an exceptionally unsexy, yet necessary topic. While fans and the media love big-money buys and managerial changes, the truth is that there is only one surefire way for teams without ridiculous money or talent to outperform expectations: familiarity. Swansea and Wigan are but two examples of how focusing on clear playing strategies instead of expensive player recruitment can pay dividends in the long run. Queens Park Rangers, on the other hand, show how short-term thinking can damage an organization.

The side propping up the Premier League table has been through wealthy owner after wealthy owner, from Bernie Ecclestone to Tony Fernandes, who decided the best way to ensure Premiership survival was to splash the cash. At 40 players, QPR’s current squad is extraordinarily bloated, and not with rubbish players either. Four Champions League winners amid other players recruited from the likes of Real Madrid should surely make a squad too big to fail. Yet failing they are, proving that you cannot throw players into a mixer with no discernable strategy and expect them to succeed.

Not only have playing staff and formations been changed, but the side has no overall identity. Teams like Napoli or Arsenal are known for something, holding possession or being lethal on the break. Harry Redknapp’s deployment of Adel Taarabt as a false nine was just the latest example of Rangers trying something, anything, with the myriad number of players they have.

It’s always better to identify a strategy and recruit players to specific roles, rather than buying talented players and hoping they will be able to contribute in any system. This is especially true for a club like Queens Park Rangers who can’t offer European competition, meaning they aren’t in the market for the very top talent. But QPR are only the most extravagant example of a long-standing problem. Too often newly promoted sides, conscious of the financial rewards of staying in the Premiership, smash their transfer record or wage budget on some superstar in the hopes that individual quality will keep them in the top flight, rather than the system that they’d used to get themselves into the top flight.

Southampton, for example, spent £12m on Gaston Ramirez and made him their highest paid player by some distance. The Uruguayan certainly hasn’t been a disaster, and actually does fit into Southampton’s system, but if that money had been spent on two or three lesser players that could fill roles in Southampton’s fluid offense, the Saints would have more depth and may have coped better with their injury list that has included Adam Lallana and Ramirez himself.

Currently, for a team like Cardiff City, once again close to winning promotion after spending several years in the Championship, QPR must prove a warning. After their own recent spending splurges and financial problems, Cardiff have been admirably more prudent. They developed a consistent style of play under Dave Jones and now Malky Mackay, and bought sensibly this summer after several seasons of solidification. If they do reach the top flight they would be better served emulating their fellow Welsh club and focusing on how they play rather than who they play.

As silly season descends upon the Premier League again and the transfer rumours start heating up, it becomes quite easy as fans to forget about things like budgets and stability and start dreaming of shiny new player acquisitions to help your club avoid relegation or reach Europe. Truth be told, precious few transfers ever reach the heights of success originally dreamt, but that never stops supporters believing that spending is the best way out of a jam.

The January window is especially interesting, tantalizingly placed just after a grueling festive period has left certain teams in no doubt as to how much help they supposedly need and in what areas. Sometimes that help arrives; Demba Ba nearly kept West Ham up and Luis Suarez helped Liverpool forget all about Roy Hodgson. But sometimes panic buying in winter leaves you with £50m worth of disappointment.

It is in this writer’s observation that most transfers don’t work out as well as hoped for due to a club paying for short-term performances over long-term data.

For example, after almost every World Cup or European Championship, a player that starred will be the subject of a big money move. Think about the now-derided Andrey Arshavin’s £15m move to Arsenal which came after he helped Russia reach the semifinals of Euro 2008 and Zenit St. Petersburg win the UEFA Cup. It wasn’t just the Gunners either, Tottenham and Barcelona also fell for the sensationalism surrounding a player who had starred in notoriously fluky Cup Competitions and was coming off his first truly consistent season in the Russian league after becoming a regular in 2001.

The same short term outlook is putting media pressure on Arsene Wenger to sign Theo Walcott to a reported £100,000 a week because he’s finally on pace to top 10 goals and assists over a league campaign. Something he’s never looked on course to do since becoming a regular for Arsenal in 2006. Two or three good performances at striker that come with the motivation of being in the shop window should not be allowed to cloud the mind of executives that have the evidence of Walcott’s 164 league matches for Arsenal in front of them.

Similarly, public pressure on Arsene Wenger to spend money on anybody has seen Olivier Giroud castigated for not hitting the heights of last season after his move to the Emirates. However Giroud is scoring at about the same rate for Arsenal as he’s done for most of his entire career. It’s just that his entire £12m move was based off of one season with Montpellier where he scored 21 goals in league football.

For what makes a good transfer, one must look at probably Arsene Wenger’s best signing this summer, (not counting Santi Cazorla who was the product of extraordinary circumstances and went for far below market value), Lukas Podolski. Signed for around £10.5m, the German international is poised to give Arsenal what he’s given the Bundesliga for over five seasons, 12-15 goals from a wide forward position (currently on pace for 13 in the league alone).

Another, perhaps more obvious example of the importance of continuity is David Villa.  El Guaje seemed expensive for €40m but from the new millennium to his broken leg in 2011/12, he’d never finished with less than 20 goals a season, often adding double digit assists as well, no matter what team he was on.

In the end, no player can outrun statistics for very long, and these days when formal training starts so young, player’s ceilings are usually developed quite early. Very often a player’s traits are fully defined by his mid-twenties and one excellent season often can’t be replicated. Especially not if after that season an immediate big money move and bigger expectations are thrust on the player’s shoulders.

Ever since Rafael Benitez left Liverpool, fans have seemingly lurched from one crisis to another, even if that word is thrown about all too loosely these days. From struggles with ownership and transfers to constant managerial upheaval, Anfield has rarely looked like a fortress since the Spanish manager’s departure.

For a time, Liverpool fans could have merely considered these tumultuous times a mere blip, pointing out that other titans of the game such as Inter Milan and Juventus were also undergoing difficult periods. Those sleeping giants awoke courtesy of smart investment and canny managerial appointments, the argument was that there was no reason Liverpool couldn’t do the same under Brendan Rodgers. After all this club could still beat anybody on its day. Witness how Chelsea and Manchester City were dispatched en route to the League Cup triumph last season, or how Manchester United were knocked out of the FA Cup.

However this season even these hollow victories are no more. Liverpool recently attained the heights of eight place (dropping to 10^th after losing at the Brittania), where they ended last season and where this squad’s ceiling seemingly lies. Liverpool average around 1.3 points per game. They’ve averaged around that ever since Benitez left barring one brilliant spell under the returning Kenny Dalglish. Upper mid table is the limit of their current ambitions, and they’ve been playing like it.

Currently, the highest placed opponent to have been put to the sword by Liverpool is Norwich City in 11^th, and the Canaries were in the midst of a horrible run when the Reds were fortunate enough to meet them. Liverpool’s other victories have come against sides lying 12^th, 14^th, 17^th, 18^th and 19^th. Fans have become used to being elated at the thrashing of minnows one week and suffocating against competent sides the next. Last season Liverpool’s problem was that they didn’t kill sides that other teams beat handily, they more than held their own against the big guns. This season that’s all changed. Liverpool average a miserable 0.43 points in their games against the top seven sides in the table. Last season the corresponding figure was 1.5 (It was only 1.29 points per game against clubs finishing below Liverpool). If this season’s figure would have been boosted by deserved wins at Manchester City and Everton, then surely perspective would still be gained by the thrashings handed out by Arsenal, Tottenham and West Brom.

Most fans believe in what Brendan Rodgers is trying to do. He has a clear style of football that the public can get behind and the manager certainly can’t be held responsible for all the upheaval going on at the club before he arrived. But there is no escaping that this transition season could have been handled better. Instead of building on what was already here, a defense that conceded only 1.05 goals per game and an offense that had lots of possession but little scoring prowess, nothing has improved substantially and the defense has regressed. Liverpool now concede 1.37 goals per game, and in games against the top seven that figure goes up to 2.

Liverpool have at times demonstrated a humming offense, and at least they seem to be playing with a clear plan, but the most important part, results, or at least several clear steps in the right direction, still haven’t materialized. On the evidence of results against the sides Liverpool will have to jockey for position with should they ever want to stand on the top of the table again, the Reds are slipping further and further away from where they want to be.

This writer must confess, Lucas Leiva has never been his favorite Liverpool player. The Brazilian is articulate, tidy, and one of the best holding midfielders in the world. Still, my eye is shallowly drawn to flashes of genius, readily shown by those who have the luxury of playing high up field where every twist and turn could lead to a goal. It’s only natural, I tell myself. Amongst all the excitement of watching Luis Suarez twist and turn three defenders it’s quite easy to forget how much easier the Uruguayan’s job, and those of his teammates, is made easier by the Lucas’ presence.

It’s all the more shameful because this writer has long considered himself too smart to be fooled by the myth of Brazil’s jogo bonito. The Seleção figured out long ago that the only way creative players flourish is with a strong base behind them. The true keys to World Cup success have always lain with players such as Gilberto Silva or Dunga. Hardly carthorses but players that excelled at the less glamorous part of the game. Still Lucas is overlooked. For shame.

Lucas Leiva is continuing the proud tradition of that very special type of enforcer. He is Liverpool’s Sergio Busquets, one of the best at fulfilling the new role of the holding midfielder. Busquets isn’t protecting the defense with last gasp challenges but rather keeping the side in a position from where those challenges don’t have to be made. Similarly, Lucas isn’t a pure destroyer but every player around him now has the freedom to express himself because there is organization behind them.

Against Southampton, all shakiness from Liverpool’s midfield seemed to have vanished. The midfield triangle could be flipped to a 1-2 without fear as Joe Allen and Steven Gerrard weren’t overloaded with. Things were done more as a unit. And for all the fear seemingly caused by West Ham’s aerial barrage it’s worth noting that no West Ham player scored from open play, with Lucas doing a decent job marshalling a side led by the rampaging Mohamed Diame.

Brendan Rodgers always talks about Liverpool becoming a side that cherishes the ball, and that means the idol to live up to has to be Barcelona. And Sergio Busquets is absolutely key to everything Barcelona do. With the ball he drops back between the center-halves, allowing the fullbacks freedom to give width to an often narrow side, almost keeping Barcelona in a metodo shape. Collecting the ball from Valdes or Puyol it is Busquets who starts most offensive moves, simple outlets to Xavi or Iniesta who display the stunning diagonals and through balls.

In his short time back it seems that Lucas has been trying to perform a similar job with Liverpool, dropping between Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel to ensure the Reds aren’t left with a shortage at the back when Jose Enrique and Glen Johnson bomb forward. Lucas has also been charged with instigating most of Liverpool’s forward moves, Leiva to Allen was the most common pass combination in the West Ham fixture.

Liverpool have been rebuilding for quite some time now, and it often hasn’t looked as if they’ve been doing it with a clear plan. Rodgers has a defined ethos, and although as a possession based team Liverpool are absurdly far away from the class of Barcelona or Bayern Munich, at least this rebuilding appears to have a point.

Researching or studying football tactics can seem like an overwhelming task, simply because aside from the basic framework provided by the rulebook, so much else is left fluid. Formations, player roles, player positions, they all mean something different depending on the context and meaning of the speaker.

Is a striker always a striker? What about when he’s a false nine? Is a midfielder always a midfielder? If his main job is to tackle and shield, wouldn’t that make him a defender? Football’s most loved characters and teams have been the ones that transcended the duties of their positions, rising to a higher plane. Franz Beckenbauer scoffed at the idea that a defender should be confined to a third of the pitch. Total Football placed players anywhere they could be useful. Positions are changing constantly, and by extension so are the players that fill them.

At one point in the recent past the holding midfielder was expected to resemble Claude Makelele. In teams such as Real Madrid and Chelsea, it was Makelele’s defensive skillset that allowed the attacking players in front of him to flourish. Zidane in fact referred to Makelele as the “engine” of the 2002 Champions League winning side. The Frenchman tackled, broke up plays, and was composed enough on the ball to successfully pass it to a more creative teammate close by.

Now, the role as changed. It is no longer the “Makelele” role, but the “Guardiola” role. Whereas Makelele thought tackling was his main responsibility, the holding midfielder now sees his main job as to recycle possession. Build attacks. Claude Makelele was the prototypical holding midfielder, but the new breed is Sergio Busquets. Physically slight when compared to the burly Makelele the Spanish midfielder never the less plays an extremely important role for Barcelona with his positional sense and technical ability. Old-style holding midfielders such as Javier Mascherano are increasingly being converted to center-backs, where they fulfill a useful role in playing the ball out of defense while not sacrificing strength in the challenge.

Football is cyclical, Guardiola said himself towards the end of his career that he believed players like himself had become obsolete. But there needs to be a reason why the holding position has undergone such a dramatic change. Refereeing is certainly one argument, with successful tackling becoming one of the hardest skills to master in the modern game. Top sides are increasingly reluctant to field a player who is unlikely to last 90 minutes. Even when sides are looking to shut up shop, such as France against Spain or Chelsea against Barcelona ensure that their central midfielders are skillful on the ball and not too aggressive.

A more substantial argument is that the dominant style of play has changed around the world thanks largely to Barcelona and the Spanish national side. Those Chelsea and Real Madrid sides were great, but they didn’t emphasize possession like Barcelona and many other top sides do now. Teams are rushing to include as many technically gifted players as possible in their eleven. Players capable of slick passing and quick movement throughout the pitch. Manchester United this summer is a pertinent example. With his side crying out for defensive reinforcement Alex Ferguson instead purchased Shinji Kagawa and Robin Van Persie, a sign of how he intended to build his team. Throughout Europe’s top leagues the 4-4-2 has largely been abandoned in favor of a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 where much of the action happens in the middle of the pitch and a pure holding midfielder finds himself outnumbered and played around.

A sure sign that the traditional holding midfielder had been made obsolete at the highest level by this new wave of up-tempo football was Javier Mascherano’s dismantling at the hands of Germany in South Africa. Playing with five offensive players in front of him in Maradona’s midfield diamond Mascherano was trusted as the lone midfield shield. The Germans made Argentina’s captain obsolete by using superior central numbers to play the ball around him.

Most sides are now relying on technical partnerships in the center of the field to ensure that type of result never happens. Sides like Barcelona have no need for a Makelele in the center of the field because their primary defensive work is done with the ball, having possession means the other side can’t score. Indeed having a player with such a limited range of passing is often a liability for such a side, if possession cannot be recycled safely then they are vulnerable to counter-attacks at speed.

In this day and age Claude Makelele appears a product of a bygone era, where football sides were disjointed. Offensive players largely stayed forward with the knowledge that all their mistakes would be cleaned up by a stationary player behind them. Now the game is much more fluid, sides defend and attack with almost the same number of players. Playing with a broken side and depending on a single Makelele doesn’t work anymore, teams have to work as a whole.

In the future, and the progression may be taking root right now, the world will develop a counter for possession football. Staying narrow with some out and out wide players left upfield to catch the opposition fullbacks high up the pitch, looking to strike on the counter. When that style becomes the norm a dedicated holder capable of shuttling across the pitch and winning the ball may come back to prominence. Now, however, the central midfielder has a new purpose.

When Brendan Rodgers got the Liverpool job, he brought in a very Spanish-Dutch style of play. Possession is everything. All offensive and defensive work starts with the ball. When you are without the ball you need to win it back as quickly as possible. Rodgers has already spoken about his desire to see Liverpool play and win through domination of the playing zone. “Death by football” was his direct quote.

The Spanish style popularized by Barcelona and La Roja also accepts the Total Football idea of only requiring one strategy. When Barcelona are losing, they don’t throw balls into the box without thinking. They continue their strategy of passing around the opponent. If your Plan A is good enough, you won’t need a Plan B. Rodgers has supported this notion too, in shooting down the idea that he would seek to recall Andy Carroll from West Ham in January due to Liverpool’s lack of strikers. Liverpool’s manager said throwing on a large center forward in the dying moments of the game was a tactic that reeked of desperation, and wasn’t one he wanted to impart on his side. It’s the right message. Ninety nine times out of 100, Barcelona’s plan works. Occasionally Chelsea or Celtic will win but that always requires a huge amount of luck on their part. For example Chelsea only progressed in the Champions League last season because of Messi’s uncharacteristic penalty miss.

So Liverpool’s strategy is quite simple — keep the ball, rest with the ball. Recycle possession and tire your opponent. There should be constant movement by offensive players so that when a defender makes a mistake, it’s punished. The theory behind this is that constant possession in the opposition half should lead to better chances, chances closer to the opposition goal. Chances that are easier to finish. For example, lots of Barcelona goals are simply tap-ins resulting from getting behind the opposition defense and squaring the ball. When you’re dealing with a Liverpool side who struggle to finish their chances, creating high quality scoring opportunities is paramount.

Yet for all the possession football, the results have stayed largely the same as last season. Liverpool still largely outplay their opponents, taking eight more shots a game, but they don’t score nearly enough. So far Rodgers’ possession football seems to have taken hold, with Liverpool averaging 58% possession, but their dominance is often sterile. Too often it seems that they play tidily in non-threatening areas but lose their composure in the final third.

Scoring Stats after 10 Matches

It’s easy to see that when compared to their rivals for the lucrative Champions League places, Liverpool are an anomaly. The lowest shooting percentage by far, and the most shots required to score a goal. They’ve only scored one goal more than Newcastle, and even Alan Pardew has admitted his side has started the season quite poorly. Liverpool have been playing reasonably well, with a reasonably healthy squad. They’re just not reaping their rewards.

It’s obvious that the secret to scoring the most goals isn’t to do it by volume. Manchester United and Chelsea have scored the most goals and only Newcastle has taken less shots than those two teams.

The key is to get good shots, shots that you can put on target. Shots that Liverpool’s system is supposedly designed to find.

Breaking down Liverpool’s shot selection throughout this season, it becomes apparent that the Reds are still struggling to find a cutting edge. Currently Liverpool are taking 44% of their shots from outside the box, far too high for a side who have only one semi-consistent long range striker of the ball in Steven Gerrard. Barcelona, in comparison, only take 37% of their shots from outside the box and they face sides who show far less ambition than those that play Liverpool. The Catalans also win quite a few more free kicks in dangerous positions.

Watching Liverpool, one gets the idea that they get frustrated far too easily and resort to low percentage efforts. Such shots usually are blocked or hand the goalkeeper a chance to clear his lines, forcing Liverpool to have to press hard and regain possession.

Steven Gerrard is representative of Liverpool’s struggles. Being played in a deeper role by Rodgers, it seems he hardly ever gets in the opposition penalty area anymore. For example, all five of his shots against Newcastle were from outside the box, all blocked or off target. When Gerrard is making surging midfield runs, like against Manchester United when he scored from inside the opposition penalty area, Liverpool look a different team. Runners from midfield also drag the defense out of position, enabling shots from distance to be uncontested and more likely to succeed. With driving runs against Manchester United from Gerrard and Suso, even after Shelvey was sent off, Liverpool had three out of their four long distance shots on target.

In fact, the game in which Liverpool arguably looked most superior was one of the flukiest results of their season. Four out of five goals against Norwich came from outside the box, and all five shots on targets were goals. That won’t happen every week, and it hasn’t. Similarly, 65% of Liverpool’s shots against Manchester City were from outside the penalty area, but one of them was Luis Suarez’s miraculous free kick.

Liverpool’s opponents have realized that the easy way to defend against the Reds is to let them have the first two-thirds of the pitch, rendering their possession sterile. When the final third is cramped for room, Liverpool all too readily abandon their desire for passing football and snatch at the first shooting opportunity.

If Liverpool continues on this path, then the entire season will be a continuation of its first 10 games. The Merseyside club will dominate possession but everything will collapse like a house of cards in the final third, bar one or two lucky games. This is not a path to the top four.

Today, where so much money rests on the result of a team’s soccer season, the number of clubs that aren’t being managed with the idea of sustainable competitiveness is crazy. Players come, players go. Even top clubs such as Arsenal or Manchester United are constantly faced with the threat of superstars leaving, while Real are forced to spend viciously every few years to attract the next set of galacticos. Very few clubs can build around the talent currently at their disposal in the knowledge that it will be there for years to come.

Far better then, to have a club-wide philosophy that maximizes the resources of whatever playing style the club chooses to adopt. Keeping the same management team is obviously a plus, but as long as the newcomer keeps the team moving forward in the same vein, refinement is achieved without taking two steps back for every one forward. Consider Tito Vilanova at Barcelona, who has continued work started long ago by the Dream Team of Johan Cruyff.  Or even the evolution of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, who have adjusted their playing style slightly year by year, while maintaining the same principles of technical football that were brought into the club in 1996.

A lot of my previous articles have stressed that the teams who outperform expectations are ones that have a strategy their club revolves around, a strategy hard to imitate. You cannot magically recreate La Masia and start a Barcelona-style conveyer belt of talent. The seeds for that resource were laid long ago and it would take a tremendous amount of money and time to replicate. To use another more drastic example, Lionel Messi probably wouldn’t be considered the best player in the world if he played for Stoke City. Is that a slight on Messi? No. It’s not his fault he’s 5’7″. Stoke have a system (one that’s worked well for them) revolving around long balls and physicality. Messi is no good if the ball is constantly going over his head. Similarly, to take advantage of Messi, Stoke would have to either spend a lot on good playmakers or change their entire youth setup to develop one.

All of which leads us to Swansea. An example of a club that started finding the process of finding what was right for them under Kenny Jackett, and keeping that style constant through Roberto Martinez, Paulo Sousa, Brendan Rodgers and now, Michael Laudrup.

It’s not like Swansea are the first club to figure out that if you don’t have money or stature you need to compete in other ways. Here is an excellent three piece article on how SC Freiburg’s manager Volker Finke kept the German side punching above their weight simply by having a clearer vision than those around him.

Finke’s logic was simple. Most teams attempt to imitate what the top sides are doing, but without the resources. So if Barcelona are winning everything, suddenly everybody is scrambling to find a side capable of holding possession and playing a genius pass. However if you’re a small club, all the technical players who can do those things well are some way out of your budget. So the club breaks its bank on players who maybe can do those things, just not effectively. So Joe Cole is signed for more than he’s worth to do nothing. Bojan goes to Roma for €12m so that they can be somewhat like Barcelona, except the only reason Bojan was allowed to leave Barcelona was because he wasn’t good enough. And Roma have now sent him off to Milan this season and ended their Barca experiment. So obviously that doesn’t work.

The second option is to do the opposite of whatever the general trend is, in the hopes that top sides will be negated. So if Barcelona are dominating by having the ball and playing a high line, more and more teams are sitting extremely deep and using their limited possession to hoof balls behind Dani Alves. This rarely works. Although the few times it does, people get quite excited.

The option Finke chose was to do neither. He realized that the obsession with mimicry had led to lots of quite useful players being left unwanted because they didn’t fit into a stereotype. If a side with a cohesive strategy could be built around those types of players then it could provide quite a shock to the establishment.

Swansea have done similar to Freiburg. Much has been made of Roberto Martinez’s scouting. You can see it in the number of young players with fine technical ability brought in on the cheap at Wigan. Laudrup and Rodgers have done the same. Pablo Hernandez and Michu are Spanish players of old, before La Furia Roja became tiki-taka. Quite direct, but still with an excellent first touch, and players that hardly cost a fortune considering their output and reputation. Hernandez was on a Champions League team in Valencia. Michu was the highest scoring Spanish midfielder in La Liga last season. The only reason Swansea got them so cheap is because most other sides were busy trying to emulate the dominant tactic of the age or the dominant counter for the tactic of the age.

The style Swansea play is an extension of what had been installed quite some time ago. They still keep the ball on the ground, they still look graceful. All Laudrup has really done is to speed up the tempo. The possession statistics aren’t as high, and they do sit quite deep at times, but they have the technical ability to play their way out of trouble and the creativity to take advantage on the break. It’s a hybrid style that not many other teams are playing, and certainly not any teams with Swansea’s resources. QPR have just thrown money at a boatload of players, expecting them to fit in a 4-4-2. West Ham have a clear strategy as well, but one not nearly as attractive to the neutral.

Are Swansea going to continue on an upward trend until they reach Champions League nirvana? No. Freiburg made the UEFA Cup occasionally, but they also dealt with relegation as players they made into stars left for fatter contracts. But Swansea are in the last eight of the League Cup, and are one Middlesbrough win away from reaching the semi-final. Plus, with a good run of form, they could improve on last season’s 11th-place finish and sneak into the Europa League.

At the very top level, resources will always win out. Realistically being a version of Stoke City or Fulham, secure in the top division and with the potential to challenge for the Europa League, may be the ceiling. No shame in that, not every club can have an oligarch benefactor. And without one, having a proper vision is the best a club can do.

Arsenal used to try and emulate Barcelona, but now they’re closer to Real Madrid. They used to be a side of clever, tricky players. Now the London club trots out a much more physically imposing lineup, represented in the early part of the season by the magnificent Abou Diaby.

Wenger wanted to win games through possession. Now his side dominate teams that want to win games through possession. A recurring theme of Arsenal’s season has been clinical destruction of opponents that try and play aggressively against them. Liverpool, Southampton, Montpellier — they were all dispatched by a side that countered swiftly and decisively.

I’ve written before about Arsenal’s transition to a more direct style, encapsulated by Arsene Wenger’s signing of Lukas Podolski and Gervinho to play in positions once manned by the likes of Samir Nasri. Almost all new Arsenal signings have pace to burn and a hunger to shoot (if not always the required accuracy). Santi Cazorla is the conductor that makes it all possible. Often staying high up the pitch, in a role that Mesut Ozil plays flawlessly for Real Madrid, the Spanish playmaker starts and finishes break ingeniously.

Personally, I like this new Arsenal. It’s slick and has impressive verticality, all while retaining Wenger’s philosophy of keeping the football on the ground. Of course the question to ask is… has the team done better? Is the new style curing the deficiencies the old style couldn’t?

The answer is no. Arsenal’s problem this year is the same as in years past. When sides pack their own half and play on the counter themselves, there’s very little ingenuity to break them down. Sunderland and Stoke both drew, Shalke and Norwich won. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar referenced the tactic in his post-match interview. The Dutchman said “we tried to keep the defense and the midfield close together, to deny them space to operate between the lines.”  Hold a deep block, keep the side compact to ensure Cazorla has no joy, and suddenly Arsenal have to do all the running. The problem in fact may have exacerbated as more and more creative players get sold or frozen out each year.

It’s not as if these games are rare failings in the style of Barcelona either. Even West Ham looked good for a point or three against the Gunners and could have had it if Kevin Nolan had converted some very good chances.

Against sides that sit deep is when Arsenal truly miss Robin Van Persie. He turned into more of a poacher in his last year at the club and always offered a focal point to run attacks through. Even in seasons before that, he was a constant source of ingenuity, pulling wide, dropping deep, and testing the opposition with accurate long range shooting.

Of course the Netherlands star isn’t in London anymore, and Arsenal need an alternate route to victory. The Guardian has made note of Wenger playing Gervinho as the “falsest of false nines” and as hilarious as that may sound, it’s a decent start. Gervinho offers pace and trickery in a similar (though less good) way as Lionel Messi, dropping deep and taking defenders with him, then slipping a through ball to onrushing attackers. Another way Wenger has tried dealing with the situation is to use Olivier Giroud as a penalty-box presence. This plan seems like a good way to deal with the problem, offering a poacher in the box that Arsenal can run their attacks through similar to Van Persie. However, the Frenchman’s inaccurate finishing means this strategy hasn’t reaped many dividends yet.

In the long run, Arsenal should be fine. The squad is full of quality and appears deeper than seasons before. As Cazorla plays more with his teammates it will be harder to mark him out of the game as Oscar did in the London derby. In fact, stretching the pitch on the counter may even help them against other top sides that want to come at them. In the short-term however, Arsene Wenger needs to find a way to consistently beat the teams that Arsenal ‘should beat’.

People have been writing about the modern association of soccer with business for many years now. Soccernomics, that beautiful book that marries football passion with economic realities, helpfully points out that the problem with this association is that clubs aren’t often treated with the same rules as a free-market business. They hardly ever close their doors due to bad management, and even if they do, they’re allowed to start over with relatively few penalties. However one area where soccer firms are trying to copy their business counterparts is the area of competitive advantage.

In its simplest and most understandable form, Danish Economist Birger Wernerfelt’s view of competitive advantage is defined by the Resource Based View of a firm. According to Wernerfelt, the only way a company can consistently outperform its rivals is through use of a resource that is valuable, rare and that requires extensive tradeoffs to imitate. If a firm coordinates its activities to take advantage of such a resource, it can stay ahead of the competition for quite a while.

A somewhat (though far from perfect) footballing reference point to this business jargon is the ‘firm’ of Barcelona. La Masia is an extraordinarily valuable footballing resource akin to a specialized training program at any Fortune 500 company. They produce recruits that basically only know how to play one way, a style that doesn’t change from the academy to the reserve team and through to the first XI. That’s the reason why Barcelona only buys one or two necessary players each transfer window, and usually young ones. High priced imports such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alex Song and even David Villa to an extent, look like fish out of water a lot of the time. Cesc Fabregas received an education at La Masia and he’s still finding it hard to reintegrate himself after being away for only a few years. Xavi and Andres Iniesta call themselves “sons of the system”. This resource ensures that Barcelona teams always have a conveyer belt of talent that has an advantage over most other sides because their players are 100% comfortable with employed tactics and personnel. Players such as Christian Tello or Isaac Cuenca would not be considered that great in other teams, but they always look lethal when playing for Barcelona because the runs and movements they make are consistent with what they’ve been doing from childhood.

Could Real Madrid set up an academy and do the same thing? Perhaps, but the costs necessary would mean that they perhaps couldn’t buy the best players of the world today, (especially if the club’s finances continue to feel pressure), ensuring Barcelona dominance for some time.

All of this theory brings us to the practical realities of the Premier League. It’s important to note that not every resource can be as immense or as helpful as La Masia. Obviously Premiership clubs are doing things on a smaller scale. The point this article is trying to make is that teams are finally striving to create an identity. Something that will give them the edge over the competition. Teams such as QPR that attempt to mash some good players together with no discernible strategy are finally becoming things of the past.

I’ve written before about how a settled and defined playing style can help teams perform to and above potential and so have other people. Michael Cox speaks about Everton’s focus on their left side and how Stoke and West Ham have easily identifiable long ball strategies so they can pick up the second ball in and around the penalty area. Brendan Rodgers obviously wants to retain possession and beat teams through “death by football”. Arsenal are remaining compact while breaking dangerously on teams that play a high line.

In this day and age, where the financial incentives for performance are huge, you don’t see two teams just throwing on their most expensive players and seeing what happens. Matches and seasons are often just as much a contest of strategy as of skill. Jonathan Wilson notes that in individual games, the most common scenario is that of Possession vs. Position. However over the course of a season one can argue what’s happening in the modern day Premiership is a club attempting to come up with a clear strategy that gives it better results than its closest competitors. Clubs that make best use out of the resources at their disposal may see their league standing jump accordingly.

This is how it should be. Innovate or fail.

I’ve written previously about my opinion on Brendan Rodgers’ hiring as Liverpool manager. Rodgers obviously has a clear and attractive footballing philosophy that appeals to fans, heavily influenced by the Total Football style of the Dutch and Spanish. The one point of worry for supporters may have been his rapid ascent, being placed in a big club with all its pressures before he’s fully developed the ability to think on his feet when things aren’t going well.

His failure to respond when Norwich City negated his most advanced midfielder and how uncomfortable Swansea looked when asked to play in any way besides the standard 4-3-3 supported the argument. However, despite the poor start to the season points wise, Rodgers’ Liverpool has shown the ability to remain unflustered and adapt to their surroundings. In their fixture last week against Young Boys, Jonjo Shelvey’s introduction added a directness to the midfield that helped break down the Swiss side. Bringing on a young midfielder for the winger Assaidi placed a focus on attacking through the middle rather than aimless crosses into the box.

Last Sunday against Manchester United, things were really going against Rodgers and Liverpool. Despite their unquestioned dominance in the first half the Reds entered the second a man down and with nothing to show for it. Considering the gravity of the occasion, it would have been easy for Rodgers to sit back in a 4-4-1 or 4-5-0 and claim a tough point at home. Instead he was proactive, with his substitutions offensive minded (Agger and Borini were forced through injury but Rodgers still managed to use the latter to his advantage).

Rodgers 4-3-1-1 formation during the second half was one of the best displays of football by a side with 10 men. Even Alex Ferguson conceded his side was second best, calling the performance poor. The strategy undertaken was a similar one used by Joes Mourinho during a Milan derby in 2010.

In that game Inter started with a 4-3-1-2 and Milan with a 4-3-3. Inter, just like Liverpool, dominated before the red card by virtue of overloading the central midfield. Wesley Sneijder and Luis Suarez both found joy between the lines. After the red card Mourinho kept the spine of his side intact with his 4-3-1-1, meaning Milan’s extra man did not apply in the middle of the park. The disadvantage was that the flanks were extremely free for the Rossoneri fullbacks to create overlaps with Beckham and Ronaldinho. However Mourinho asked his two advanced players to work the channels and occupy the opponent’s fullbacks while trusting that width was the worst part of Milan’s game. Lucio and Walter Samuel were also much better at dealing with crosses from wide areas than quick passing through the middle.

Brendan Rodgers asked Suso and Suarez to do the same thing as Milito and Pandev in that derby. Manchester United’s weakest areas against Liverpool were arguably their wide players, with Evra in horrible form and Ferguson forced to remove Nani to shore up midfield.  The difference in the two games was that Mourinho’s side had a two goal cushion while Rodgers’ did not. This arguably made Liverpool’s display even more impressive, as they continued to press, despite being open to counterattacks down the flanks. The lack of a lead also meant that none of their midfielders could afford to sit comfortably and occupy Giggs or Valencia like Zanetti did for Mourinho. The second substitution of Sterling for Henderson meant that there were more fresh legs in midfield to keep pushing high up the pitch.

Some would say that the tactic backfired, as United’s non-contentious goal was scored by their right back Rafael. However, when trying to win the game with 10 men all one can do is play the percentages. That was a magnificent finish from the Brazilian and aside from that United created almost nothing, despite their wide players having no real direct opponent. Meanwhile Suso and Suarez were always joined in attack by midfield runners and linked together well.

The courage to throw the 18 year old Spaniard into the fray was symbolic of Rodgers’ attempt to create a braver, more flexible Liverpool. Suso completed 100% of his passes and linked perfectly with Suarez, Gerrard and Glen Johnson: Liverpool’s other offensive bright spots. Off the ball, he pressed high and worked the channels extremely well.

Early signs are encouraging for Brendan Rodgers despite the team’s league position. His media conferences are all hugely impressive, and it appears that he is still willing to learn and grow as a manager. His fast-tracking of youth and offensive substitutions are exactly what Liverpool fans want to see.

The only path to sustainable success is stability. The only way a side without extraordinary financial backing can succeed in an environment as tough as the Premier League is through having a defined plan bought into by all its players. Perhaps what has been most disappointing to Liverpool supporters about the start to the season isn’t the points dropped, but the fact that their side is at best showing only incremental improvement in understanding Brendan Rodgers’ system from week to week.

Regardless of whether or not you think the style is correct, the fact is that Rodgers only wants his side to play one way. All of his summer business was geared to it, with Fabio Borini and Joe Allen brought in to speed up the learning curve and Liverpool’s only true Plan B in Andy Carroll shipped out. Liverpool haven’t played in Rodgers way enough this season, and that’s the frustrating part. When they do, they look threatening and dangerous. Some of the play against Manchester City and Sunderland flowed beautifully, regardless of the finishing problems. Yet too often that standard hasn’t been met, with players losing patience too quickly in the final third and rendering all possession before that sterile.

Steven Gerrard has been the worst culprit, not only because much of the creative burden in the final third is supposed to stem directly from his gifted right foot, but because he’s not merely breaking up opponent attacks with his sloppy play. Liverpool have been torn apart on the counter numerous times after a simple pass has gone straight to the opposition. It’s hard to take, especially when it’s happening so often, especially when it’s Steven Gerrard.

The man’s not going to change. He’s 32. It’s been 409 times he’s played for Liverpool and every game has been approached the same way, with the belief that he’s the player who has to make the difference. We know the name son, highlight passes and surging runs. Except now the legs aren’t quite as strong, otherwise surely that layoff against Sunderland would have been converted like it was 2008. Except now the diagonals are running out of play and the corners are awful. Except now when the going gets tough, the tough suddenly look disinterested and make Joe Allen play for two men.

Jonathan Wilson noted as much in his fantastic article in April. “Gerrard was at his best when he could be let off the leash, when the situation was so desperate that he could be released from responsibility and told simply to swash buckles and storm barns all over the pitch.” Liverpool’s own Roy of the Rovers, and that stereotype has only become more apt since Benitez left. Napoli in 2010, Newcastle in 2011, Everton in 2012, all felt the storm of an inspired Gerrard.

Is it all doom and gloom? Is it time for Gerrard to be phased out so this new, slicker Liverpool engine can properly start purring? No, at least I hope not. The man still offers a unique set of skills unmatched in Liverpool’s midfield. Nuri Sahin needs time, Joe Allen is already trying to be both himself and Lucas, and Jonjo Shelvey doesn’t have the experience or the talent. Liverpool should be better when they play their talisman, not worse. Wilson’s argument of Gerrard’s gravitas destabilizing those around him doesn’t hold now. Joe Allen has been the Player of the Season so far, often rotating fluidly with Gerrard, and Nuri Sahin was himself the big boss at Dortmund. When Gerrard looks engaged in the system Liverpool look a different class, the problem is that’s happened too little this season.

West Brom was awful, an 82% pass completion rate and only 70% in the final third. Three shots from the edge of the box that were a waste. Manchester City was slightly better, the overall pass completion rate was down to 78% but Gerrard doubled his chances created, including the rare assist from the corner for Martin Skrtel. The Arsenal game looks worse than it is because of Gerrard’s culpability for Podolski’s opening goal. He also created five chances with an 84% completion rate in the attacking third. It’s really not his fault that Liverpool are impotent in front of goal (except when it’s him missing the chances).

Sunderland offered the biggest positive, as the skipper was moved deeper into midfield despite both Rodgers’ and Gerrard’s insistence that he has a role to play behind the striker. 99 passes, almost double what he’s normally been contributing this season, with an 85% completion rate. Patience, with around 40% of his passes backwards or square (as compared to Allen’s 54% but Gerrard’s job is to provide most of the creativity to the forwards). His most passes were to Sterling, showing a willingness to spread play calmly to the flanks. Most importantly, Gerrard looked alive, even in a role that didn’t best suit him and one that he’s stated he doesn’t see himself in. Hopefully that’s not a one off due to the exacting week the city and club have been through.

Where is Gerrard’s best place in this side? It needs to be a position that accommodates both the player and the team. There needs to be protection behind Gerrard so that he can show off his hero act, with the odd errant pass that comes with it. One of the wide forward roles may be a good fit, if just so that Raheem Sterling’s legs don’t fall off from overuse. Rodgers’ system requires the front three to be fluid and interchangeable anyway, and Suarez and Gerrard have shown the ability to link dangerously in the past.

It’s a hard job that the supporters want Gerrard to do, he was restrained and beneficial to the system against Sunderland, but created zero chances. He tried to boss the game against Arsenal, creating five chances, but sold Suarez a dummy that led to the Gunners’ opening goal. Of course the only reason fans are being so harsh on their idol is because the man has spoiled us by being consistently superb for over a decade. Perhaps a wide forward position offers the best compromise, with enough scope for expression but within the confines of the way Brendan Rodgers wants to play.