A few Premier League teams have solid squads, but are just one piece away from reaching their full potential. Arsenal’s missing link is thought to be a defensive midfielder. Liverpool have not been the same without Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge. Keep in mind that soccer teams are like puzzles and have to be arranged and tweaked in certain places until each piece falls into place.

For a few years, Tottenham Hotspur have had a team full of skilful players, but came into this season missing a dynamic and consistent striker that could keep up with the pace of the advanced midfielders in the squad. As the season began, Spurs were going to be dependent on their midfield for goals along with Roberto Soldado and Emmanuel Adebayor. However, Adebayor is ageing and Soldado’s career hasn’t been the same since he smacked in all those penalties when he arrived at White Hart Lane. So the answer had to be Harry Kane, otherwise the North London squad was going to be in a lot of trouble.

With Adebayor leading the line for the majority of the team’s opening fixtures and Roberto Soldado having a shot at earning his spot up front, neither players were able to make a difference. There’s a couple of reasons for this and one was that neither were able to consistently link up with Spurs’ advanced midfielders. In games where Spurs performed poorly, including a 1-0 defeat to West Brom, Adebayor got the ball nine times from Danny Rose and twice from Eric Dier. The only player to give him the ball more than Dier was Christian Eriksen, who found him three times.

Adebayor was supposed to link up play and win balls in the air, but he just wasn’t able to make himself available in areas where he could combine often enough, nor was he able to score.

The same goes for Soldado, but we have far less of a sample size on him this season. A common denominator between the two is that they don’t win the ball back that often, nor do they generate energy for the team.

Kane does everything the two above did not do. Not only does he score and link up with other attackers, but he also pops up in different areas. His ability off-the-ball makes him really successful. Eriksen and Nacer Chadli are finding Kane in space. For example, Eriksen passed Kane the ball 10 times in the 5-3 win over Chelsea.

By moving around the pitch, Kane becomes particularly difficult to pick up. If Adebayor is in the team, you know he’s going to be pretty stationary and stay in the middle of the park and drift out wide for clearances. Meanwhile, Kane is dropping deep and going out wide not for the sake of it, but to find the ball and link up with teammates. He’s a smart and instinctive player who knows the importance of varying his runs. Against Chelsea, he’s going out wide and cutting in, while in the Crystal Palace game, he shows his ability to sit between the center backs.

He can also do both at the same time, as seen in the third clip. Kane’s ability to turn in tight spaces looks awkward, but he has deceptive control over the ball.

He has also mastered the art of shooting when the opposition least expects it and his shots are really well placed. These rips from distance are textbook, as he drives the ball low, hard, and away from the keeper’s reach.

Kane also works pretty hard too. In comparison to Adebayor and Soldado he fits into the pressing mentality Mauricio Pochettino is trying to get across to the squad. The 21-year-old isn’t necessarily going to win the ball a ton, though he does average creating a turnover or so more per game than his strike competition at Spurs. His work will force some poor decision making from the opposition when used in tandem with the rest of the front four.

While Adebayor may be a good option to have on the bench for cup ties and for late in matches when Spurs want to chase a game with long balls, Kane is more than capable of scoring on crosses both in the air and on the ground. The goal below against Leicester City is the perfect example, as he is able to hold his run, get goal-side of the defender and give Tottenham the lead. It’s a fantastic finish and one Spurs will count on in their chase for a spot in the top four.

For about 55 minutes of Liverpool’s contest with Leicester City on New Years Day, everything was going pretty well for Brendan Rodgers’ team, and then Adam Lallana picked up a knock and everything went wrong.

Since a defeat to Manchester United and victory over Bournemouth in the League Cup quarterfinal, Dejan Lovren’s place in the team was taken away, and the 3-4-2-1 has been working. Against United and Arsenal, Liverpool pressed pretty well and showed an intensity that hadn’t been there since a 3-0 victory over Spurs – in August.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s been going really well and what went very wrong.

Adam Lallana:

His defensive work rate is world-class. He travels all over the pitch to the win the ball against each Premier League opponent he’s faced. Rodgers just has to make his talents become more fruitful and by changing the system, that has happened. Here’s a chart of the amount of times Lallana has won the ball back for Liverpool in his last six Premier League starts via ball recoveries and tackles:

Even though he reads the game pretty well, he rarely gets interceptions, which is why those numbers were left out. Instead of benefitting from his teammates’ pressing, he does the dirty work himself. Also it has to be noted that in the Swansea game, those numbers don’t include this:

With the Englishman, the numbers can’t explain what he does, because it is his ability to work that becomes infectious in the squad. If you look at the way Suarez played last season in terms of his desire to get the ball back so that the Reds could go on and score, we’re seeing something similar in Lallana.

Three separate games are shown here and Lallana is doing the same thing. The numbers above indicate that he is becoming more comfortable in the system, and note that against Leicester he only played 55 minutes. He likes playing down the middle, because he has a high soccer IQ and works well with Raheem Sterling and Philipe Coutinho in attack. Clustering them together allows them to interchange and combine. More importantly, Lallana now understands how he is supposed to press and the new system fits his style perfectly on both sides of the ball.

Emre Can:

The German is a versatile player, who had done a bit of work in the center midfield and left back, but also at center back for his former club. According to Transfermarkt.com, Can played at center back for Bayer Leverkusen once in a 2-1 defeat to Hamburger SV, and also played the position in a U/21 European Qualifying match against Ireland. The bottom line is his experiences multiple positions before hitting 20 (he turns 21 on January 12) must have helped him step in as the right center-back in the back three.

He is smart, physical, and very strong, but also good on the ball.

But it’s not just about strength, power and being good on the ball for Liverpool anymore. The biggest criticism of this team is defensive positioning. Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville have done some really interesting pieces on this topic, but things are getting better – kind of.

The importance of communication and knowing one’s role in the team decides so much, especially when it comes to the highest level of the game.

In a system where wing backs get forward and the center backs have to step up to stop the ball, coverage is even more essential.

Can understands where he has to be on the field most of the time. 

In addition, his teammates have gained a better understanding when it comes to covering for each other and knowing where they are supposed to be if someone steps up, which is common in a back three.

In the example below, Can advances pretty far up field, but Lucas is in the position where Can would have been to step up and stop the ball at the end of the clip.

Lucas’ coverage allows Can time to get back in position after his run forward.

This is a theme that ran across the squad in the match against Leicester.

Defensive Positioning:

On Monday Night Football, Lovren was criticized were leaving big gaps like the one below.

So the question became how Rodgers would close those gaps and get the defense and the midfield in-sync with one another. What doesn’t fit into the above clip is that Joe Allen blew his coverage for Alberto Moreno, who had gone too far forward. Therefore, there were two issues concerning positioning: 1) Leaving gaps 2) Not covering for one another.

That has improved in the past few weeks because the team has had more experience in the three-back system and the personnel is different.

From the Swansea match, there’s a sequence in the 21st minute where Jefferson Montero is out wide with the ball.

Javier Manquillo covers the Ecuadorian and the spacing across the back line is solid.

The only issue might be in the space between Can and Manquillo, but Lucas can cover that area if the Swansea player behind him tries to run into it. Meanwhile, Henderson has the extra runner picked up. If Montero cuts back and doesn’t cross, the defense can shift up and cover the situation without the threat of a surprise runner getting in behind. If there’s a cross, the three center backs can cover the three primary threats in the air.

Here’s how the sequence ends:

The good understanding between the players continues against Leicester.

Above, the spacing is good and the coverage by Coutinho, who gets back for Moreno, is solid. The positioning of the back three is fine as well, because Sakho shifts over along with Kolo Toure and Can, while Lucas covers any runners.

The shift of Riyad Mahrez is neutralized.

This happens again four minutes later.

A similar situation happens in the 51st minute when a long ball is played down the right side of Liverpool’s defense. Can steps to the ball and alerts Henderson, who was playing as the right wing back, to drop and cover. The Englishman listens and slips perfectly into the back line.

The result is Liverpool pushing the threat backwards and forcing Leicester to recycle the ball in midfield.

At this point in the match, it’s 2-0, but then the same problem Liverpool faced last season came up – defending too deep.

At the beginning of the season, Lovren looked like he was going to solve the problem of sagging, but instead the defense kept dropping off and gaps continued to be open.

It seems like the gap and coverage problems have been solved, but the Reds conceded two goals against Leicester from outside the 18-yard box, which rings alarm bells from the end of last season.

The first goal is scored on a simple knock down play. It’s a great finish, but Mamadou Sakho has to do better defensively when covering his man. There’s no reason for the attacker to get this strike off. In Sakho’s last few appearances he hasn’t done much wrong outside of this and his positioning has improved a ton from last season. Perhaps his injury gave him some time to watch some tape and increase his tactical awareness. He’s been excellent outside of this one moment.

As a result, this goal is less concerning than the second one, in which the team switches off. But when they do switch off, they do so in protective positions, which is a pattern and therefore a concern. Dropping off cannot be the default for the back line. It happens on the second goal:

Can comes out to challenge, but that ball should never get to the goalscorer. Mahrez provides the assist and there’s no reason for him to be able to slide this ball through. If you stop the clip with Mahrez on the ball, here’s what you get:

You’ve got Sakho stepping up to help Steven Gerrard in midfield, but Toure, Can, and Henderson are way too deep. If they step up, it cuts off Jamie Vardy as an option and makes Jeffrey Schlupp have to time his run a lot better. Stepping up would also have changed Mahrez’s mindset once he got the ball. Below, we’ll let the sequence play out from that angle.

Could Simon Mignolet do better? Possibly. Should Sterling have tracked Schlupp? Yes. But should Schlupp have ended up with the ball in that much space? No.

While just about everything was in-sync during the match, there is no doubt that this is an institutional problem that involves poor communication. Rodgers has done a good job at Liverpool, but he does criticize other teams for sitting back and defending, because it’s easier to do. I’m not sure if he actually believes that, but he has to set his own team up to defend better, even if they are more exposed than those who sit back for most of the match.

Over the past month, there has been noticeable improvement with the defense and that will have to continue for the Reds to make a run at the top four.

It’s about 90 degrees in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Raheem Sterling is drenched in sweat. He’s exhausted from the second of two training sessions, and at the age of 17, he is on the verge of breaking through to Liverpool’s first team on a regular basis. Supporters are excited about what the pacey winger can offer the squad, and Sterling was able to meet the media in a confident way. He spoke about learning from Stewart Downing and benefitting from Brendan Rodgers’ ability to deal with the younger players in the squad. Sterling started for the Reds in their US Tour match at Fenway Park, and with just three Premier League appearances under his belt at the time, the Queens Park Rangers product was an up-and-coming star.

Like so many supposed-to-be future England youngsters before him, Sterling was under an enormous amount of pressure, and since, the now 20-year-old winger has made himself a fixture in Liverpool’s starting XI. Sometimes that has come as a speedy winger, at the tip of the diamond, or in a free-flowing counter-attacking system in which positions changed as fast as Sterling’s bursts into the box. Now, the England international is featuring as a forward.

It’s tempting to label Sterling as a false nine, because he is not known to us as a striker, but that’s a really specific role that one should be careful assigning. Against Manchester United, the Reds lined up a system that could be broadly labeled as a 3-4-3 or 3-4-2-1. Sterling was the focal point of the attack and was flanked by Adam Lallana and Philippe Coutinho, who pinched inside to the support their teammate.

The effect was Sterling using his pace to get behind United’s defense on a few occasions, most notably here.

Liverpool’s attack looked the best it had in a few weeks after a few matches of stagnant football. Sterling is a different beast than Rickie Lambert, Fabio Borini, and Mario Balotelli, though, because he uses his speed more often. In the second half, Sterling took a reserved role and Balotelli was the furthest man forward, while the England man stayed in an advanced position. The introduction of the Italian seemed to limit Sterling’s movement, because Balotelli was the one going in behind.

On Wednesday, Rodgers left Balotelli out and used a similar system against Bournemouth in the Capital One Cup. Again, Sterling was up front and supported by Lallana and Coutinho.

It seems that this system is going to be favored by Rodgers until Daniel Sturridge returns, so it’s important to evaluate if Sterling is capable of producing in this role.

The first question we have to ask ourselves is can Sterling hold up play and involve other players in a more dynamic way than his competition. While the sample is limited to the from the Bournemouth match, Sterling showed that he is an electric option as the team’s forward.

In the fifth minute, he is able to hold play up and get his two supporting attackers involved.

Even though Sterling is just 5-foot-7 and a bit thin, we know he can use his body well when he wants, which is something all undersized players have to do at any level.

Here are a couple of clips to highlight is strength from a preseason match against Borussia Dortmund.

In the second one, he does very well to hold off the defender with a low center of gravity.

So now that we know he is strong enough and can hold up play to combine with his teammates, the next step is his forward and diagonal movements.

Sterling is constantly looking to breach the back four, even when it is unrealistic to do so, but this is something he is going to learn overtime while playing in this role.

In the eighth minute of the match, Coutinho gets a bit of space in the midfield, and Sterling calls for a long ball. You can see him on the right side of the GIF, pointing ahead of the shoulder of the right-sided center-back.

But the ball Sterling wants isn’t the ball Liverpool is going to play in possession. Unless it’s on the counter, the Reds rarely play long balls forward or rush play, because Rodgers wants the team to be patient to score goals like the one below, which had a 52-pass buildup.

Sterling does well to participate in the construction towards this goal. He has the ability to turn and pick his head up to find players to link up with in the middle of the pitch. Then, he knows that his next job is to get forward after distributing the ball, which he does, and his movement into the box leads to his goal.

Now if you look back at the GIF from the eighth minute, you can see that Sterling seems to jerk his body backwards as if to realize that this is one of the times when he is supposed to be checking to the ball instead of breaking into the channels. The same happens below.

He points forward again and wants Jordan Henderson to play an almost impossible ball between the center backs with the outside of his right foot. It’s a good idea from Sterling and it most likely stems from his desire to make runs past defenders, but he will have to learn to hold his runs a little bit.

Above is an example of that, but in a different circumstance. Sterling dashes along with Coutinho, who is making a run to the byline and looking to shoot or slide the ball into the center. The best strikers are able to hold their runs up and know how to manipulate pockets of space inside the box.

As Sterling keeps going, he creates a tougher angle for Coutinho to find him, and you just think that perhaps if Sterling held his run a little bit, the Brazilian would have been able to find his teammate at the top of the penalty box.

This is just an observation of Sterling and something he’ll pick up on over time.

Obviously, he and Diego Costa, who is one of the top strikers in world at the moment, are two very different players, but if you look into how Costa uses space in the box, that’s something Sterling can learn from. An example of that comes from Costa’s first Premier League goal, which came against Burnley. He doesn’t keep going to goal, because he realizes that he has space and that perhaps if he holds back a little bit, he becomes a better option for the cross. He also gives himself the chance to clean up some garbage, which he does.

If Sterling continues to play up top and he gets good instruction in training, this is something he should be able to pick up – not necessarily to the extent of Costa, but it should benefit his positioning.

Until then, running is going to be his game and it’s encouraging to see that he’s eager to work hard to get the ball, because his runs are going to help him and his teammates. Below, watch how his run forces the Bournemouth back four to drop back.

It’s another good run from Sterling and the England man could be the way forward for Liverpool’s striking problems until Sturridge returns.

Manchester United fans have hope. After a very rough start to the season, the Red Devils have picked up the pieces despite drawing with West Bromwich Albion and Chelsea, before losing to Manchester City. It’s was a rough start for Louis van Gaal, but there have been some encouraging signs.

Daley Blind

You get the feeling that as impressed as everyone was with the Blind at the World Cup, we hadn’t see the best of the Dutchman. We saw a lot of Blind as someone with good vision and the ability to win the ball back, but him playing as a true left wing back was something relatively new to him. For Ajax, he played as a left back, but also as a defensive midfielder, which is the role he now takes on for United.

In a couple of games for the club, he played as the anchor of a diamond midfielder, though that has changed, as he is now the base of what looks like a 4-1-4-1. It’s important not to label United as a 4-1-4-1 team though, because van Gaal is a manager that puts an emphasis on his team playing in a system with multiple variables, as opposed to a particular shape.

Having played in van Gaal’s three-center back, two-wing back system at the World Cup, Blind is clearly a smart player who understands van Gaal’s ways, and right now he is acting as the coach without the ball on the pitch. He’s responsible for organizing players, which means getting guys to step when they need to step and making sure each of the opposition is accounted for when they roam around the middle of the pitch.

Throughout the game, you can see him pointing things out and making sure guys are where they are supposed to be at each time. This was very important in the game on Sunday, as he had a lot to deal with in the middle. Watch for Blind’s leadership role in midfield when his side plays Crystal Palace at the weekend.

Marouane Fellaini and Game Chasing

The David Moyes signing seems to be establishing himself as a key member of this squad. Him starting might just be a stop-gap solution for now, but if the Belgian continues to impress, he could find himself logging regular minutes for this team.

Whether it was doing a job on Cesc Fabregas last weekend, or acting as the big man against West Brom, Fellaini has done ita all, but this is a guy that has to get forward to be successful. While he can play as a center midfielder, he’s at his best when he has the freedom to get forward and use his body in and around the box. In his last full season with Everton, he featured as an attacking midfielder a lot and that got the best out of him.

Pushing him forward as someone in that attacking midfield four is smart. One of the reasons why Fellaini works in the four ahead of Blind, is because it gets Wayne Rooney into the squad as well. Van Gaal would be foolish to drop Rooney to put Fellaini in behind Robin van Persie (or to drop van Persie for Rooney) in some kind of 4-4-1-1. Playing Fellaini naturally further forward too gets the Belgian in attacking positions more often, though he can drop back to get the ball as well.

There’s a sequence around the 23rd minute of the match against City that perfectly replicates what United want out of Fellaini.

As part of the buildup, Fellaini has dropped out of the attacking midfield four to get the ball.

It’s a simple lay off, but after he gets the ball and gives it back, he turns to advance further up the field. Seconds later, he gets the ball again, lays it off and then bursts forward. 

At this point in the attack, he’s pretty much a forward, as he sits on the shoulders of City’s back line and is side-by-side with Robin van Persie.

In this situation, Fellaini has helped the team advance the ball up the pitch and put himself in the position to disturb the back four. There’s not much else van Gaal can ask for here.

The more Fellaini can get onto the rearguard of the opposition, the more effective he’ll be for United.

A player like Fellaini is also very influential when it comes to chasing the game. He’s physical enough that when he can get forward, he can not only hold the ball up, but also flick the ball onto one of United’s other attacking talents.

United have become pretty adept when chasing games lately, because they have the players to do it. Angel di Maria is frightening when he runs at defenders in space, and Fellaini is obviously a good body to bang the ball up to. This combination not only works in open play, but also on set pieces, as seen when United got the equalizer against Chelsea.

But beyond the basic connection, United don’t seem to be panicking when behind, which is a good sign. Instead, they’re sliding balls into the right places and using their assets to the best of their abilities. There were a few moments late in the second half when United had the ability to get an equalizer.

For example, Di Maria gets the ball below as United probe around the box about 20 minutes from time. City is packed behind the ball, but is nearly unzipped by a smart through ball and a couple of runs behind the back four.

If Fellaini reads this play a little bit earlier, this match could end up 1-1, because that ball was on more than the one the Argentine played was. United are working the channels here, and that’s the sign of a smart and well-disciplined team.

The bottom line is that play isn’t being rushed, as the team looks very calm in possession, if that’s the right way to put it. When looking for an equalizer, the players don’t panic, as they just keep playing their game to the best of their ability. Perhaps that also speaks to a growing confidence within the side.

Sergio Aguero is fast off the ball and perhaps even quicker with it at his feet. He skips by defenders in and around the 18-yard box weekly and evades them to find the two inches of space he needs to punish the opponent with a sublime finish. If he doesn’t get off a shot, he’ll get fouled to draw a free kick, which could be finished by any of the world-class players on the Manchester City roster.

The danger for Tottenham on Saturday was quite obvious. Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs play with a high line – a tactic susceptible to the pace of a speedy striker.

This is a high-risk tactic, but all tactics have pros and cons. Playing with a high line is no different. Ideally, it squeezes the game and makes life harder for the opponent to work the ball up the pitch. Byproducts include winning the ball closer to the goal and the occasional offside call. When combined with pressure on the ball, it can work wonders like it did for Pochettino’s team against Arsenal a couple of weeks ago.

Against Manchester City, the line was broken on multiple occasions. Part of the reason for that is Aguero’s speed. Even if a long ball were to be forced up the pitch, the Argentine would get onto end of it. In addition, Aguero’s movement would force Younes Kaboul and Federico Fazio to track back. Spurs’ defensive pairing on Saturday was new, as Jan Vertonghen was left out of the starting XI.

It was surprising that Kaboul and Fazio were able to hold it together for so long. Kaboul was even able to track an Aguero run at the start of the second half, though City’s in-form star will regret not making the most of the chance.

Playing with the high line was not necessarily a bad move from Pochettino. Squeezing City would stop its buildup from the back and restrict its playmakers, including David Silva, from getting on the ball in advanced positions. In addition, if a team in the Premier League, especially in the top half of the table, has a style they tend to feel the need to roll it out each weekend to assert themselves. Pochettino has made pressing and an aggressive defense his trademark style.

But with the game at 2-1, City was able to break it open when Navas got behind the back line. Part of the goal is the result of an individual defensive mistake, though it still leaves Kaboul and Fazio chasing the ball. Tracking Aguero is hard enough outside of the area, but try tracking this guy for half the length of the field. At the end of Aguero’s run, Fazio pulls down the City striker in desperation.

Spurs’ life does not get any easier though, because Aguero bursts past the line again, beating Vertonghen this time, for his fourth goal of the match. A quick set piece is taken and within seconds, the Argentine is one-on-one with Hugo Lloris. A forward with his finishing abilities, and the confidence that results from having already scored three goals in the match, was never going to miss the chance to hit a fourth past the Frenchman.

What is concerning for Spurs is the lack of pressure applied to the City players. In the second half they may have tired out, but then Pochettino would have to make some sort of adjustment. The Tottenham boss doesn’t, as he sticks with the high line, even though his players fail to press. If you watch the GIFs that show the build up to both City goals again, you can see a lot of black shirts jogging around. That’s not the ferocity and chaos of the press that shackled the Gunners.

Through wide areas, Hull City has found a lot of its success, and Steven Naismith has become the centerpiece of Everton’s alternative system of play.

Hull Raids The Flanks

When Ahmed Elmohamady went on trial with Steve Bruce’s Sunderland in 2009, the Egyptian flank-raider changed his career. The Wearside club tried to sign the converted right back, but failed to bring him to the Premier League until a season-long loan was penned a few months later, and after impressing at right back, Elmohamady was signed to a permanent deal.

After Bruce and the Black Cats parted ways, he did not get regular football until Bruce signed him to Hull, where he became an integral part of the two-wing back system that helped the Tigers gain promotion to the nation’s top flight. The Egyptian is decent defensively, but his contributions going forward must be recognized. A lot of Hull’s goals originate from the flanks, especially Elmohamady’s. If you have been following Hull’s last three games, one finish per game has originated from that right side.

Elmohamady provided the assist on the first two goals, while Liam Rosenior whipped in the ball that led to Eliaquim Mangala’s error. On the other side, Andrew? Robertson was signed to run the left flank, after Rosenior struggled there last season. With Elmohamady and Robertson being the first choice full backs, Rosenoir was simply and extra body to get in the way of Manchester City’s inverted wide players. Rosenoir’s Egyptian teammate stood ahead of him to provide a double block on the right flank.

While moving Elmohamady into midfield was a match day tactic, attacking down the flanks is a theme. In their first six games of the season, 40% of attacks have come down the right side and 36% have come from the left.

As a result of its wide game, Bruce has a solid pair of strikers in his team in Abel Hernandez and Nikica Jelavic. Both are more than capable of getting onto the end of crosses. In the center, Tom Huddlestone, Mohamed Diame, and Jake Livermore provide the right amount of strength and power in the middle of the pitch.

With so much strength on the flanks, Hull is extremely versatile. Bruce is a tactically adept manager, who can have his team play 3-5-2 and get away with it due to the width from the full backs, and a diamond 4-4-2, which met mixed reviews against West Ham, when Diame was first introduced the lineup. Of course the 4-4-2 is an option as well.

Nevertheless, Hull’s best chances come from the flanks, as the wide players whip the ball in over and over again.

The Scottish Messi

If you take a look down Everton’s roster and think about Roberto Martinez as manager and that he’s hip, modern, and dresses pretty well, you would probably think that Everton play 4-2-3-1. It’s pretty self-explanatory who the back four would be. James McCarthy and Gareth Barry would make up the midfield engine, while Kevin Mirallas, Steven Naismith, and Aidan McGeady – give or take Christian Atsu, and Ross… oh, too soon.

Last season, though there were times when Naismith was deployed as a center-forward with directions to drop deep to get the ball. He might not have the dribbling ability of Lionel Messi, but we can put the same label on them when it comes to their off-the-ball movement. The deep-lying – ‘false nine’ slot is nothing new for attackers, though it seems to be utilized more amongst intelligent footballers with solid finishing abilities, than ones with creativity on the ball.

The match against Arsenal got a lot of attention, because the Toffies dominated the match and came away with a 3-0 victory, but the Naismith-based system has continued since their triumph, and it has almost become the default for Everton.

Martinez’s model works with his attacking personnel. Romelu Lukaku is a big boy who can hold up play, though he’s also a dynamo going forward. Playing him down the right is lethal, because he can run into the space opened up by Naismith’s runs away from goal. Many coaches believe that it is more dangerous to have forwards heading towards goal, as opposed to playing with their backs to it. Lukaku on the flanks gets him running at defenders. The United States’ national team would tell you, that in the Belgian is more than capable of doing so successfully.

Lukaku works as a wide forward, because he uses his power to act as a battering ram. Mirallas plays down the left, which might not be ideal, but his roll is similar to that of winger, which he is accustomed to in the 4-2-3-1. In the coming weeks, McGeady will have to fill in for Mirallas, who suffered a hamstring tear against Liverpool that puts him out for four weeks.

Naismith’s role in the squad is to drop back and link up play. He helps out the center midfielders and leaves a huge hole ahead of the center backs, as seen below.

The problem with the shape is that when Lukaku’s movement becomes stagnant the game plan is thwarted. Against Liverpool, it was hard to penetrate the Reds, because Moreno stayed close to Lukaku to limit the space he could get into. To make this tactic as successful as the gaffer would like, Lukaku will have to find new ways to get into space and blast through such areas, in which Everton can exploit its opposition.

Heading into today’s game at Stamford Bridge, neither team had dropped points thus far in Premier League play. Following the international break and transfer window both teams were looking to stretch their “legs” and earn their place at top of the League table. Despite an early start from Swansea, Chelsea emerged with the coveted 3 points putting them ahead in goals and points.

Chelsea:

Thibaut Courtois: 5

The big Belgian keeper made a couple of handy saves including one on Bafetimbi Gomis late in the second half, which could have made things a lot more interesting in the quarter of an hour. Courtois did really well to come out and stop a couple fo crosses in the second half, as well. He was left for dead on John Terry’s early own goal.

Branislav Ivanovic: 7

Sound defensively and a force going forward, it was a classic performance from the Serbian full back. With a few short passes and a cross, he created five chances for his team to contribute to an attacking mentality that crippled Swansea. He was also four of four in aerial duels and two of two in his tackles.

John Terry: 6

A great ball from Neil Taylor put Terry in an awkward position, which led to the own goal, but otherwise the Chelsea center back was solid. He did not have much to do after Swansea drew first blood. He won the ball back for the Blues close to half a couple of times to thwart the Welsh side’s attempts to get forward.

Gary Cahill: 5

While he has developed an strong center back partnership with Terry, he struggled to protect the goal today. Cahill was evaded by Swansea’s attackers a couple of times and was nowhere to be found when Jonjo Shelvey split the Blues’ back line halve the home team’s advantage.

Cesar Azpilicueta: 6

The Spaniard is very difficult to get by one-on-one. While he was beaten once, made up for it by stopping Gomis from going forward on the counter down the flank. He contributed in attack as well to create a pair of chances.

Nemanja Matic: 6

Matic did not have much to do outside of the first quarter of an hour or so when it came to defensive work, and it was his ability to dictate the pace of match that was impressive. He completed 90% of his passes and kept the Chelsea attack going when it needed to a bit of a reset, especially as his team saw more of the ball as match went on.

Cesc Fabregas: 8

One of the smartest players in the Premier league, and the world for that matter, he was able to thread a corner kick to Diego Costa and a nice cutback to his compatriot. Fabregas created four additional chances as the heart of Chelsea’s attack.

Andre Schurrle: 5

It was a disappointing first half form the German, who was replaced by Ramires. Schurrle could not find any seems to move between Swansea’s well-organized defense in the opening period. Schurrle did his defensive work, but was not good enough going forward.

Oscar: 6

The often-criticized Brazilian was able to slot a couple of dangerous balls into the area and did well to connect the creative pieces of Chelsea’s attack.

Eden Hazard: 8

When Hazard got on the ball he was either fouled around the box or able to create meaningful drives. He drew a couple of free kicks with some driving runs, was fouled by Shelvey in the 32nd, for the second one, made a lot of drives into the box and that’s where he’s at his best. He took on ten defenders 10 times in the match, and left them looking silly nine times. He was also fouled four times and crated four chances.

Diego Costa: 10

He scored three goals by finding space inside the area to continue his strong run of form.

SUBS:

Ramires: 6

After coming on for Schurrle at halftime, the Brazilian was involved going forward. His blocked shot led to Costa’s third of the match.

Loic Remy: 7

While he may not have been fit enough to play for Liverpool, he was in good enough shape to score on his debut for Chelsea. The Frenchman’s movement was lively too, as he worked the flanks and the middle of the pitch.

Mohamed Salah: N/A

Swansea:

Lukasz Fabianski: 7

Although he was beat four times, he made a smart stop late in the first half to prevent Oscar’s would-be goal. The Swansea keeper was also aggressive in cutting out dangerous balls that came into the area, in addition to the five saves he made.

Neil Taylor: 6

While he did have an assist, he was part of back line that was hazed by Costa, Hazard, and Fabregas. He also sent in a lot of early balls into the box to give Gomis some opportunities.

Ashley Williams and Federico Fernandez: 4

Both were able to chalk up clearances to their names, but they could not track Costa. While keeping tabs on the poacher, and thwarting the supply chain to him is a small task, the trio

Amat: 5

He picked up a yellow card for a poor bit of defending outside of his box , as he fouled Hazard on the edge of the 18, before he was removed at the break.

Charlie Rangel: 7

Rangel was a bright spot for the Swans as he was able to break up Chelsea’s attack down his flank with a few tackles.

Ki Sung-Yueng: 6

His drive through the middle of the pitch saw him slide through Neil Taylor to create Swansea’s opener. He completed all but two of his 48 passes though in his midfield partnership with Jonjo Shelvey.

Jonjo Shelvey: 7

Shelvey did well to finish the late opportunity he had and he was tireless defesnivley as well. The former Liverpool man got two interceptions, in addition to his two tackles, though he failed to create much going forward.

Wayne Routledge: 6

He failed to have a real impact on the match when Swansea needed him most, but he did a lot of defensive work, tracking back into his own area to win the ball back for his side.

Gylfi Sigurdsson: 5

Swansea’s chief creator in its opening Premier League matches created three chances for teammates, but struggled to penetrate the Chelsea backline with deadly through balls.

Nathan Dyer: 5

Usually at his best when taking players on and bursting down his flank, Dyer could not get on the ball, as the Blues saw more and more of it as the match went on.

Bafetimbi Gomis: 6

The target man dribbled Chelsea defenders multiple times and will consider himself unlucky not to have scored, as his chip in the 65th minute was stopped by Courtois.

Jefferson Montero: 5

The winger came on as a substitute and outside of a late break down the left side to beat Ivanovic to bi-line to search for Wilfried Bony in the box, though he did not offer much else to Swansea’s breaks.

Wilfried Bony: N/A

In this week’s edition of Premier League Tactics Corner, we dive into Newcastle’s use of Emmanuel Riviere and Queens Park Rangers’ three-back system.

Holding It Up

Aston Villa did not put a shot on target in Saturday’s early game against Newcastle United, and the Magpies should have walked away victorious had their finishing been clinical. But as seen in this t-shirt, ‘the beauty is in the struggle’.

We often look at goals and comment or rave about a player’s technical ability. There are articles aplenty across the Internet that gouge at the lovely skill of strikers, and critics always take to social media to nag one if it’s in the midst of a drought. Forwards have one job that is not appreciated as much, simply because it is not sexy, and that is hold up play.

Newcastle’s summer signing Emmanuel Riviere is the most important piece of its build up play.

For some quick background on him, Riviere played for Monaco last season and scored 10 goals in 19 appearances coupled with a pair of assists. That isn’t too bad for a player that came on as a sub 11 of those 19 times. Assuming he stays clear of the medical treatment room, this will be the first season since 2010-11, where he’ll be one of the main men. In addition, he is not going to get off many shots. Pre-Newcastle, the most shots per game he averaged was 1.9, which also came in 2010-11, his last season with Saint Etienne. So aside from that, what drew Alan Pardew to him?

It’s this…

Riviere is excellent at finding space where he can get on the ball and deliver a short lay-off pass to a teammate. When analysts talk about getting others involved in the buildup, the above and below clips are exactly what they’re talking about. Riviere is an outlet for the defense and that is what makes him so interesting. Think of Newcastle’s attacking movement as a ladder. He is a rung on it and once he gets the ball and lays it off, everyone else can climb up it with him.

Here’s an example. Newcastle start an attack in the GIF below when Riviere holds off Philippe Senderos.

By the end of that minute, he is used as a pivot for Darryl Janmaat at the top of the 18-yard box. He can hold up and lay-off anywhere on the pitch.

It’s textbook stuff, but once the new signings start to gel with Riviere, especially Remy Cabella, Newcastle will have a solid attack. Riviere only found Cabella once against Villa, though he did hit five sideways passes to Yoan Gouffran.

Winless in its first two, Pardew’s men will rue the points dropped against Villa, but the club seems to be headed in the right direction.

Redknapp’s Regret

Three Premier League teams have adopted a back three this season. One is familiar with the system, as Steve Bruce has worked with it for a few years at Hull City, while the other two are not. There has been a lot of scrutiny of Louis van Gaal’s system at Manchester United, even though Harry Redknapp is employing his own version of the three-back formation at Queens Park Rangers.

After a disastrous first half against Tottenham, in which his side went down 3-0, he opted for a four-back system. The reason was different from van Gaal’s switch last week, though, as Spurs’ attacking four were interchanging and QPR often had a line of five marking one person at most. In transition, the defense was atrocious and the effort and communication was not there.

Before we look at the goals though, QPR can make this system work. The most important piece of the system is the wing-backs, and Redknapp has those. He signed Mauricio Isla to play on the right and has Armand Traore for the left. The former is perfect for the system, while the latter has experience playing at both left-back and left wing, so one would think he could become a good fit.

QPR has a healthy mix in midfield, as Leroy Fer is capable of providing a bit of creativity and Joey Barton, as volatile and reckless as he may be, is willing to run like a mad man across the pitch to win back possession – see the nine turnovers he created on Sunday. Up front Loic Remy is the only piece of attack with value though, as Matthew Phillips is still a raw talent.

While the pieces seem to be there, going forward, the decision-making needs to be faster. The 3-5-2 is not a system for tiki-taka, but one for rapid attacks. The ball needs to be worked into the feet of the wing-back or the forward players immediately, otherwise, the team is forced to fire long balls forward.

QPR can be successful though, and they showed it here. With seven players pushed up so high, it gives the team an opportunity to win the ball higher up the field and frustrate the opposition in possession. If an opposing player can work his way into the middle, one of the midfielders can cut out play, as Barton does below.

It works again later in the match, as Jordan Mutch wins the ball, before slipping in attack.

And here too, when Isla is sent down the right.

Redknapp’s biggest problem is that the back three though, because they look out of sorts, especially when the game is in transition, as seen in this sequence leading to Nacer Chadli’s first of the game.

As Spurs rush down the pitch, Chadli and Nabil Bentaleb make direct forward runs as Emmanuel Adebayor strolls down the left. Steven Caulker and Rio Ferdinand communicate, though the latter calls the former off the ball too late. Nevertheless, the two can get into position, but Richard Dunne looks lost. Not only does he look lost in the system, but just abandoned in general, as if he can’t even believe he’s playing in a Premier League match. His hands are by his side too, but the defending is even more shocking, because this attack is not developing at breakneck speed. When Chadli gets near the six-yard box, Dunne is too deep and his desperate kick misses the Belgian, allowing the Spurs man to finish with ease.

Here’s Dunne again, a couple of minutes after the goal. He juts into the GIF tracking a Christian Eriksen run. After the Dane gets into the box though, just watch Dunne get sucked too deep. He then switches off and tries to figure out where he is supposed to be.

A similar sequence happens on the third Spurs goal. To be fair, there is a lot going on in the transition from attack to defense and Tottenham’s interchanging movement is really clever and of course, the ball from Erik Lamela sublime.

To start the sequence, Dunne has stepped forward. It’s not a bad decision from him, until he’s wrong-sided by a clever roll from the Argentine. Once he is beaten though, Dunne follows Lamela and does not get back into position. Now, if he is shoulder to shoulder with Lamela, he should stay with him, but because he has lost the man and has cover, Dunne should head back to mark a runner, while Ferdinand or Caulker challenge the dribbler. Instead, Dunne ball-watches, as Chadli slips Isla to get on the end of the lofted cross.

Redknapp removed Dunne at the break, whether that was out of punishment, or because Nedum Onuoha is his preferred right-back and the manager panicked to change the system, is unclear.

QPR should have turned the match into a training exercise, though, instead of abandoning the system. There was no way the team was going to avenge the deficit, so it makes little sense to go into damage control mode. Playing shadow football in training is one thing, but there is no better way for players to learn a system than in a match.

Mario Balotelli possesses so much talent, but the detriments he can bring on and off the pitch bring about an aura of fear.

So how does Brendan Rodgers fit the bad boy who says he wants to become even badder, into a club that was supposedly worried about image problems just a few months ago?

With respect to personality, that is yet to be seen, but in terms of how the Italian can work his way into the team’s starting XI, it is worth speculating how he fits into the lineup.

Super Mario is the extra striker Rodgers wanted in his side before the summer transfer window shut. The Reds have a decent number of forwards in the team, especially with the versatility of Daniel Sturridge and the Plan B that is a true target man in Rickie Lambert. Loic Remy would have been a solid third option due to his poaching abilities and movement, but Balotelli comes as an interesting turn for the shape of Rodgers’ team. He can poach, hold up play, and be creative.

So it sounds great – Liverpool has three goal-scoring threats with different attributes that make them all differ, but at the same time, the question becomes, how can these guys all fit into the squad AND all be happy, in terms of playing time, all other things equal?

When Balotelli is on his game, nobody works harder, but when he gets frustrated, he can fade out of the match and everybody forgets he is on the pitch. The danger with his work rate is that it could trickle down. Luis Suarez’s tireless sprints up, down, and across the pitch led to Sturridge doing the same. Perhaps Sturridge has grown and the sprinting is engrained in the way he plays, but he must continue to work hard regardless of what Balotelli does.

In terms of formation, Rodgers was forced to play a two-striker system last season in an effort to keep his top players on the pitch together. They were able to form a fruitful partnership, but Sturridge forced a midfielder to be dropped from the XI.

Jordan Henderson, Lucas Leiva, Emre Can, and Steven Gerrard are the steel of the Reds’ midfield, while Philippe Coutinho, Adam Lallana, Lazar Markovic, and Raheem Sterling are the outfit’s electrifying attacking outlets.

So let’s look at some possible lineups that would include Balotelli.

In a 4-4-2, the Italian could play up top with Sturridge and drop back into midfield to support him. Balotelli receives the ball all over the pitch. His technical ability allows him to cut inside from the wings to curl the ball into the back of the net, or earn a foul for his team. Despite his size, Balotelli has quick feet that can earn the Reds a lot of fouls around the box. He receives lots of long balls too, so if the Reds opt for an attack at breakneck pace, the Italian is capable of holding up play and distributing to support.

The issue with all of these systems is the numbers in midfield. Of course, Manchester City played a flat 4-4-2 successfully last season, but that was with the help of two box-to-box midfielders of the highest quality in their prime. Liverpool will have Gerrard alongside Lucas, Henderson or Can. Gerrard can sprint to close down an opponent on occasion, but does not have the legs to cover a sizeable area for 90 minutes.

To tinker with the shape to compensate for Gerrard, Rodgers could deploy the lineup below, which notes defensive runs.

It would require Henderson to shift into the middle alongside the captain and a center midfielder (I’ve given the spot to Can here, but it could be Lucas or Allen). This adds numbers to the defense and is something the Reds had a jab at last season, because Sturridge is fit enough to track really far back defensively down the right hand side.

A diamond with Sterling or Coutinho at the tip — and two hard workers like Can and Henderson — would provide cover for Gerrard as it did in preseason.

Balotelli could play in a 4-4-1-1 with he and Sturridge switching rolls. This could be an option for a European fixture when Rodgers may opt for two of the more industrious center midfielders.

To play Balotelli as a lone striker, Rodgers could drop Sturridge out of the starting lineup completely or push him over to the right flank, where he often drops to gain possession of the ball anyway.

Balotelli would be able to fit into the 4-2-3-1, which he is familiar with from his times at Milan, below…

in addition to the 4-3-3 that the Reds tinkered with throughout preseason.

For Balotelli to fit into the squad, someone is going to have be dropped consistently and it is likely to be one of the creative talents that the Reds have come to depend on. If the Italian is content with being a squad rotation player, as opposed to a guaranteed starter, then Rodgers will have more flexibility when it comes to forming a competitive team.

Liverpool and Manchester City go again in Premier League play on Monday when the Reds travel to the Etihad to battle the Sky Blues. The two outfits played to a 2-2 draw at Yankee Stadium over the summer with the Reds winning on penalty kicks, but now spectators will see the two sides take each other on in a competitive match.

Brendan Rodgers’ side will be out to seek redemption against City, who beat them to the title despite the Reds’ late-season Anfield triumph via Philippe Coutinho’s sublime finish.

City earned a professional 2-0 victory over Newcastle United away, while Daniel Sturridge’s tap-in saw Liverpool edge Southampton on home soil.

City adopted a 4-4-2 system that allowed David Silva and Samir Nasri to roam through midfield and create chances for centre-forwards, Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic. City manager Manuel Pellegrini has been nursing his squad full of World Cup talent back to health, and will be wary of this leading into the match.

The Sky Blues’ boss said that Pablo Zabaleta, Bacary Sanga, Vincent Kompany, Martin Demichelis, and Fernandinho are “not 100% but ready” for Monday’s clash, courtesy of the the Manchester Evening News.  

Star striker Sergio Aguero scored a last-gasp goal against the Magpies last week, and it appears that he’s not under an injury cloud and can be expected to start from the outset.

There will be one notable absence, with £32 million French signing and defender Eliaquim Mangala set to miss the clash because of a foot injury.

In midfield, Yaya Toure and Fernando are likely to anchor the squad, while David Silva and Samir Nasri will be the creative outlets inside the channels when the team has possession.

Liverpool may try and negate the attacking firepower of City by adopting a 4-2-3-1 formation. After a pre-season in the 4-3-3 and a 4-4-2 diamond, Liverpool broke free of expectations against Southampton by deploying a new system due to the departure of former talisman Luis Suarez.

Dejan Lovren and Martin Skrtel are expected to be the centre-back duo, but their remain serious questions about who starts in the fullback positions. £12 million acquisition Alberto Moreno from Sevilla could make his debut at left-back, meaning that Glen Johnson or Javier Manquillo would battle it out for the right-back position. However, if Rodgers does not elect Moreno, then Johnson is expected to line up on the left and Manquillo on the right.

The 4-2-3-1 may off the Reds a chance to control midfield, which is crucial when playing away to City. Steven Gerrard and Lucas Leiva were the crux of last weekend’s midfield, while Jordan Henderson, Coutinho, and Raheem Sterling played in advanced roles behind Sturridge. Unfortunately for the Reds, new capture Mario Balotelli’s deal could not be finalised quickly enough for him to be available for the clash against his former employers.

If the Reds adopt a similar setup, the pacey and direct attack they featured against City in their 3-2 victory at Anfield last April will not be on display. It would not be a surprise if Liverpool goes into a more defensive shell by dropping Henderson deeper in order to neutralize the creativity of Nasri and Silva. Emre Can may play alongside Gerrard after the club reportedly agreed to loan Lucas to Napoli for the season.

The affair at the Etihad could be a cagey one, as both teams attempt to make a statement to the heavyweights of the Premier League competition.

MANCHESTER CITY

LIVERPOOL

Let’s talk about tactics. Each week, clubs vary their approaches and over the season we’ll be analyzing how teams leverage an advantage by best using the resources within their squad.

Louis van Gaal’s Halftime Switch

Twitter’s trolls were quick to throw Louis van Gaal under the bus after his side’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of Swansea City, even though he was forced to play a weakened hand due to injuries. He set his team into a system that is often oversimplified, because it’s a mixture of a 3-4-3 that turns into a 5-2-3 and then a 3-4-1-2 in attack. If he keeps playing that system throughout the season, we can get into more in depth. While many will say that he abandoned the system out of failure, it is important to see why and how the team was more successful after he added men on the wings.

Swansea set out in a very narrow and compact 4-2-3-1. While this is not the first time United have faced that shape since van Gaal took over, it is the first time the Red Devils have played a team that spread four players across the field to press.

In the team’s final warmup match against Valencia, the Spanish outfit limited the number of men that pressed the opposition. This allowed space for Ander Herrera and Darren Fletcher to get on the ball and create. The game plan after those two got on the ball was for them to either find a wing back streaking down the flank or send the ball into the creative feet of Juan Mata. Without men to thwart the two center midfielders, United attacked with ease, as Herrera pinged this lovely ball down the flank for Ashley Young.

Swansea manager Garry Monk jammed the area where the two midfielders operate though, cutting off the supply line to the middle of the pitch, which forced Manchester United to possess in a U-shape, switching the ball from wing-back to wing-back via the center backs, until a forced long ball was played or the Swans regained possession. The reason Swansea could play so compact though, was because on the flanks, there was only one player to worry about. In the clip below, United are frustrated by Swansea’s four and even though Herrera gets an inkling of space, if he receives the ball in possession, he will be forced to play the ball backwards immediately.

At the half time break, van Gaal needed to spread the game out and he did. The extra wide men forced Swansea to spread out, because they now had to defend the wings with two men instead of one. This opened up the midfield for Herrera and Fletcher to create and work the ball into Rooney and Mata, as well as the two wide players who also had cover through their full backs. Below, the halftime switch shows its benefits, as it freed up Januzaj down the right flank, giving him the freedom to run at defenders. He does so here and earns the corner that leads to Rooney’s equalizer.

Swansea won the match on a goal that caught two rather inexperienced defenders out of place. Tyler Blackett made his Premier League debut, while Ashley Young was stuck at left back. In a five back system, the three central defenders can mask his weaknesses, but in the back four, it is easy for his aerial ability, especially, to get exposed. Once Luke Shaw and Johnny Evans get back into the side, the halftime adjustment van Gaal made Saturday is a viable Plan B for United

Baines In Attack

Leighton Baines is an indispensable part of Roberto Martinez’s Everton squad. Not only is the left back tasked with defending attacking wingers, but also getting forward down the flanks. His key pass and assist statistics are exceptional for a full back, but without Seamus Coleman as a threat down the right side, Baines became more heavily relied upon in Everton’s build up against Leicester City. Martinez wants him high up the pitch and getting chalk on the soles of his boots.

To accommodate Baines’ higher position when working the ball out from the back, an interesting sequence occurs. Below, Everton is in the middle of switching the ball through its center backs. With Baines pushed so high up field though, Sylvain Distin is short on passing options. Gareth Barry spots the space and sprints to Distin’s left to give his center back an outlet. Once the Englishman gets on the ball, look for Baines.

He is nowhere to be found. The attacking full back is so high up the pitch, that it forces the player you would expect to be there, Steven Pienaar, to drop to gain possession from Barry.

The attack is hugely reliant on Baines’ vision, when it gets forward to score its second goal. Pienaar receives a diagonal ball from Romelu Lukaku in a swift attack by the Toffies. Off camera, Baines sprints forward in the attack to support his midfield partner. After getting the ball down the flank, the England international cuts it back for the South African, who finds Steven Naismith to make it 2-1.

By starting Baines further forward, Everton gets width and it enables the extra attacker to link up with the likes of Pienaar and Naismith around the 18-yard box. Baines’ forward movement was limited in the second half, as he did not receive the ball beyond the 18-yard box once.

Sterling Goes Streaking

There were a lot of tactical aspects in the Anfield opener, ranging from Liverpool’s 4-2-3-1 and the variation of its buildup play to Southampton using Victor Wanyama as a battering ram in midfield.

Out of respect for the shift the Kenyan put in, we’ll feature a GIF to recognize him.

As fun as it would be to watch Victor Wanyama crunch Coutinho, Raheem Sterling, and others with success nine times, it is a bit more interesting to look at the movement and finishing of one of those Liverpool youngsters.

Some people joke about Sterling being a baby, but his football mind has certainly grown and his game is maturing as a result. Early last season, the starlet used his pace to get behind defenses, only for him to be caught by a defender or for him to make a, “Come on, man!” style miss – such as this one against Manchester City last December.

Of course, his finishing improves over the season, but he has been able to compose himself in front of goal and simply place the ball by the keeper in one-on-one situations.

His journey to goal was a bit different Sunday though, as he made a similar run into the middle of the park to get into the channel between Nathaniel Clyne and Jose Fonte.

In the 6th minute, he is off to the races via Daniel Sturridge’s through-ball.

While Sterling does get on the ball only to be ushered away from Fraser Forster by the Southampton defense, it sets the tone for the Reds’ opener over a quarter of an hour later.

Jordan Henderson zips that deliciously shaped through-ball into the path of the 19-year-old, who finishes with ease.

The diagonal run Sterling makes is not only for him though, as it opens up space for teammates as well. As the Reds look to double their lead, Sterling darts forward again, dragging Clyne with him to open up space for the on-running Coutinho.

Perhaps Sterling has grown out of the phase young players go through, when they feel the need do three step-overs before nutmegging their opponent to get by them.

Most of a player’s time on the pitch is spent off the ball, so Sterling having a look at his off-the-ball movement is an underrated part of his development that should improve more with time. If Sterling continues to make intelligent runs through the channels like those against the Saints, it will be another lethal weapon in Brendan Rodgers’ arsenal.

In order to keep this article fresh each week, I will need some user input. It is impossible for me to watch and breakdown all 10 games each weekend, as much as I would love to, so if you notice something that a team you follow closely is doing tactically, feel free to tweet me, @alexsfairchild, or drop a line in the comments section below, and I’ll gladly look into it.

Overachieving was a theme for both Liverpool and Southampton in their last campaigns, but each side has been active in this summer’s transfer market. While Southampton has off-loaded several players from last year’s extremely talented squad, Liverpool has sold Luis Suarez, but made an extensive amount of purchases to increase depth ahead of its first Champions League campaign since the turn of the decade.

The Reds signed three Southampton players, including Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, and Dejan Lovren, over the summer, though only one of the triumvirate is likely to start in Sunday’s clash at Anfield. Lambert is likely seen as more of Plan B for manager Brendan Rodgers, and Lallana is out injured. Lovren should start at the back with Martin Skrtel, as the pair blanked Borussia Dortmund in its first start together last weekend. A goal and assist, not to mention his strong display of leadership, highlighted the Croatian’s display. Glen Johnson and Javier Manquillo will join the two center backs, unless Rodgers feels left back Alberto Moreno fits into the system after less than a week with the club. Moreno’s presence in the team would push Johnson to right back.

Rodgers is likely to play a hybrid between a diamond 4-4-2 and 4-3-3, with a lone striker. To start the team’s trip to the US, the Reds held a rigid 4-3-3, with a triangle midfield anchored by Steven Gerrard, who was assisted by two shuttlers. Emre Can and Jordan Henderson are expected to take on those roles in the opener. On the flanks, Coutinho and Raheem Sterling ran the show, while Lambert featured as a lone striker. However, Daniel Sturridge adds a wrinkle to the team’s game plan, and is expected to be supported closely by Sterling and Coutinho, who will pinch inside, while the other pushes further up in a more attacking role. An attacking pair of full backs will give the home side width.

Southampton is likely to combat its opponents with a 4-3-3 of its own. New gaffer, Ronald Koeman, has said that he sees this as a squad that fits the 4-3-3, which he used in preseason. Koeman is certain to start new signing Graziano Pelle as a center forward. Dusan Tadic and either Lloyd Isgrove, who was energetic in preseason, or Gaston Ramirez will flank Pelle with Jay Rodriguez still recovering injury.

If Morgan Schneiderlin’s “strike” continues, despite the Frenchman being threatened by a fine of two week’s wages if he refuses to take the pitch on Sunday, Victor Wanyama should anchor the center of midfield. James Ward-Prowse will surely have a place in the squad after a strong preseason and Steven Davis should round out the trio.

At the back, Nathaniel Clyne will hope to build on his impressive performances last season with marauding runs down his flank. Jose Fonte should partner Maya Yoshida in the middle, unless Koeman feels his Thursday signing, Florin Gardos, is prepared to slide into the squad. Loan signing Ryan Bertrand should get the call at left back. Fraser Forster was signed this week and is likely to replace last year’s No. 1, Artur Boruc.

The tactical battle should be interesting as both teams play attack-minded football that could lead to exciting opening to the campaigns of both outfits.

Liverpool:

Southampton:

In the age of tactical writing and analysis, soccer geeks fight over which formation is best, the use of the False 9, if there is a False 10, and whether or not to label a defensive midfielder as the next Claude Makelele. What can be lost in the analysis though, is the positioning of players and how it contributes to their chemistry as a unit.

Arrigo Sacchi and others emphasized the importance of there being no more than 25-meters between a team’s center forward and center backs. Center backs can drop too deep, and that point was raised by Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports during Liverpool’s title challenge in the EPL campaign.

The analysts noted that the Reds’ center back pairing of Mamadou Sakho and Martin Skrtel has been dicey. When in the 18-yard box, they are supposed to protect, but by entering a premature panic mode, they invite opponents to score. Having not learned from the lessons, or perhaps because the two had developed a habit of being too cautious, the duo sat back against Crystal Palace, allowing the host of their season’s penultimate match to obliterate Liverpool’s three-goal advantage in the final quarter hour.

It is important to realize the errors of the center backs as a pair. As individuals, each has the talent and skill set of a top center back at the top level in Europe. Both are imposing figures, which are superb in the air and can defend one-on-one. Each can play with the ball at their feet and contribute in possession, which could explain why Rodgers plays the pair of them as opposed to slipping in Daniel Agger in for one of them. However, they often fail to push out of the box.

Fast forward through the World Cup to Liverpool’s preseason tour to America, where the two played together in the Guinness International Champions Cup. In the pre-season, the Reds have focused on pressing and playing a very high line to squeeze the game and force turnovers higher up the pitch, which makes it easier to unleash the pace of the team’s attack-minded talent. In their US opener at Fenway Park against AS Roma, granted benefitting from a smaller pitch, the Reds had all 10 outfield players in their opponents’ half, putting the Italians under lock and key, so forcing them to play long balls over the top. In those matches the team was a unit, but when Skrtel and Sakho played against Manchester United as the presumed first choice center back pairing for Rodgers, it produced an unpleasant flashback to that stark May evening.

After Skrtel failed to get tight enough on Wayne Rooney to thwart the superstar from leveling the match at 1-1, the Reds fell back into a similar pattern. The two do not exit the 18-yard box fast enough after they get sucked into it easily. It’s a reoccurring problem that comes down to concentration and leadership. Even though the flat four is common across all levels of football, it requires a chief to keep everyone focused and in position for 90 minutes, especially with an EPL title on the line. While Skrtel is the signal caller at the back, often motioning his arms to point to runners, he seems to lose himself in micromanagement. The lack of communication could also come down to a language-barrier, but we can’t know that for sure.

Failing to learn their lesson, the two sag close to the six-yard box in the second half. Now, Simon Mignolet seems like a nice guy, but holding his hand isn’t the answer to successfully defending your rivals. Before the sequence below starts, which is the build up to the second United goal, Ashley Young gets the ball on a switch to his flank. He’s about 20 yards at most from the top of the 18, but Rodgers’ duo is tracking the forward runs of Javier Hernandez and Rooney into the box. They do this because they’ve panicked. Young is walking the ball down the flank and the two runners are not a threat, but by drifting deep, the two Red Devils become one.

At this point, Skrtel and Sakho have made a decision and to their credit, they don’t hesitate. Once Young opts to play the short ball though, the two should get right of the 18-yard box, but they don’t and it’s several seconds that they stand around inside the box. As a result, it limits the team from putting pressure on United. The two are caught out by the ball from Mata and fail to close him down, before he punishes them with a superb strike.

As Liverpool pushes forward to equalize, the back line remains a problem and fails to close down the shooter, because it is too busy stuck in its own penalty area. On the third goal, the defending is far more criminal, as Martin Kelly (who has signed for Crystal Palace) and Skrtel are rooted when Jesse Lingard takes a shot with too much time and space. Had the whole back line pushed out of the area, Lingard never would have had the chance to hit the ball.

Reds supporters and Rodgers needed a savior to keep this from occurring at the start of the season, because teams would surely find a way to exploit the vulnerability.

In other words, Dejan Lovren could be the most valuable of Rodgers’ summer signings. While he will not produce assists to Daniel Sturridge via long balls or score from a corner in every game, he will be in charge of controlling Liverpool’s back line.

He demanded change on multiple occasions in his debut against Borussia Dortumund.

Throughout the first half, he is very intent on keeping level with Skrtel, but as the game goes on, it becomes clear that the two were not on the same page. Lovren wanted to push the line forward to keep the team moving up as a unit, while Skrtel was content to sit deep.

After Dortmund’s kick-off proceeding the Reds’ third goal, Lovren immediately puts his arms out to force the back line closer to half. By doing so, it helps the unit pressure Dortmund into making mistakes and Liverpool gets an attacking move going.

Moments later, we can see the high line in action. Everybody is holding it well and this is what the Reds want. However, compressing play is not Liverpool’s problem. It’s communication when forcing the opponent out of the 18.

In the 55th minute, Liverpool defends a Dortmund corner. They clear the ball away, but the visitors regain possession on the right. At left center back, Lovren wants to be in line with the rest of his teammates to defend any runs into the box from a cross, but as soon as he drifts into the penalty area, he seems to ask himself, “What am I doing here?”

He questions himself, immediately pushes out of the box and then looks to see where his teammates are, before realizing that they’re inside the area. Lovren, with his arms spread, motions with them, and looks back to yell at his teammates – a sign that he is frustrated with the rest of the unit, because they are sagging.

This is expected of Lovren, who played in a different fashion at Southampton. In the 49th minute of the Saints’ penultimate match against Swansea City, the team flees the box like vendors are giving something away outside the stadium.

Southampton do not panic like the Skrtel and Sakho pairing were as well, which can be seen in the 84th minute of the same match. Lovren and Fonte treat the top of the box the way a dog treats an electric fence.

Most of the goals highlighted in these clips are scored from around, or at the very top of the 18 yard box, because the Reds are caught too deep and fail to close down. The issue concerns the team’s mentality, and perhaps, if Lovren continues to get time in the starting XI, problems with the team’s defensive shape will be resolved.

During the frenzy of the World Cup, it was difficult to stay on top of all of the headlines, so one of the reports that you and I may have missed was in The Wall Street Journal newspaper where research shows that most soccer fans are liberal.

The poll showed that amongst those who consider themselves ‘liberal,’ 11% said they watched the 2010 World Cup, while a mere 6% of conservatives took in the action. About 7% of independents, which labeled themselves in the survey as ‘middle of the road,’ watched four years ago.

The question then becomes whether this is just correlation or if there is a cause to the difference between preference of sport. According to a similar poll noted in the article, preference for National Football League playoff games remains constant across political affiliations at 28%.

The reporter looked for a possible correlation to the numbers from the poll in relation to the state of youth soccer. He compared total youth populations in each state with a count of players under 19 years of age from regional and state youth soccer organizations connected to U.S. Soccer to get a percentage of youths that play per state.

The map produces an interesting outcome that seems to support the findings of the poll commissioned by Experian. Blue (left-leaning) states, such as Massachusetts, Maine, Washington, and Vermont have higher percentages of youths playing soccer than states with conservative tendencies, such as Texas, Kansas, and Missouri. The article notes that of the top 20 states in terms of participation, 17 gave their electoral votes to the Democrat, Barack Obama, while the 16 of the 20 lowest states voted for the Republican, Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.

While the candidates represent an extraordinarily small sample size, it is worth noting that Barack Obama is a West Ham United fan and Romney attends his grandson’s youth matches.

High attention to soccer in certain states could be a by-product of the high numbers of foreign-born individuals in those areas. A connection could be a result of relatively large immigrant populations having been exposed to the sport more than their native-born neighbors. Immigrant populations tend to affiliate with liberal ideals as well, which could explain Experian’s findings.

In terms of media representation, multiple conservative columnists and talk show hosts have labeled soccer as from a reason for America’s moral decay, to being worse than the deadly ebola virus.

Conservatives associate the game with more liberal thinkers, as they observe that the game is more popular in metropolitan areas, which have progressive populations (i.e. Boston and New York).

Soccer has reason to appeal to both sides of the US political spectrum. Republicans preach that hard work and determination can get an individual to the top, which is true for the world’s best players, while liberals associate themselves with the collective efforts of society, which are embodied in the integral team cohesion required to attain success at the game’s top levels.

In March, paired with Oguchi Onyewu, John Brooks suffered through one of the worst performances put on by an American representing the Stars and Stripes.

In the friendly against Ukraine, Brooks’ hands flailed in the air like an inflatable tube man each time the Ukrainian forwards had him beat. He was disgraceful, but his actions were understandable. He was just a kid — athletic, talented and one for the future. But the future was not supposed to come on June 16, 2014.

In its 2-1 victory over Ghana, the U.S. parked a red, white, and blue bus after it had been tossed, tattered, and torn by the ferocious African team. At times, it seemed the American’s tournament had crashed and burned as fast as Portugal’s. Jozy Altidore was sentenced to the stretcher, Clint Dempsey’s nose was S-shaped, and Matt Besler, the most consistent and trusted of the American center backs, had come up hobbling as well.

Jurgen Klinsmann’s team was going to have to swallow a pride and defend for the entirety of the second half. There would not be any Ghanaian midfielders suffering from whiplash due to the power and pace of the American’s counter attacks.

There were nerves, but hope as well. Even with Besler wounded, Omar Gonzalez was the obvious choice for a replacement. He is a master of clearing his lines, and Klinsmann had to have known that the elder defender could fit in right alongside Geoff Cameron and hold down the fort ala Azteca 2013.

However, the camera panned across a slim young man wearing the No. 6 jersey.

When Brooks was named to the roster, it was merely a surprise because he had beaten out Clarence Goodson for a spot in the squad.

Many thought Brooks would never step foot on a Brazilian pitch unless it was to warm-up before a game or get a touch or two in before the start of a second half. Seeing Brooks chosen ahead of Gonzalez was a shock.

A feeling of vindication arose during his shaky start. He whiffed on a clearance midway through the half. Brooks was not ready for primetime, or at least that’s what we thought. Ghana equalized and we were fearful they’d grab a winner.

Then Ian Darke screamed at the most opportune moment “It’s John Brooks, it’s John Brooks!”

I couldn’t believe. You couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. He ran back to the bench at first and then he realized what he had done. Brooks waved off his teammates and belly flopped. The XI mauled him, though as they dispersed to solider on for the remainder of the match, Brooks stayed on the ground, arms over his head. Once fellow youngster Aron Johannsson pushed himself off his teammate to give Brooks some space, there was a little shake of the head from the German-American. It was as if he couldn’t believe not only what he had done, but also the faith another man had put in him.

Klinsmann could not have planned that Brooks would have nodded home a textbook header at the death, but he trusted the 21 year old to defend. Despite failing on three battles in the air, Brooks was solid defensively. He forced four turnovers and cleared the ball from danger seven times.

Brooks was the unlikely hero on a memorable night for US soccer.

It’s not a rematch. It’s a remix.

When broadcasters across the globe welcome viewers to Spain’s clash with the Netherlands, they’ll be quick to alert the world that this is a revenge match for the Oranje. However, a maximum of four Dutchman, who played in the 2010 finale, will take the pitch against La Roja. Holland is a different squad than it was four years ago. While Robin van Persie, Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, and Nigel de Jong look to avenge the extra time defeat, there will be eight men behind them looking to prove themselves on the sport’s biggest stage.

The personnel Louis van Gaal will deploy against Spain are a new bunch. Bruno Martins Indi, Stefan De Vrij, and Ron Vlaar are expected to make up an adapted three-center back, two-wingback system. Daley Blind will be at the ready to bomb down the pitch from the left flank or break up play in the middle. The Dutch Footballer of the Year is the key to the defensive half of the squad. Look for Daryl Janmaat to defend the right flank.

In Salvador, the Spanish could field a team nearly identical to that of the edition four years ago, except at the back, as Carles Puyol and Joan Capdevila are not in the squad. Gerard Pique and Sergio Ramos will be the center back pairing, unless Vicente del Bosque opts for Javi Martinez. The duo will be flanked by Jordi Alba, and a pick of Cesar Azpilicueta or Juanfran, though both players saw time in the team’s two warm-up matches.

Del Bosque & Co. will continue to paint blue arrows across digital fields created by Opta throughout their involvement in the tournament, so the question becomes who will break them up, and even more importantly, who can keep them out of the 18 yard box? Blind could be that player if he is put in the middle of the park. While he can feature as a left back, van Gaal would be wise to add the Ajax star to the middle of the pitch, so that he can disrupt the narrow attack of the opponent.

Spain will not be the side that has to react. Del Bosque will not abandon the team’s shape and style. A few players that are not in the core of the squad will be peppered into the lineup, but expect Xabi Alonso, Xavi, and Sergio Busquets to make up the middle three. In the attack, Diego Costa is not necessarily a starter, though if he plays, his style will have to mesh with that of the team. Costa likes to run into the channels on counters and scrap for the ball in the six-yard box, but that may not combine well with the Spanish system. It will be up Andres Iniesta and another attacker to flank Costa and integrate him into the game. Perhaps a long ball or two from Alonso could send Costa towards goal.

To defend the Spanish attack, the Oranje will have to choose between playing two or three center backs. In warmup matches, the Dutch dabbled between the two shapes, and it worked against an attack-minded Ghana. While playing three at the back is supposed to give an extra man to fend off two strikers, it can be effective when packing men behind the ball against a team where six players vigorously pass and move in the final third.

The Dutch will sit two or three breakers of the midfield in front of the center backs, and the reaction of van Gaal’s defense to the movement of the Spanish players will be a deciding factor. One of the center midfielders in front of the back line, which could be Jonathan de Guzman or Leroy Fer, will be tasked with breaking forward and connecting the defense with the creative line of Robben, van Persie, and Sneijder. A skilled and cohesive break will be paramount to Holland getting a result, which would ease pressure on the squad ahead of matches against Australia and Chile.

Liverpool Football Club may not win the Premier League title this season, but to many soccer fans worldwide the brand of football displayed by Brendan Rodgers’ Reds this season has been refreshing and, at times, wonderfully exhilarating. They have played the game in a manner the game ought to be played. It was exciting, attacking soccer that has provided massive entertainment for those of us who love this most beautiful of games.

Rodgers and his team will no doubt be dragged over the coals for their approach to the Crystal Palace game, with many critics saying that they should have been more tactically aware and hearing the term “manage the game” being bandied about quite a lot. To all this, I say rubbish. Teams ought to play to their strengths and Liverpool’s strength is in their attack — plain and simple. Defensively, Liverpool is poor. Their center-back combinations cannot be qualified as the highest quality. Glen Johnson has once and for all proven to even the uninitiated that he cannot defend at all. If Hodgson was watching at Selhurst Park, let’s hope he took note for England’s sake.

Merely winning the game was simply not enough against Palace. Liverpool needed goals if they were going to give themselves a chance at the title. The fact that they were not content to close up shop at 3-0 is a testament to Rodgers and his team. Liverpool fans, though disappointed, should be extremely proud of how their manager and his team have approached this season especially in an era where it has become the norm for so-called “big teams” to park the proverbial bus and try to grind out one nil results — which ultimately results in dour insipid games that not even the match officials should have to suffer through.

Arsenal and Manchester United won Premier League titles with wonderfully gifted teams playing absolutely breathtaking football. So did Chelsea in their 2009-2010 title-winning season when they netted a whooping 103 goals. That’s the type of soccer fans pay good money to see. We even remember the teams such as Newcastle United in the mid 90s and Leeds United at the turn of the century that won no titles but entertained in a memorable way, playing the game the way it ought to be played.

When Liverpool face Newcastle on Sunday, they should play with the same verve and panache that have won them so many new fans this season. They may not win the title but they have won the appreciation of true soccer lovers across the globe. And we look forward to watching more of the same next season.

Mr Rodgers and co, continue playing good football and leave the “bus parking” to the valets.

Despite scoring first against Bayern Munich both home and away, Manchester United were totally outclassed over the two legs, and the gulf between both sides was plain to see, where the best Manchester United could do was to block their penalty area with eight players in hopes of stifling Bayern.

After losing 4-2 on aggregate to Manchester United, and exiting the UEFA Champions League, the season for the Red Devils is effectively over.

Manchester United has been absolutely wretched this season and the blame for that lies solely at the feet of Sir Alex Ferguson. Yes, I said it, Sir Alex is the reason the United faithful (myself included) have all been up in arms or down in the dumps since last August. And it’s not poor old David Moyes’ fault as we would all like to believe.

Realistically, David Moyes is not in the same managerial class as Manuel Pellegrini, Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger or Brendan Rodger. That fact coupled with the broken down squad he inherited from Ferguson was always going to make this season a torrid one. His detractors have argued that this is the same squad that won the title last season and, as such, Moyes must be the problem. No, that’s not the case.

The fact that United won the title last season was more down to the dismal showing of the other top teams and Ferguson’s cult of personality, not only at Old Trafford but on the Premier League. The Liverpool game at Old Trafford is a glaring example of how things have changed. Anyone familiar with English football knows full well that teams playing at Old Trafford are almost never awarded penalties. Yet Liverpool were awarded three in a single game. That would have been inconceivable had Ferguson been sitting on the United bench. Moyes cannot be blamed for not being Ferguson.

For the last four seasons, this United squad have been in dire need of an injection of quality players, especially in the middle of the park where it really matters. The midfield threat that once made United an offensive juggernaut has been long missing, and Wayne Rooney frequently finds himself frustrated and alone up front. His number of league goals this season is an indication of the lack of service he receives. It is also an indication that opposing teams are now fully aware that United’s attacking threat is encompassed in Rooney. Shut him down and you shut down the United offense. As a result, he has been receiving a great deal more attention than would normally have been the case.

David Moyes faces an uphill task in so far as quality players are concerned. Liverpool’s strike partnership of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, have scored more goals than entire Premier League teams.

United’s lack of world-class players cannot be laid at David Moyes’ feet. It is Ferguson who, with the exception of Shinji Kagawa and Robin van Persie, refrained from bringing in quality players during the past three seasons. And those chickens have now come home to roost. The current squad has only four world-class players in it — Rooney, Van Persie, Juan Mata and goalkeeper David De Gea. Compare this with the other top teams in the league and it becomes clear that United is not a top team and their current seventh place in the league is about par for the quality (or lack thereof) of this team.

This brings us to the philosophy of the team. Before this season, there was always one thing you could count on from a Manchester United team. They were going to play hard to the final whistle, and that was evident in the number of goals they scored very late in games. With those teams, there was an air of belief that they were never beaten and that philosophy took them to many famous victories. This belief is now clearly missing. But also missing is Ferguson and the numerous outstanding players that inspired those wins.

The current squad is simply not capable of living up to that United philosophy.  David Moyes, through no fault of his own, is not capable of driving that philosophy through sheer force of will in the same manner that Ferguso was able to. Moyes will have to craft his own philosophy for the team and that must start with a purging of the current squad come the end of the season. If there is no improvement next season, then Moyes can be kicked to the curb. Until then we will lie the blame for this season’s fiasco squarely at the feet of Sir Alex Ferguson.

Against Italy and France, Vicente del Bosque has lined his world champions up in a formation with four defenders and six midfielders (4-6-0). While this tactic may well be the future of world football, it has various flaws that must be ironed out in order for it to work wonders.

Barcelona have played with one or two true forwards during their successful run to the top of the international stage, including David Villa and Sanchez. Villa, especially, was lethal for both club and country, finishing off opportunities orchestrated by the likes of Iniesta and Xavi. However, without a finisher, Spain and their tiki-taka system seem to be missing that edge in the final third.

Spain’s attacking play was poor – in comparison to past performances – in the third quarterfinal. With Cesc Fabregas deployed as a false 10, the ball was stuck in the middle of the pitch, as the former Arsenal player blended into the center of pitch, only distinguishing himself when he was the lone man pressuring the French rearguard.

It seemed there was no way forward for La Roja, unless David Silva possessed the ball and made a move towards goal. Alonso was fluent in the midfield, alongside Iniesta and Xavi. Unmarked, the ex-Liverpudlian picked up his first goal slotting a textbook header past the French keeper.

Scoring via the air is not Spain‘s forte, nor is it the Barcelona way, but it was the only way through against France. Gerard Pique was left in acres of space by the French on a corner, though he nodded the ball out of touch. Until the 90^th minute, when Pedro earned his nation a penalty, the red men struggled to find their attacking venom.

The Spanish managed to muster 13 shots, with 11 of those coming from within 18 yards, though only 3 were on target. France did well to keep the defending champions off the mark inside of the area

But it was on the counter where Spain looked extraordinarily weak. In the 29^th minute, the Barcelona-packed side meandered forward, and at various other times during the match the Iberians appeared lazy to say the least. Their hard pressing was AWOL in the second half, seeing Blanc’s boys string together passes.

One must doubt that Spain are not “hungry” anymore. In fact, UEFA’s Preview Magazine for Poland and Ukraine had an interview with Xavi entitled, “Still Hungry.” It could be possible that the Spanish become frustrated without a target man who can run onto a ball, or link up with a combination pass on the edge of the area.

Against Italy, Spain were content to keep the ball in the final third, but failed to get into the box until a wonderful run by Fabregas. Upon the entrance of Fernando Torres, the game changed. Immediately, the Chelsea man torched the back three of Italy, giving Danielle de Rossi a nightmare at center back. Torres failed to score, of course, but his performance earned him a place in the starting XI against the Irish, scoring just moments into the game.

With a forward, the Spanish were themselves. The passing was there, along with that deadly through ball for the eventual goal scorer.

In their tricky fixture versus Croatia, del Bosque took off Torres and replaced him with Jesus Navas. The traditional winger won the match for his country – playing in a primarily attacking role.

Thus, when Spain have a striker, or a footballer like Navas, they can beat anybody.

Portugal are next up, but with one of the strongest midfields in the tournament, Paulo Bento’s side could crush the Spanish, especially on the counter – if La Roja go with six midfielders. In addition, the Iberian neighbor’s boast a powerful defensive pairing in the ruthless Pepe and Bruno Alves. The former will not give his many rivals room to breathe, and perhaps he will step on someone’s foot to add an El Classico-esque air to the paring.

Roma experimented with the 4-6-0 during the last decade, using Francesco Totti, as the system’s axis. It failed to produce in Serie A and Spain have had a rough time with it in these European Championships, though they have produced two goals with the formation. However, this may be because they are a true golden generation. Also, when three key creators play together everyday, it is easier for them to work with any system, as the high intelligence of Xavi, Iniesta, and Sergio is impeccable.

It will be interesting to see if the strikerless side becomes popular, though, like other tactical projects, the 4-6-0 may fail, which serves as another of the many reasons to take in football in by the hour and a half.

Manchester City, Mario Balotelli and his agent are all angry that Balotelli has been slapped with a four match ban by the English FA for stomping on Tottenham Hotspurs midfielder Scott Parker. Balotelli, his club and his agent would have us believe that his boot ended up in Parker’s head solely by accident and the player is simply being persecuted by the FA simply because he is Balotelli.

I agree with Balotelli and his supporters that the FA erred in its decision to hand him a four match ban. In fact, the ban should have been longer. It is about time that football associations everywhere confront the issue of violent conduct against players by other players on the field of play. Had Mario Balotelli’s foot come down directly on Scott Parker’s head it could have resulted in very serious injury to the Spurs player. Thankfully, that was not the case.

We call football the beautiful game and for good reason. However the beauty is slowly being taken away by the beasts of the game and that should not be allowed to continue. The creative artistry of the playmaker is slowly being squeezed out of the game by ultra defensive tactics spearheaded by skill deficient midfield enforcers whose sole role on the field of play is to chop down opponents of class and skill.

Hard tackling midfielders who break up plays and get their own teams offence started are not the issue here. Patrick Vieira, during his heyday at Arsenal, was the quintessential midfield hard man, but he was a wonderful box to box midfielder who did it all, as was Roy Keane at Manchester United and Claude Makalele at Chelsea — even though he was not blessed with the skill of Vieira and Keane.

Football fans pay good money to watch the Messi’s, Ronaldo’s, Silva’s, Mata’s and Suarez’s dazzle us with their skill, even when they are playing against the teams we support. The real football fan appreciates class and artistry no matter who the player or for whom he plays a fact exemplified by Madridistas in November 2005 inside the Bernabeu when they gave a standing ovation to Barcelona’s Ronaldinho for his breathtaking display even though that display condemned Real Madrid to a 3-0 defeat in el Clasico.

Clubs are supposed to back their players however, when a player intentionally sets out to hurt another player, a line must be drawn. Manchester City should be careful in their stance. After all, its was little over a year ago that Nigel de Jong broke the leg of Newcastle’s Hatem Ben Arfa with a senseless tackle for which he was never sanctioned, neither on the field or off. Their argument that they are being targeted because of the suspensions of Vincent Kompany and Mario Balotelli is therefore baseless.

A cursory look around the Premier League reveals a real lack of creative artistry. Outside of a select few players led by Juan Mata, Luis Suarez, Hatem Ben Arfa, David Silva and a certain Mario Balotelli, the Premier League lacks players blessed with dazzling skill. This situation is however not exclusive to the Premier League and is a blight on all the major European Leagues.

The Premier League must take the lead however and bring the hammer down on what is tantamount to the desecration of the beautiful game. The message must be loud and clear, violent conduct will not be tolerated by any player. Those of us who pay to watch this game of ours understand that we will not see the purists on a regular basis but we are also sure that we do not want to see the likes of Pepe at any time.

The exit of the Manchester big two from the Champions League have left many in a state of shock and still lingering numbness. Manchester United with their pedigree and illustrious European history were expected to breeze through the group stage with Benfica being the only other team of note in the group. Whilst City with their Arabian ATM (Sheik Mansour) and marquee players were also expected to do very well.

Well surprise, surprise. Both giants of the English game are now destined for the Europa League, a destination that really should have come at no surprise. Manchester United have been abysmal for quite some time and both Basel and Benfica exploited their shortcomings with relative ease. The failure of United to beat either team at Old Trafford is the main reason why their European games for the rest of this season will be played on Thursday nights instead of Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

This United outfit lacks cutting edge and guile in attack and as such pose no terror to opposing teams, even when playing at Old Trafford. In their last 14 games United have only scored 3 goals in a game on one occasion and this was against Aldershot Town — one of the worst performing teams in League Two. Of the other 13 games they could only muster a single goal in 9 of these encounters, not the kind of form to get you into the last 16 of the Champions League. In fact, it will not win you the Europa League either.

Roberto Mancini and his merry millionaires have now realized like Roman Abramovich that the Champions League cannot be won solely on the basis of financial power. His team, were only just beginning to find their European legs only to have them kicked out from under them, but they will be back next season all the better for the experience and playing in the Europa League will no doubt do them a world of good as they continue to gel as a team whilst playing in European competition.

The exit of both teams also brings into question the standing of the Premier League vis-à-vis the other major European leagues. Is this merely an isolated case of the football blues or could this be a sign of a greater malaise settling into the English game? Only time will tell. What is however evident is the growing gulf in class between Manchester United and the other European giants. We got a mere taste of it earlier this year at Wembley courtesy of a merciless Barcelona. And on the basis of current performance I would dare say that Manchester United are now a cut below Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, AC Milan and, of course, we already know they are a cut below Manchester City.

If Andre Villas-Boas was not feeling the pressure after Chelsea’s recent league form which has seen them lose three of their last four league games, the young pretender to the throne of the self appointed “Special One” must now definitely be feeling some unease after the Blues went down to defeat in the Bay Arena on Wednesday night in the Champions League.

Already 12 points off the pace in the race for the league crown, Villas-Boas and his men now find themselves needing a victory against Valencia at Stamford Bridge in two weeks time to secure their passage into the last 16 of the Champions League. A scoreless draw would also be enough to see Chelsea through. However given their recent defensive form, coupled with a rampant Valencia attack, it does not suggest a game without goals and as such Villas-Boas must go for all three points.

It is unfortunate that Villas-Boas has found himself in this position as he has not gotten it all wrong and the blame for Chelsea’s recent poor run of form should not be laid solely at the feet of the young Portuguese. He has made Chelsea’s style of play more fluid going forward as they now play a more attacking style of football. Much of this work has however been undone by maniacal defending at the other end thus bringing under the microscope an area of Chelsea’s play that has usually been rock solid.

What has gone wrong with the Chelsea defense? Since the departure of Ricardo Carvalho, none of the other center backs have stepped up in a consistent way to occupy that spot next to John Terry, thus resulting in constant chopping and changing at the heart of the defense. It has been a case of musical chairs between Ivanovic, Luiz and Alex. None of whom has so far looked the part.

The form of John Terry has also been a bit dodgy of late and it is quite coincidental that Chelsea’s run of bad form commenced with that defeat at Queens Park Rangers and the subsequent allegations of racist abuse leveled at Terry by Anton Ferdinand. It is clear this controversy has affected not only Terry but also the team, of which he is the leader. He has not been as commanding or confident and it has had a ripple effect throughout the entire team.

Another massive headache for Villas-Boas must be what to do with Fernando Torres. Here is a player he has inherited and who he is forced to play even though this player is clearly not producing the goods. Frank Lampard has found the back of the net more often than any other Chelsea player this season with 7 strikes, while Daniel Sturridge has been the team’s leading man up front with 6 goals. Torres misses more often than he scores, Drogba has not been his old self and Anelka is clearly not a favorite of Villas-Boas and therefore spends most of his time watching from the dug out. In short, the goals are not coming from the strikers.

The Champions League has always been coveted by Roman Abramovich and previous Chelsea managers have been judged solely on their inability to win it. Villas-Boas was brought in (at huge cost to the club) to remedy this situation. Therefore, his team’s indiscretions in the league will no doubt be forgiven once he delivers in Europe and at present Abramovich’s European dream is hanging by a slim thread and so too is Villas-Boas’s job if his boss remains true to form.

Villas-Boas must get his defense sorted out and quickly. He also needs to get his strikers scoring goals if he is to get his team back on track. He has some quality players at his disposal. What he does not have is time and he needs time as much as humans need air. The next three weeks could determine Villas-Boas’s future at Chelsea and as much as he would like to say he is under no pressure at the moment, I think he knows that his time is very limited and he will only be judged on the results he delivers in the European kingdom of Roman “the machete” Abromovich.

For Sir Alex Ferguson the current international break could not have come at a better time. After a blistering start to the season, his Manchester United team have looked very laboured over the last couple of weeks and even though they have only lost once, that hiding received from Manchester City, they have looked uninspired at best and at worse downright boring. The Red Devils are sorely lacking a skillful attacking midfielder in the mould of a David Silva, Samir Nasri, or Juan Mata to name a few, who not only dictates the play but also scores goals on a regular basis.

Lets face it, none of the bunch of Anderson, Carrick, Fletcher, Cleverley, Park, Valencia, or Gibson is going to get you 10 or more goals per season. Giggs is not much of a factor anymore and Nani might get you 10 goals. However he is way too inconsistent and lacks that commanding presence. To top it off he is employed out wide where his pace is best exploited and is not much use in the middle of the park. End result, Rooney and the other forwards have to drop deep to pick up the ball or be isolated up front waiting to get it and by the time either happens the opposing team is back in numbers and any potential chance is lost.

The strength of recent United teams have in great part rested on the fact that they could conjure up goals from all parts of the park on a regular basis. The likes of Steve Bruce and Denis Irwin were regular scorers even though they were defenders. And midfielders such as Paul Scholes, Eric Cantona, Paul Ince and Roy Keane were so deadly in front of goal opposing teams had to give them as much attention as any of the United forwards which in turn left the forwards with more room within which to operate. Those days however are past and opposing teams are now fully aware that if they can keep Rooney quiet the United attack will most times grind to a halt. That other player who used to pick up the slack is now having a great deal of fun in Madrid.

Last season United became the first team to win the Premier League despite drawing most of their away games partly due to the fact that the home teams would pack their midfield and the Red Devils had no players with the guile and skill to unlock these football barricades. Already this season they have drawn two of their away games. Unfortunately for them this kind of artistry will not be good enough to win them the league this season. Manchester City are going to make sure of that.

Led by the sublime skills of David Silva, City’s attack has been fluid and deadly and between them, Aguero, Balotelli and Dzeko have hit a combined total of 24 league goals, only four less than the entire United team. Throw in Silva’s 4 goals and that difference is wiped away and the gap between the teams magnified. City’s attack shows no sign of relenting and if they continue to win games in the manner that they have so far demonstrated the title race could be over much sooner than anticipated.

Watching Wayne Rooney playing just in front of the defence in the second half of the game against Sunderland was simply painful. Rooney clearly has vision, passes the football very well and his goal scoring pedigree is unquestioned. In short, Rooney is the best attacking midfielder in this Manchester United team. He can pick a killer pass and he can find the net with equal efficiency. Maybe in the short term he could occupy that playmaking role behind the strikers with any two of the trio of Berbatov, Welbeck and Hernandez in front of him. Rooney is a great player, but he is not going to pass the ball to himself and those behind him are not going to create a great deal of chances for him.

Which brings us to the question of how does Sir Alex rectify this glaring deficiency within his squad? Simple really. He has to go out and spend good money on top quality. It may not be a bad idea to revisit the Wesley Sneijder option in light of Inter’s poor start to the season. Both Inter and Sneijder might see the move as a win-win situation. Sneijder gets the opportunity to take on a new challenge and Inter gets a bag of cash to help the rebuilding process, which is so obviously upon them. The obvious negative of a January move for Sneijder is that he is cup tied thus ruling him out of Champions League participation.

If a move for Sneijder does not work out, other players to consider are Parma’s Sebastian Giovinco and the German international Lukas Podolski, currently at FC Koln. Both players are better than any of the current United midfield and they have the added advantage of being younger than Sneijder and neither is cup-tied. Bids for both players should thus not be ruled out.

This boring United midfield was lucky last season. They will not be as lucky this season. Sir Alex needs to get things sorted out and quickly, established quality players need to be brought in. No more Bebe’s and, for crying out loud, no more wingers!

If recent reports coming out of England are to be believed, Manchester City coach Roberto Mancini has extended the olive branch to rogue forward Carlos Tevez. After initially stating back in September that Tevez would never again play for him subsequent to Tevez’s refusal to take the field as a second half substitute in City’s champions league game against Bayern Munich in Munich, it now seems Mancini is ready to let bygones be bygones by publicly stating that Tevez can rejoin the first team once he apologizes to his team mates and Mancini.

To the casual observer Mancini’s new stance on the Tevez issue may seem puzzling. After all, Tevez not only disrespected the manager and the club, but more importantly he disrespected the fans and the common consensus in England is that he should never be allowed to don the City shirt ever again. It’s a case of good riddance to bad Argentines. Popular support has most definitely been with Mancini.

On the surface it would therefore appear that Mancini has all the aces, not quite. Carlos Tevez is not just any player he is an extremely gifted player, a fact underscored by the titles he has won in both Europe and South America. Tevez is one of those rare footballers’ who has won every major club trophy on both continents.

In three seasons at Argentine powerhouse Boca Juniors between 2001 and 2004 Tevez was instrumental in Boca’s capture of not only the Argentine league title, but also the Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana and the Intercontinental Cup. By the time he left Boca for Brazilian giants Corinthians in 2004 for a South American record fee of $22 million Tevez had appeared for Boca 75 times finding the net on 26 occasions.

Tevez arrived at Corinthians on the back of being named Argentine Footballer of the Year in 2003 and 2004, along with being named South American Player of the Season in years. He did not disappoint the Corinthians faithful and led them to the Brazilian Serie A title in 2005 a feat which saw him being named Brazil Footballer of the Year and once again South American Player of the Season in 2005 making him the only player in history to have won this accolade in three consecutive seasons.

After appearing for Corinthians on 47 occasions, scoring an amazing 31 goals in the process Tevez left South America for Europe and the English Premier League in 2006 when he joined West Ham United. His arrival in England was dogged with controversy due to complexities associated with the ownership of his economic rights, which at the time were owned by his now Agent, Kia Joorabchian a breach of Premier League rules.

On the very last day of the 2006/2007 season Tevez scored his last goal for West Ham United and it proved to be lucky number seven as it resulted in an unlikely 1-0 win at Manchester United and guaranteed West Ham’s Premier League survival at the expense of Sheffield United.

In 2007 Tevez left Uptown Park for Old Trafford but not before weeks of wrangling over the players ownership eventually leading both clubs to seek FIFA’s assistance on coming to a determination as to who owned the player. With no concrete decision arrived at Tevez left London for Manchester on a two year loan deal and in the process scored 34 goals in 97 appearances for the Red Devils while winning two Premier League titles, the Carling Cup and the Champions League.

In 2009 Tevez made an acrimonious exit from Old Trafford and signed for neighbours City where he became an instant hit. His 53 goals for City have included some of the best ever seen in the Premier League and there were others which led City to FA Cup glory and their first major trophy in 35 years.

The quality of Carlos Tevez is undeniable and in the cut throat world of international football there are many top clubs who would like nothing better than to add a player of Tevez’s quality to their roster and many a coach thinking they can control the wayward Argentine. Mancini and the powers that be at City are more than aware of this and the peculiar dilemma that it presents.

City has only three cards to play. First, they can reinstate Tevez to the first team and run the risk of upsetting the chemistry of a team that has been in blistering form so far this season. Second, they can try and offload him in January, but a deal will have to be quick and they would no doubt take a financial hit due to the fact they would not be negotiating from a position of strength. Third, they could continue along the current path of keeping Tevez away from the first team and in effect pay him not to play.

City does hold Tevez’s registration until 2014 and they are not in need of the money his transfer will generate. Should City decide to exercise this option they would for all intents and purposes end Tevez’s playing career and many have been quietly calling for this option to be exercised. It is doubtful however that City’s decision makers will want the club to be remembered as the place where the career of one of the game’s most gifted players was brought to an unceremonious halt.

Mancini is also very aware that Tevez has played no games for the club in the Champions League and as such, would not be cup tied should he end up at one of City’s Champions League adversaries. Mancini’s olive branch could thus be an attempt to bring Tevez back into the fold just long enough to have him take the field for City in a Champions League fixture thus rendering him ineligible to participate in the competition for any other club this season to be quickly followed by his departure from Eastlands come the January transfer window.

Mancini is not the type of manager to forgive and forget what happened that September night in Munich, neither is he the type of manager to be cowed into keeping a player he does not want, just look at what happened to Adebayor. Therefore, his olive branch to Tevez is almost certainly a part of some greater design and Tevez should be wary of those who come bearing gifts.

Editor’s note: After this article was written, we learned that Carlos Tevez failed to report for Manchester City training after taking a unapproved trip to Argentina. It’ll be interesting to see what impact this latest development will have on the relationship between Tevez and City.

Photo by OliverN5

With Norwich City’s remarkable promotion to the Premier League under the stewardship of Paul Lambert, it will raise the number of Premier League managers born in and around Glasgow in Scotland to seven. If Nottingham Forest are successful in the play-offs, Billy Davies will make that number eight.

At the moment, the Glasgow boys are Sir Alex Ferguson, Alex McLeish, David Moyes, Owen Coyle, Steve Kean and Kenny Dalglish. At Aston Villa, Gary McAllister is in temporary charge and he’s another Scot from Motherwell, just a few miles south of Glasgow.

It’s remarkable that an area of around two million people is so good at producing managers and yet relatively poor at producing players. Only Dalglish can claim to have been a great player, the rest were average journeyman, though Coyle is a hero at Airdrie for his goal-scoring exploits.

No other world city can claim to produce so many top rank managers. What is it about Glasgow? Is it the incomprehensible, barking accent? Is it something innate to the Glasgow or more broadly, the Scottish upbringing that fits well into being the boss of a team of men?

This isn’t a new phenomenon, some of the towering figures in the game, Jock Stein, Bill Shankly and Matt Busby were all born within 20 miles of each in the west of Scotland.

Glasgow is a resolutely, unreconstructed working class place. The prawn sandwich brigade never made any inroads into Scottish football. In many ways, both good and bad, Scottish football is like going back in time 35 years.

All these men share a relatively tough upbringing and yet an upbringing in tightly knit communities. Ferguson was a union man; a shop steward and the socialist collective spirit has always run through the political blood of the area. Alex McLeish’s father was also a big union man. Shankly always said he was a socialist.

All men have a strong sense of their roots, of where they came from and thus seem to be amongst the more grounded, pragmatic and rootsy of managers. Perhaps there is a brutal honesty to them which motivates other men. Perhaps they do tough love well.

Whatever the reason, at a time when Scottish football itself is in the doldrums, its managerial tradition has never been stronger.

Editor’s note: Back story: The Telegraph reported that after yesterday’s one-nil win by Manchester City against Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park, some City supporters reportedly began chanting ‘Who put the ball in the Munichs’ net’ to Yaya Toure, who scored against Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final. The ‘Munichs’ reference was to United and the Munich Air Disaster in 1958 where 23 people were tragically killed including Manchester City legend Frank Swift.

Football games are not places for those with a sensitive disposition at the best of times. Language is often fruity and industrial, it’s part of the culture.

However, while many of us have always enjoyed the vulgarity and general piss-taking, you have to draw the line at some point. There are things which simply shouldn’t be said or chanted.

When I first started to go to football in the early 70s, out-and-out racist chanting was commonplace and done without question. It took twenty or thirty years but eventually it became unacceptable and then illegal to make such comments. Rightly so.

Many want to extend this to homophobic chanting too. And I see no reason why not.

However, there remains a hard core of fans who seem to revel in being as unpleasant as possible. These are the people who make the gas chamber hissing noises at Spurs games. Those who sing songs about the Munich air crash at a Manchester United game or those who sing songs about Hillsborough at Liverpool games. There are many other examples too. These are perhaps the most high profile of them.

God knows I’m no wilting flower in this regard and am slow to throw my skirt over my head in horror at such things but surely, surely this has to be stopped somehow.

Mocking the dead, glorying in death and destruction isn’t just banter, it isn’t harmless and it isn’t acceptable.

The daily news brings us stories from around the world which show in all too gory detail just how downright evil the human race can be if left unregulated. As a species we have a terrible habit of surrendering to the lowest common denominator. We can’t and shouldn’t let that happen at our football games.

We pulled back from the void over racism and we can do the same over these issues too. We must maintain a standard that is decent and respectful, not to do so is simply too low, too atavistic to accept. I don’t care if the people doing it don’t think its serious or just football rivalry, we have to have some standard below which we will not go.

Manchester City fans routinely sing ‘Munich’ songs, so much so that the club officials are having meetings to try and decide what to do to stop them. It’s simple, you police the singing of the songs vigorously. You throw out and ban anyone who sings them. It’s not hard to find the culprits on the day or on video afterwards.

We are all football fans but above and beyond that we are all human; we are all people and basic decency should not be surrendered, not even for 90 minutes during a football match.

All concerned need to take a hard-line approach to stop this. It’s gone on far too long.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

As the Manchester clubs line up against each other this weekend, we shall be viewing two very different clubs. One aspirant, the other dominant.

Whatever the result, City have a hell of a long journey to walk before they can even see the lofty peak that United currently inhabit.

I think we take United’s success for granted to the point where we almost blank it out now. We’re so used to them winning trophies that to the neutral fan, there is nothing exceptional or notable about it anymore. But if you pause for a minute and take a look at their 20 year haul, it is incredible by any team’s standards: 11 league titles, probably 12 with this year’s looking already in the bag. It’s amazing. Add in the FA and League Cups and a couple of Champions Leagues too. Incredible. Even this season when they haven’t always been that good, they have never let their winning spirit flag. They are winners. It comes with the DNA of the club now and if you’re not a winner you won’t last long at Old Trafford. The will to win and the determination to beat your opponents, even if they have better players than you, is what defines them. They just don’t know when they are beaten and no amount of money can buy that. It is ingrained into the character of the players by the club and the manager.

Critics can point to the money spent etc but time and again we see that money spent, while it might improve league position simply doesn’t guarantee success, as City are proving in the league.

Sir Alex Ferguson and the club cannot afford to be complacent. God knows it would be easy to be so after such prolonged success. They need to be focused and motivated season after season. This is Ferguson’s biggest achievement. Whilst other clubs which have won a title or two seem to soon slip and lose their drive, United just plough on remorselessly; a football behemoth.

Even if City beat United, United will simply use it as motivation to beat them next time. no score is left unsettled by Ferguson. City’s owners might want to build an football empire but look what they’re up against. A 20 year history of victory. Can they ever hope to get near to that? it’s not impossible, of course, but it seems unlikely. unlikely because they will not have a manager of the bloody-minded brilliance of Ferguson and because a team assembled with big transfer fees is less likely to be as cohesive and together than United’s mix of local and overseas players, some big stars, some nobodies before the come the club.

City are buying pre-made stars, United like to make them. Look at the brilliant Hernandez. A perfect United player within one season at the club.

This season, precisely because it has taken mental toughness as well as talent to top the league, United’s qualities are perhaps more obvious than usual. They plough on towards more silverware, an unstoppable machine. can City stand in their way? You wouldn’t much bet on it.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

Photo by kelp1966

As I was watching Spurs play Real Madrid, the missus wandered in the room and sat down. She knows little about football and could care less about it. But like all Geordies, she knows the basics having been weaned on Newcastle United’s bitter tears along with mothers milk.

Without paying much attention she says, ‘Is that England playing?’

‘No it’s Spurs,’ I say, pointing to the top left of the screen which was reading 2- 0 to Real Madrid at the time.

‘Oh, well it looks like England. They seem to be thrashing around and panicking just like England.’

Out of the mouths of babes and non-football partners do some truths emerge.

I fear this was a sub-conscious prophecy for the days when Harry Redknapp takes over as England manager

After she’d said this, I couldn’t shake the idea.

Inability to hold the ball? Check.

Desperate last-ditch defending? Check.

Limited tactics? Check.

Panicking when on the ball? Check.

Booting the ball long just to clear it and losing possession? Check.

Players losing their cool and needlessly, stupidly getting sent off? Check.

Totally outplayed and dominated by a superior side? Check.

It was EXACTLY like watching England play a top side, the gulf in technique and class all too evident. Having an English manager, such an obsession for many of Capello and Eriksson’s critics, makes no difference when your players are not good enough. But then throw in some baffling tactical choices such as Bale on the right, Jenas on the field at all and then knocking it high and long for the tiny Defoe to try and hold it and you had a recipe for disaster.

It proved, if proof was needed, that when you’re not good enough, you’re just not good enough, regardless of how good a man-manager or ra-ra merchant the manager might be. Real Madrid had better players and a much better manager; a manager who is a tactical and motivational genius…..the gulf in class on the pitch and on the bench was huge. Had Spurs been England under Capello, the Italian would have been murdered by the media. Redknapp, by contrast, got away with barely any criticism at all. It may well be different matter when he manages England to a similar defeat in a couple of years time.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

The Respect campaign is five years old this season, so how’s that going? Well, it depends on how you judge such things.

The view of the players, as voiced by players union head Clarke Carlisle is that behaviour of players has improved and that there is simply more focus on those incidents where players go a bit bonkers and start calling the referee lots of rude names.

On the other side, others say that behaviour is getting worse with players institutionalized into the concept of cheating and generally trying to trick referees at every opportunity. Critics would say there is precious little respect at all.

Then again, players would argue that refereeing standards are often poor and at best inconsistent and so its no surprise that they call him a c**t from time to time.

Others still say this sets a bad example to children and more dangerously to adults who play football on a Sunday and decide to exercise retribution of referees by punching them in the throat.

Assaults on refs in all non professional leagues have increased markedly in the last five years supposedly, though I’m not sure these figures were ever collated before is not clear.

So at best, the Respect campaign can be said to have been of limited success. Compared to other sports – rugby is often cited- where officials are spoken to with decorum and good manners, football seems to revel in its bad boy image, even though rugby is far more violent and involves gouging out eyes and pulling firmly on another man’s scrotum.

I can’t help thinking that while the Respect campaign’s aims are noble enough – when it comes to refereeing, the abuse of the referee has long been an important part of the culture of the game on the pitch and on the terraces.

You can prove anything with statistics and especially with stats that have only recently been collected because there is precious little to compare them to to prove they’re getting better or worse but I’ve been going to football for 40 years and not on any occasion has the ref not come in for abuse from players and fans. Not once. It’s not a recent thing, it’s not a modern affliction, it’s not a latest sign of the breakdown of society. It’s always happened but until recently, it was taken less seriously as a social phenomenon, rightly or wrongly.

Making refs professional was supposed to elevate their standards and that in return would reduce controversial decisions and arguments. But rather, this has aggravated everyone. Professional or not, you’re still relying on using your eyes and your judgment and so many of the calls in football are assessments of intention. Which is where all the trouble usually lies.

Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to employ the school teachers and butchers of yore such as David Ellery and Jack Taylor, who reffed the 1974 World Cup final. These tended to be men with innate authority. Often this is what is missing. Decisions will always get made that are incorrect but too often referees seem too, well, wimpy. Authority is a nebulous thing but you know when you meet it, don’t you? You instantly know a man who commands authority; there’s no mistaking it. And you need that to control a game as emotional as football. Perhaps that is what is missing from the game too; not respect but authority. But authority is not something you can breed or train into an official. It has to come from within.

Anyway, abusing the referee has given us all much fun over the years and in the UK at least, no-one has gone South American and chased one out of the ground with a gun or inserted a distress flare into him, so we’re not that bad really, are we? I know it can be annoying to see players chasing after a referee but then again being annoyed at players is one of the reasons we keep going to the game.

There are few things as much fun as moaning about the state of football. And if refs improved and got more respect, we’d be deprived of all that.

Photo by americanistadechiapas

The art of being a striker is, of course, largely about scoring goals or at least, setting them up for someone else.

However, that is achieved in many different ways. Some strikers are battering rams, some are more creative types but Javier Hernandez must currently rank as one of the best when it comes to spacial awareness and movement

It’s rare that a player can entertain as much off the ball as on it but if you watch the little Mexican when a team-mate is in possession it is quite a remarkable sight and massively entertaining.

He is the very definition of footballing perpetual motion, constantly on the move into space, darting forward and back, pulling defenders out of position.

His art evokes the great Gerd Muller, the West German striker in the 70s who rarely scored from more than four yards but who was a master at finding space where previously no space had been.

He must be a nightmare to mark, a streak of quicksilver, who is never where he was a second previously. To see him dart into the box, pursued by a defender, only to then pull up short and cut back at a right angle, is to see a totally instinctive footballer at work.

But it doesn’t stop there. given the chance in front of goal, he is sharp and clinical. His ratio of goals to shots is really impressive and reveals a player not just with great technique but great composure in front of goal.

Last night two goals, while apparently both simple tap-ins, were the product of great positional work beforehand. It’s a testament to his talent that he so often seems to find himself in front of goal, apparently unmarked. This may be bad defending but more often it is the result of his off-the-ball running.

To watch him is to realize just how lacking many strikers are when it comes to carving out space and time for them to penetrate a defence. Too many just wait for it to land at their feet. Not Little Pea. If he’s not finding space for himself, he’s dragging defenders out of position to create opportunities for a team mate.

His play shows that hard running work need not be the preserve of the meathead or the work horse; it can be part of a highly educated skilled game too when done with the intelligence and guile that Hernandez achieves.

At an estimated eight million pounds, he’s been fantastic value and seems destined to a be a United legend in the mold of Ole Gunner Solskjaer and is a 90 minutes master class in the art of guile and striking artistry.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

I’ve always loved Scotland and living in Edinburgh has been great fun. However, after the Old Firm game on Wednesday I’m sure people who don’t live up here must look on and wonder what the hell is the matter with Scotland and the Scottish people as they abuse and kick seven shades of sh*te out of each other before during and after Rangers v Celtic games.

It doesn’t stop at the football; reports of domestic abuse rise by 70% after an Old Firm game presumably as supporters of the losing side, tanked up on drink, come home and take it out on their partners. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious; so dangerous. There is no excuse for it, everyone knows that from the fans to the government and the police. But everyone just puts up with it as though its inevitable.

And to be honest, a lot of the words of condemnation are just hot air. They’re not really meant because some Scots rather like this image as being tough, hard and wild. It plays to some national spirit of rebellion that goes back centuries.

To outsiders it looks like thuggery but to some it’s a badge of Braveheart honour.

Football in Scotland is much closer to the 1970s than to the 21st century. It is an unreconstructed working class game on the terraces and on the pitch. They’ll never sell prawn sandwiches to Scottish fans, not until they are deep-fried anyway…..and even then. Have ye’ nay pies, pal?

To be honest, as an outsider, I’ve always rather liked this old-fashioned culture. It gives you a more intense experience at games; yes it means that things are a bit more aggressive but that’s the edge that many of us like and we’d rather have that than the quiet, bland, polite version of the game that has become the norm at some English grounds.

But none of that is a reason to commit random acts of violence. It’s possible to have passion for the game without it spilling over into anything that draws blood.

However Old Firm games are something else all together. I’ve only been to two, one in the late 80s and one in the mid 90s and they were both terrifying experiences. You can’t be a neutral no matter how much you might protest you are; you will be judged as on one side or the other and from then onwards in danger of a kicking of some description from the other side. The whole city feels under siege from the night before the game. There is a palpable tension in the air.

The sheer level of bitterness, fury, anger and outright hatred between sets of supporters is unparalleled in British football. The contorted faces of one set of fans as they abuse another isn’t funny or in any way enjoyable. It’s not just frightening, it’s vile, or it was to me as a Sassanach. As an Englishman I looked on astonished at the level of aggression. How could you pull this sort of emotion out of your own tripe just over football? It’s just not in me to do that. The opposition fan is a human being too, remember.

I often wonder once the game has passed and tempers cooled if some even remember what they were doing. When I went it was as though a collective hypnosis descended on the 60,000 in the ground.

Where does this hatred come from? It’s just football, after all. It’s nowhere near as bad here in Edinburgh for Hearts v Hibs derbies. Still feisty but not as manic. The west of Scotland sectarianism between Catholics and Protestants plays a big part, or at least, it’s used as an excuse by some. Others blame poverty and booze.

However, there’s an alternative idea that some dieticians recently offered up.

It is the Scottish diet that causes these violent problems.

Some areas of Glasgow have an average male mortality rate of around just 59 years. The health of the Scottish people is the worst in Europe according to most statistics.

Twenty percent of children are obese. The typical diet is high in sugar, nicotine and carbohydrates, low in vegetables and good quality protein. This in essence, makes them prone to burst of anger as their digestive systems are permanently on a roller-coaster of sugar peaks and troughs. Add in a lot of strong drink and you’ve got an explosive situation ready to happen.

In some American jails, it was found that when prisoners diets were changed from being high in sugar and carbs, their behaviour modified markedly. Incidences of violence dropped, concentration levels even improved on a diet higher in vegetable matter, good quality fats and proteins.

Given that in every single way we are what we eat and that there is no escaping the relationship between what we consume and our physical and mental health. This interpretation of the unique madness of the Scots makes an awful lot of sense.

However, if true, it means solving these problems is even harder and more long term than simply banning booze or increasing police numbers. It means nothing less than a revolution in the Scottish way of life. It means giving up a diet of cigarettes, chips, Irn Bru and greasy pies. It means not considering a pint of lager as one of your portions of fruit and vegetables and frankly, that is not going to happen overnight, it will take a lifetime and a complete cultural revolution north of the Border.

Kenny Dalglish, drawn by Ethan Armstrong

Liverpool fans are rightfully delighted with what Kenny Dalglish has done for the club since he replaced Roy Hodgson.

An unbeaten run has seen them climb the league and perhaps just as important, Dalglish has imbued everyone with a sense of positivity and tradition. The whole place seems happier and Kenny is clearly loving every minute of it.

This had led many to call for the club to give him a long contract.

That would be understandable but also a bit mad.

There’s no need.

This is not a normal situation. Dalglish will not be poached by another club. He only wants to stay at Liverpool and for as long as possible. His loyalty does not need to be bought nor rewarded.

He’s already a wealthy man who cares more about the club than earning lots more money. So financial remuneration is not an imperative.

From the clubs point of view, keeping him on a rolling one year contract makes much more sense. It means when the time comes to sack him – and though fans may find it hard to believe now, it will happen at some point – they won’t have a long contract to pay off.

Contracts mean nothing to either party except financial commitment. They are not a sign of loyalty on either party’s behalf. They are signed one week and disposed of another. Dalglish will not perform better with one than without one. His reward is being manager of the club he loves.

As for those who say ‘give him a contract for life’ they are deluded and will, no doubt, be the first to call for his sacking when at some future point in time, results go awry. Some Liverpool fans are currently in a blind-love mood and that is understandable but the owners cannot indulge in such romanticism.

Liverpool are not yet that great a side. Just now it seems great that they’re up to sixth after the early season calamities but next season expectations will be higher and if results do not match those expectations, the love-in for King Kenny will lose some volume and garner some criticism. If at the same time Mourinho became available, Liverpool might just be the sort of project he’d love and suddenly, things are more complicated. Being able to shed Dalglish quicklly and cheaply should the need arrive would be good for the club.

The club should announce Dalglish as the manager for next season, no harm in that at this stage but a rolling one year contract makes sense for everyone and after years of turmoil, Liverpool badly need some good, hard common sense to prevail.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

Photo by dan_noctor

I’m writing a piece for www.football365.com today about Barcelona which, in essence expresses how frustrating I find their football; how, though it is technically brilliant, it just doesn’t stir my football passions. I find it quite clinical and cold while admittedly highly skilful. OK, it’s the sort of football some people like but it just isn’t my ideal watch. I prefer something with a bit more physicality. It’s horses for courses, right?  We don’t all have to be the same, we take that for granted in life, don’t we? Not on the Internet you don’t.

As I write this it’s not been published yet but I know that it will inevitably lead to a lot of people insulting me and saying I’m an idiot and worse for basically not sharing their view that Barcelona are wonderful. This is the childish but very modern way – saying, if you do not share my opinion you are de-facto wrong and not just wrong but a fool, an idiot and actually a complete c*nt.

A few others will agree – but such controversy tends to attract the negative much more than the positive response.

Now, if you’re a reasonable sort of person, the idea of insulting someone on the Internet probably seems a bit of a daft thing to do. After all, you really don’t know them, you’ve probably not paid to read their point of view, you have nothing invested in what they say and thus, it really doesn’t matter to you if they say something you disagree with. In return, they won’t care what you an anonymous individual is saying anyway, thus, calling them an idiot would, at least to the more calm, reasoned reader, be somewhat inappropriate and worse still, a total waste of your time.

Having a contrary point of view is one thing, expressing that is fine, but pouring vitriol onto a writer on message boards and blogs is quite another.

I’m used to this by now – after 10 years of writing online its all so much water of a ducks back – I keep a duck handy for just such occasions, however, the reasons for it interest me greatly.

In my book We Ate All The Pies, I discussed this phenomena in terms of it being an extension of the old banter on the terraces; banter which ironically is less present than ever inside football grounds today.

Insulting the opposition is a well established football culture which I totally understand and I used to think that this is was an extension of that.

However, I think the modern culture of emotional Internet-based outpourings are evolving into something else; into a way of life almost.  There are keyboard warriors everywhere who love to give a volley of abuse to anyone who crosses their path. What do they get out of it?

Perhaps its a way to empower the essentially dis-empowered. Perhaps it gives people who express vitriol online a way to release all the negative emotions that build up in their regular lives; to lay off some of their self-loathing, anger and disasisfaxtion. Happy people wouldn’t do it, would they?

Here’s some bloke on the Internet expressing a view you think is wrong so you let him have it with both barrels in the full knowledge that unlike in any other walk of life the person you are insulting will not do anything about it. It’s a free hit.

However, being rude to people on the basis of their expressed taste in football from the loneliness of your own computer seems to be, in essence, a very sad thing. Should it really matter that much? It’s not like at a game when you can get caught up in the high drama and emotions of a match. This is all done in the cold light of day by people who are keen to assert their view as the one and only truth.

I find that very odd. I read lots of blogs and newspapers and it never occurs to me to write in to disagree with a point of view, let alone start calling them a moron. I can’t see what I’d gain by that.  Isn’t it really just a waste of your time? I can see why someone would contribute to a debate and express their own experiences. But if you pop over to F365 now, I’m guessing that you’ll read a lot more than that underneath my piece on Barca. I imagine I’ll have been accused of being the reason England never win at football – that’s a common one and my view on Barca will soon will be reduxed into being the reason behind all manner of sporting and social ills. Such is the hyperbole deployed on such Internet kick fests.

I’d like to think this happens to me because I’m good at writing stuff that makes people feel passionate, but the truth is almost everyone who writes online suffers from these occasional tirades of disproportionate and inappropriate savagings. I’m sure if Charles Dickens was writing online there’d be people posting ‘ more of the usual Dickens crap about the working class, f**k off Charlie we’re sick of you and your whining about poverty.’

I only raise this because it seems to go by without much comment any more. We’re all used to it on both sides of the fence – and discount it as all so much hot air – indeed I bet most people forget what they’ve written half an hour after posting it.  It’s such a disposable culture at core.

But possibly the worst thing about this culture is that it dilutes all the interesting thoughts and ideas; it puts off many who simply don’t want to wade through the slag-fest, reasoning they have better things to do with their life, and thus, the dissemination of insight, intelligence and interesting anecdote is actually hindered and suppressed by the domination of the loudest, must vulgar voice.

And if you don’t agree you must be a f**king moron!

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

Photo by Feggy Art.

So Roman Abramovich has decided its time to start spending money again, has he? About time too, many Chelsea fans might say. The press have seen this as indicative of him being prepared to rebuild Chelsea again. Seventy five million quid is certainly a big financial commitment but the problem is, it goes nowhere near to addressing Chelsea’s problems and could easily be £75 million if not wasted then not put to the best use. The fact this was a deadline day splurge suggests it was not planned long in advance and was something of a desperate measure.

For a start Fernando Torres is the walking or rather hobbling definition of injury prone. While his goals per game stat is impressive, less so is the number of games he’s actually started while at Liverpool. The last three seasons have seen him start no more than 24 league games. So for £50 million, you’re getting a striker who is likely to on the sidelines for 30% of the season which still leaves Chelsea short of strike power for that third. so he’ll need to spend to address that.

Similarly, while Luiz is good and an adaptable defender, the side still needs major defensive strengthening to survive inevitable injuries right across the back four.

Indeed, that could be said of much of the team. Major investment is still needed but those thinking that Abramovich can just throw infinite money at the problem as he has in the past have to realise that UEFA Fair Play rules are approaching fast and while they are complicated and allow for transfer investment, sooner rather than later Chelsea, along with everyone else, will have to balance their books or face expulsion from UEFA competitions. Chelsea simply can’t risk that, which is why they were supposed to be bringing youth players through. However, clearly, those players are not good enough and Chelsea don’t have the patience nor the time to let them become good enough, so out comes the cheque book once again.

Such spending, while fun for the neutral observer, is an admittance of the failure of the club’s ambition to become more self-sufficient. This wasn’t going to be Roman’s new way. He wanted both the financial stability and the kudos that comes with ‘growing your own.’

Quite why this has failed so comprehensively is not clear, but as plenty of other clubs across Europe are able to produce at least an occasional top class player, we can surmise that something is rotten behind the scenes at the Blues. How can a club located in London with all the human resources on their door step not find at least one first team regular in the 11 years since Terry broke through? Even if Josh McEachran turns out to be someone who can make it, one player in over a decade is a shocking indictment of their youth system and like it our not, youth systems are going to become more important. Abramovich knew that only too well, which was why he’s pulled the plug on big spending in favour of youth, at least until Monday.

If Abramovich can’t splash endless money to rebuild Chelsea – and eventually he will not be able to – then what exactly are they going to do?

This transfer window has stuck a Band-Aid over the problem but the lack of exuberance from Chelsea fans over their two mega-priced transfers suggests they know only too well that problems still lay ahead and that the radical overhaul that the squad needs will take a lot more money and will put the club into a lot more debt…  debt which UEFA will eventually not tolerate. The problem is, if they don’t spend big, how can Chelsea put together a top class squad again?

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

The sacking and resignation of Sky’s Andy Gray and Richard Keys for what has been branded all across the media as ‘sexist behaviour’ raises many interesting questions.

Reports of a culture of bullying and intimidation featuring Gray and Keys have been detailed by people who worked around them. They appear to have had no pool of goodwill to draw on when under this pressure. Indeed, many seem happy to see them go which suggests that this was the tip of a very big and rather unpleasant iceberg.

God knows I’m no politically correct wilting flower but this whole ‘women don’t know the offside law’ is just bollocks and just very, very boring old rubbish. Yes its sexist but more than that its just idiotic and tedious. It’s like a joke you heard in 1969 which is still being trotted out as though its a new, witty insight. The fact that they were so keen and willing to spill it out to each other again, something they have presumably done many, many times before, albeit supposedly in private, reveals their culture as dated, narrow and hints at something nastier all together; it hints at misogyny, of disliking women spoiling the boys club. I’m only 4 years younger than Keys and I’d never think of saying such a thing, not because i’m some sort of super hip, PC guy, but because its pathetic and worn-out as a joke and as an attitude. There’s nothing to be gained by it.

Whether its a sacking offence is a value judgement made by the employer. Neither are employed to comment on gender politics, after all. However, their position was probably untenable because viewers in future could not divorce the men on the screen from that tedious, boring, out of date ‘banter’ and thus, their credibility is fatally undermined. They become boring old farts who we no longer want to see.

The fact that some people do talk like this is no defence. It doesn’t mean they are somehow connected to the audience and that this is a liberal elite punishing the ordinary man. There have to be some standards for a broadcaster and its not a good idea that it should be the lowest common denominator.

Then we had the video of Gray’s ‘lewd’ behaviour and Key’s vulgar sexual talk in the studio. One has to tread carefully when critiquing such things, as its easy to be a hypocrite. There are few amongst us who have not talked in explicitly vulgar terms about what we might politely call intimate relations. Similarly, there are few of us who have not made a misjudged double-entendre or comment to a disinterested woman. We are less likely to have done this at work of course and not year after year. More usually such talk is amongst friends and in private. Those who see Keys and Gray as being persecuted shouldn’t forget that. Our private lives are our own, our public work lives are a different matter.

Some have said that we are all too sensitive about this kind of thing these days, that its a crime against what those people see as a kind of liberal fascism which is trying to outlaw a certain kind of thinking and attitudes. It’s a tempting idea, especially to us older dudes who do instinctively feel the cutting edge of life has been blunted by too much legislation and preciousness. But this wasn’t really about that, it was clearly the culmination of a long history of alienating behaviour which had pushed people too far and meant someone had finally decided to sink their ship by releasing these clips

Perhaps in that respect it was the spirit and intention and character behind the words used rather than the words themselves. Some people can be very rude, very vulgar and yet be charming with it, others just come across as a nasty bastard. It was clear which side of the fence this business was on.

So this isn’t a victory as some might say, for the PC brigade, rather it is a victory for wit, for intelligence and for self-awareness. Keys lucked out for 20 years. He was never an exceptional broadcasting talent – just a bog standard presenter and similarly, Gray, though clearly a passionate football man, had creamed up big money for years essentially doing the same gig day after day for two decades and that in essence was the problem.

It’s not 1991 anymore. If it was I’d still have big hair-metal hair.

Time has moved on. Attitudes and styles have changed. Though one thing has remained constant: if you’re a c**t to people, eventually, as John Lennon once said, ‘Instant karma’s gonna get you.’

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

Here is a decent player, not exceptional but decent. But he has a small football brain. He hangs on the shoulder of the defender and hopes to get a run in on goal. That’s about it. He can strike a ball and run at pace into the channels but that’s your lot with Darren. It’s OK, not a bad way to make a living but it is far from exceptional and certainly not worth 20 bloody million quid.

He’s about fourth or fifth choice striker for England at a time of poverty of striking options and as soon as any decent competition arrived at Sunderland he will be confined to the bench.

If you want a man to set up goals, he’s not that. If you want a team player, he’s not really that either. If you want someone who won’t throw a moody and get in a huff, he’s not that either. But he does score quite a few goals and he thinks this makes him much, much better than he really is.

As soon as Sunderland signed Asamoah Gyan it seems his nose was put out of joint because he’d no longer be the main man. Gyan is a far superior player already and will get better still but no matter, Darren was in a huff and wanted a transfer last summer.

Then Gyan and Wellbeck start to play well together and Sunderland stabilize their position in the top six without reliance on Bent’s goals. He should have been delighted to play his part in this but of course, a man of Darren’s magnificent talent couldn’t tolerate such a situation and so he bit Villa’s hand off for a move as soon as he could.

The lunacy of paying over 20 million for a player of Bent’s limited abilities beggars belief. The fact he’d leave a club in a European spot for a relegation fight beggars belief.

The fact that Sunderland will make the thick end of 10 million profit from him after his goals helped push them into a position to attract better players is a superb result for Steve Bruce. So in that sense, everyone is happy. Bent can go to a club and be the big man while he and his agent can benefit from a cut of another massive transfer fee.

However, it is the ludicrous over-pricing of English players in the English game that is killing the progress of young English talent. Faced with such stupid money, its no wonder every manager will look to a kid from Europe or further afield rather than buy an English player. The fact is, English players with any sort of talent are hugely over-priced. As Bent so well proves, its not even as though you can be sure they’ll settle into the club. Southern players notoriously seem to find it hard to adapt to life in the north east, at least as hard as overseas players if not more so.

Why are Villa paying so much bloody money for such a one-dimensional player? If he doesn’t score goals he brings little else to the party. It is astonishing and does Houllier no credit. If Lerner tightening the purse strings was the cause of O’Neill walking out, the Northern Irishman must be looking on in astonishment as so much is being splashed out on such an unexceptional player.

Other nations must look on and laugh at how much money is spent on stupid English footballers. When will it end?

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Foot­ball Swal­lowed Britain Whole” is avail­able via Ama­zon US or Ama­zon UK.

Football can be a form of torture, seemingly designed to twist your blood into knots, defying any logic and contradicting even the wisest pundits and fans.

If Roy Hodgson had just lost to Manchester United and Blackpool there would be a full-throated cry from most Liverpool fans to get him out and bring in King Kenny. Towards the end of his tenure, there were those who wanted the team to lose in order to hasten his exit.

Sadly, for those people, its Kenny who has been in charge for these two results. They have played better but they’ve still lost and are not yet any better off for the change. It’s early and maybe they will get better results but maybe they would have under Hodgson. We will never know now.

But after such a change, those who wanted change have to discount these two losses as part of the old regime’s legacy. Those who pushed hard for a change have to get their explanations in quickly and make their excuses. They have to otherwise it looks like the club made a change for no reason or have made the wrong choice.

Every manager needs time to assert his influence but how much time is never clear. Hodgson didn’t get much. How much will Dalglish get? Who knows, but those who thought his obvious affinity for the club might be enough to turn things around quickly must be a bit dismayed this morning. Their defending was at times atrocious. Perhaps this was Hodgson’s fault or perhaps the players are just not that good or both or neither. Upon such debates is the culture of football based.

Interestingly, a change of manager usually brings a temporary improvement in form – as Ipswich proved last night – but in a university statistical study, it was discovered that on average by the 12th game, the improvement has lapsed and the form has not actually improved. There are exceptions to this though and Liverpool fans will be hoping they are one of the exceptions.

But this is football all over. Every time you think you’ve made the right decision, something happens to contradict you. Those who think Avram Grant is a dead weight around West Ham’s neck and want rid of him must, somewhere inside, have been a bit dismayed to see them win their League Cup game. Indeed every time he seems to be on the verge of the sack, he gets a decent result. Yet the Hammers are bottom of the league so he must be rubbish, right? But they’re one game away from Wembley in the League Cup so he can’t be that bad , can he? Err…..bloody hell, who knows? After all, someone has to be bottom of the league. Does it always mean you’re a terrible manager? Maybe 20th is West Ham’s rightful position.

As fans and as writers we always want things to be obvious and easy but in football this is so rarely the case. Just when you think you’ve got a settled view on someone, something happens to contradict it. Arsenal fans must feel this acutely. Watch them one week and they look like world beaters and all set for a push for the title. Other weeks they look lightweight, just as they did against Ipswich. It’s like watching two different teams at times. You can’t say they’re a great side but then sometimes, they are. This flip-flopping gives veracity to all extremes of opinion and to all shades in-between.

And that’s why football is so popular. It allows for almost every view to be held simultaneously with some degree of justification and for us all to fight our corner with conviction. The only hard fact we can agree on is that the ball is round……………..or is it spherical….or….is that the same thing?

Have you ever been to Blackburn? I have. It’s like many old Lancashire mill towns, a little bit grim, a little bit run-down and definitely not like either Milan or the Brazilian resort of Florianopolis and it’s certainly not a regular haunt for wealthy Brazilians.

And yet the football club has been insisting this week that they have been ‘in talks’ with Ronaldinho as though a deal to bring him to Ewood Park is ever going to happen. The board and the manager talk of him being on their ‘list.’ Well we can all have a list. Judy Jetson is on my list of women to have sex with before I die but unless I can become a cartoon and climb inside my TV it is never going to happen. But she’s still on my list.

The club is in danger of making itself look foolish in trying to court a player like Ronaldinho, not because they shouldn’t have ambition to bring good payers to the club but because it is a ridiculous waste of time. It also makes them look desperate just sign a famous name, which even if they were able to pull off a deal for, would be a monumental waste of money, money better spent on players with a future, not flabby over the hill men who are only there for a pay day.

It looks like the sort of decision someone who knew little about football would try to make. Steve Kean cuts a slightly uneasy figure as manager. He looks wide-eyed and a bit scared in front of the TV cameras and it can’t help having owners who seem to like discussing transfer targets on Twitter rather than with him. He also refers to the Chairwoman of the club as ‘Chairlady’ which sounds awkward and gauche as though the idea of having a woman as a boss is an alien concept to him. Would he refer to a male in that post as a Chairgentleman?

And now the deal for the Brazilian is clearly going nowhere, he’s talking of trying to convince Beckham to join Blackburn! It’s embarrassing. Only someone who had lost their mind would even for one second think Beckham would pitch up at Blackburn, not even if they paid him the GDP of Switzerland and made him a pair of gold trousers.

It’s one thing to try and paint yourself as a player in the market but this ‘look at us, we’re trying to sign big names’ approach is laughable and is clearly a strategy that the owners think will show them in a good light. They’re so wrong and had they known anything about football culture they’d know how it is making them look comical

They have made themselves a laughing stock and it will affect the reputation of the club for realistic transfer targets. Who next is on their list? Iniesta? Messi, or perhaps they’ll get Pele out of retirement! Getting rid of Allardyce wasn’t necessarily a bad move if you want to bring free-flowing football to your club, but doing so without a replacement in mind and with no coherent transfer strategy other than to make a list of famous players most of whom couldn’t find Blackburn on a map let alone want to play for them, is frankly amateurish silliness.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Foot­ball Swal­lowed Britain Whole” is avail­able via Ama­zon US or Ama­zon UK.

There are some footballers who we can all agree about. Lionel Messi, for example. There can’t be any serious observer who would think he’s over-rated. But such unanimity is very rare in football.

Split opinion is much more common and when it comes to Dimitar Berbatov, rarely can a player have divided opinion with such a gulf.

There are two armed camps when it comes to the languid Bulgarian; those who think he’s a brilliant and mercurial talent, and there are those who think he’s lazy, uncommitted and far too inconsistent.

Which side you are on probably depends on how you like to see football played. If you’re a fan of run-all-day players whose contribution is measured by perspiration, Berbatov will annoy the hell out of you because that’s not his game at all. Then again, why should it be? You don’t employ an artist to be a coal miner do you?

Much of what Berbatov does goes unnoticed by those who just want to see a man running around like mad dog. His ability to find space for himself and others, while not a demonstrative art form, is nonetheless a form of brilliance. This year he’s added goals to his creative game, and that will always get you more fans but the majority opinion, including that of his manager it would seem, is that he is a luxury player and not one for the blood and snot battles in the trenches.

This might actually be true however, as a neutral who just loves to see a footballer with craft and guile, it doesn’t concern me. I’ve always loved Berbatov because he is a footballer like very few footballers. He has an air of insouciance and when at the peak of his form, an understanding and ability that is second to none. The way he can hit a pass or a shot with the outside of his foot is to watch a true artist at work.

The best footballers always seem to have time and space; as though the universe moves slower for them than for the mere mortals who surround hem, and Berbatov has always had that unhurried quality. Granted, he won’t be Mr Consistent for any side. He won’t give you a seven out ten performance week after week, but such predictability is for lesser talents.

In some ways he’s a throw back to the days when football was more about skill than athleticism. When it was a slower game full of men who had talent to burn, looking to beat the opposition with flair and style. The likes of Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles, Eddie Gray and even George Best, often created similarly divided opinion. Like Berbatov they would blow hot and cold but then again, I’d argue it is to such rare talents that we turn for the genuine brilliance in football; the very inconsistency an expression of the precarious, the difficult nature of the game they instinctively want to play.

Berbatov is a football artist. His art may never appeal to the masses but perhaps that is always the case with real brilliance.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

I heard a Manchester City fan on the radio the other day. He was saying he couldn’t understand why Tevez wanted to leave City because, ‘he’s absolutely worshipped by the fans.’ This guy says this as though this would mean anything to the Argentinean.

I see this hero worshipping of players like Tevez as totally inappropriate. Did you really think that he’d stay at the club for long? Surely everyone knows that Tevez is a very modern football mercenary whether on his own behalf or his agent or ‘owners’ behalf. Kia Joorabchian it’s nakedly obvious. You pay the money, he plays. That’s the deal. Surely there was no pretence that this was his dream move to City. It was just the move that stumped up the cash.

You and I might not like it but surely we’re not fooled by it are we? Although Tevez’s utterly pathetic excuse that he’s fallen out with the clubs executives is laughable, the correct response to it isn’t outrage or to feel that he’s insulting the club, the correct response is to laugh and wave bye bye. This is the game now. This is the Premier League. it is not rootsy football, it is soap opera and the only way to treat it is as such.

People like Tevez are hilarious. They take themsevles so seriously, making ridiculous self-obsessed statements about their lives. You’d think he was a teenager away from home for the first time the way he goes on about being homesick. You’d never know he was a multi-millionaire. Hilarious. Missing your kids? Fly them over on a private jet, you idiot, you’re richer than God, it would cost you less than a weeks wage.

Fans need to learn to pick their heroes more carefully. Just because Tevez has scored a lot of goals for City, he was never a worthy target of any affection beyond that feeling of pleasure of the ball hitting the net. He’s not a blue. He’s not ‘one of ours’ no matter how big the posters printed with his face on are. If you believed that you were a sucker and were conned. He’s a football hired gun. That’s all.

He cares not for City, not for their fans, teammates, manager, not for England, the Premier League. Why would he? If you start investing such emotion as ‘worship’ in him you are witless and really not paying attention, indeed worse than that, you’re being exploited by the Tevez cash generating machine. He and his ‘owner’ want you to buy into him as a product to make him generate even more cash.

Save your hero worship for someone worth it, not a bloke who runs around like a dog chasing pigeons and is paid several million quid for the pleasure. Poor Carlos, he’s growing rich and is still unhappy, at least until he moves to a new club and earns even more money.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

There is almost unanimous outrage at the dismissal of Chris Hughton. From a football point of view it looks unsustainable, all the more so when instability and hysterical appointments have been the reasons behind the decline Newcastle over the past ten years but also because by any same measure Hughton was doing a great job.

It’s easy to think that owner Mike Ashley is just making such a change to keep his interest in the club going, to entertain himself. I think he gets a kick out of upsetting fans and outraging people with insane football decisions. It can’t be for any good football reason, that’s for sure.

It may also be the case that he’s jealous of Hughton, a fellow Londoner who, unlike his corpulent self, is very popular in the North East. Maybe his ego couldn’t bear that. It wouldn’t surprise me.

It seems certain that this will damage a side that had forged itself into a unified, well motivated squad under Hughton’s guidance. It seems certain if Newcastle’s history is anything to go by, to put the club in danger of relegation and of further turmoil.

Perhaps Ashley thinks the team is better than it really is – that it achieved what it has achieved despite Hughton. If so he is grossly mistaken. Newcastle are an unexceptional team that is punching above its weight.

The sadness at Hughton’s departure is all the more profound because he was the very opposite of Ashley, quiet, respectful and classy. He was the lowest paid manager in the league and not even on a contract but he worked diligently and without complaint. You would have thought he was the ideal manager for a club that is the very definition of dysfunctional.

But just when the waters were calmer than at any time in the last 10 years, Ashley had to intervene.

He should be illegal.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Foot­ball Swal­lowed Britain Whole” is avail­able via Ama­zon US or Ama­zon UK.

Which of these records sounds the superior one to you?

• Played 14, Won 7, Drawn 7, lost 0

Or

• Played 14, Won 9, Drawn 1, Lost 4

Ok, those of you not drunk will have spotted that these two records amount to the same amount of points. But I think psychologically, the first record looks instinctively superior because there is a zero in the lost column.

Any side which can claim to be unbeaten looks to be on pretty good form whereas a side that has lost nearly 30% of its game looks like it’s off the pace.

This is the dilemma that Manchester United find themselves in. Sure, they go into this weekend unbeaten this season, but this alternative way to break the points down shows how less stellar this form actually is.

Draws are stealth bombers to a clubs’ title challenge and can all too easily wreck a campaign. They mask inadequacy all too easily by preserving the unbeaten status. I keep hearing pundits commenting positively on how United’s form has not been good yet they’re still unbeaten as though this makes it alright. It isn’t. It is hiding a deeper malaise – the inability to win games. A 50% win ratio is not title winning form even in this more unpredictable season.

Unbeaten runs can also offer another danger. When you do eventually lose that pristine, virginal zero in the loss column, it can hurt confidence to a greater degree than would be the case if you’d won a couple more and lost a couple. It’s quite often the case that a long unbeaten run is followed by a couple of losses in short order.

In United’s favour is their tradition of not sitting back in games; a tradition that has been so successful at converting draws into wins in the past. This season it has been deployed more often to turn losses into draws.

You can prove anything with statistics of course and the league table doesn’t lie. United are still in a tremendous position despite their lack lustre form. But being unbeaten isn’t always a blessing

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Foot ball Swal lowed Britain Whole” is avail able via Ama zon US or Ama zon UK.

As Chelsea lost at home to Sunderland, the commentator, Martin Tyler was incredulous, saying how this proved how brilliant the Premier League was; it was the best in the world because any side could beat any other side

This struck me at the time as being a case of having your cake and eating it because the only reason he was hyper-ventilating about it was precisely because it was so unusual. Odd then that the same TV people considered it the Best League In The World previously when such unpredictability was rarer.

All of which goes to prove that this spate of ‘unusual’ results has put some of the league’s more naked self-interested ra-ra merchants into a bit of a quandary.

They know fans like it this way and that most of us tire of seeing the same clubs dominating but more unpredictability means the previously best clubs need to become worse which means they will not be as likely to dominate the Champions League thus making the league appear equally less stellar.

Opinion seems divided this year between those who welcome the new more competitive league with the top sides losing more than usual, others see it as a decline in the footballing standards of the league.

It would appear the decline of Chelsea and United is rooted in their lack of depth brought about by two changes. Firstly the rigidity of the 25 man first team squad, which has to have a quota of home grown talent. Secondly, the fact that from next season the amount of debt a club can carry is to become severely limited. Failure to limit it will result in disqualification from the Champions League. So the cheque books have been closed.

No club should make an aggregate loss of more than 45m Euros over three seasons from 2011-12. So at last, new spending regimes have had to be put in place to comply. At last, under the new fair play rules money spent has to bear relation to the income of the club. While some see this as restricting the development of smaller clubs, what it should do for the whole league is make the development of youth team players a much bigger priority and breaking the bank to buy in expensive players or pay huge wages less possible.

However, those proclaiming the dawn of a new more democratic era in the top flight of English football are surely jumping the gun until a club that isn’t Chelsea or United wins the league.

For far too long inequalities of wealth reduced realistic competition in the Premier League and made it dysfunctional as a tournament in the same way it is in La Liga which, thanks to skewed funding, has made Madrid and Barcelona so superior that no-one can ever compete with them.

Those arguing that there it is a drop in the standards in the EPL is probably right but this should not be a criticism.

Football is supposed to be a competition, after all. The surprise in Tyler’s voice last week and in most fans reactions to the result show just how deeply we all expected Sunderland to lose.

The neutral had all but discounted that game as a gimme for Chelsea and we do this most seasons for most games involving the top three and even beyond that.

With the top six only being drawn from eight teams for the last five years we’d be mad not to. Long gone are the days when a promoted side could challenge for the title, in fact long gone are the days when anyone who isn’t Chelsea, United or Arsenal won the league.

Most games we watch in the Premier League we watch as a neutral, wanting merely to see an exciting, competitive game. Just watching one of the big three creaming someone is just dull season after season.

While thirty and forty years go Liverpool would dominate the league, those challenging would change every year and occasionally smaller clubs like Derby and Notts forest would triumph. All that has gone now and we are the worse for it. The more money you spend, the more successful you’ll be has undoubtedly been true for too long. Even the very welcome incursion of Spurs at the top table has come at a high price – no-one except City has spent more in recent seasons

I’m sure most fans would rather the league didn’t become a kind of circus where all the best players are at a couple of clubs and they run rings around everyone else. It might be good for the marketing men for that to be the case, but to the genuine football fan, it is simply rather dull to watch one team outplayed by another and what’s the point in watching a game if you’re almost certain who will win before kick off?

Watching Barcelona put eight past Almeria might be impressive in one way, but it’s not a football match, it’s more of an exhibition and as good as it might be, that isn’t the same thing as a competition.

I’ve no more interest in seeing shiny, shiny players strut their not inconsiderable skills every week just in order to thrash a hapless smaller club. It’s ok occasionally, but the greatest football is about much, much more than that.

For it to have meaning and soul it has to have competition and for too long that’s been absent.  I hope this recent outbreak of inadequacy is a more permanent change, but I doubt that it is.

We should enjoy it while it lasts because the cynic in me suspects that despite the new fair play rules, the chances are that the financial hegemony will find a way to re-establish itself soon enough.

Does it make the EPL the league the best in the world or not? Who cares? It makes is much more enjoyable and that’s what should really count.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Foot ball Swal lowed Britain Whole” is avail able via Ama zon US or Ama zon UK.

Another England game and another torrent of outrage from much of the English press at how poor England is. Surprise surprise. There is a very vocal majority in the press who want to blame all this on Capello because it’s easier than thinking deeply about it and much more preferable than stating that players who you laud week-in week-out are actually, at a decent international level, well below par. There is also a crude desire by almost all of Fleet Street to get their mate Harry Redknapp installed as manager, as though this will make any significant difference.

All of us who have witnessed this ‘debate’ time and again across decades know what the problem is. Everyone with a brain in football knows what the problem is. It was painfully clear in the contrast between our play and France’s. We do not have a culture of patient nurturing of the ball; we simply cannot pass well enough to retain possession and we default to aimless hoofing all too quickly. Our first touch is often humiliatingly poor.

The fallacy that the players perform better for their clubs than for England would be exposed if anyone bothered to look closely. Their touch doesn’t disappear at international level, its not there domestically, it’s just less exposed most weeks so is ignored or not noticed by critics.

After last month’s international which brought the exact same reaction from the press and public, I wrote that the only surprising thing about such performances is that it surprises anyone. We would do better as a nation to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, stop assuming we have some entitlement to be good at international football, stop the cyclical scape-goating of managers or specific players. This isn’t going to get better with a change of manager or playing personnel, the problem is endemic and profound. It goes back to the roots of the English game which are wedded to physicality and not skill.

England are a decent second tier side; the international equivalent of say Nottingham Forest. We could beat a struggling Premier League side on a good day, we won’t lose to many sides below us, but we haven’t a chance against the best sides in the top tier. We must accept this. We don’t have to like it but it’s vital that we know it is true because until we accept our true position in world football, we can’t begin to hope to change our fortunes. We will continue to be crippled emotionally by our losses if we continually think they are an aberration caused by squad selection, tactics or managerial decisions.

Just thinking if only we had an English manager it would somehow transform our players’ ability to pass the ball is blatant nonsense, as it was thinking that a whole team of new caps would somehow outperform the old guard. With England it’s always a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Every new generation of players has been inculcated into the same football culture and while it’s possible to tweak and improve that, by the time they get into the England team their basic skill set is established and immovable. So each generation is fated, by and large, to repeat the failures of the past as more and more international sides skill-up and move forwards, we slip backwards and backwards and backwards.

This French side was rotten at the World Cup but unlike England this wasn’t due to a lack of talent but a lack of temperament, so it was inevitable that they would re-establish themselves sooner rather than later. England has a much, much longer journey to undertake.

However, we cannot make he first steps on that journey until we accept our true position in the scheme of things; to stop the self-loathing and begin to accept reality. The berating of England, its players and its managers is now a national sport in itself. I often think people enjoy it in some kind of masochistic way.

But it’s inappropriate in the same way that shouting at a dyslexic child who can’t spell properly is inappropriate, until media, fans, players and everyone else in the game realises that, we will not improve. It’s all in our hands to change. But does anyone really want to?

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Foot ball Swal lowed Britain Whole” is avail able via Ama zon US or Ama zon UK.

Will Blackpool, like Wolves before them, be facing the prospect of a fine for fielding a weakened side against Villa last night? Manager ian Holloway made wholesale changes to his side but so what? They played well and narrowly lost.

The fact that the Premier League has given itself the power to make such judgements and fine clubs is 100 percent wrong to the point of insanity.

What right do they have meddling in the team affairs of any side? If a manager wants to make 11 changes from his previous side he should be able to do so without censure. What does some old fart at the Premier League know about Blackpools’ squad players? Sod all that’s what.

Who is to say what ‘weaker’ means anyway? The Blackpool side that played Villa performed very well – better than their ‘full strength’ side has done on some occasions, so how can anyone define it as a weaker side just because it didn’t feature some of their best players?

Great players can play poorly, average players can play out of their skin on any given occasion. Does this influence what the league would define as a weaker or stronger side?

If a club is going to be penalized for fielding players who by some notional ruler are not their best players how on earth can any new player force his way into the side and improve? And does the judgement of who is a full strength team player and who isn’t change with performances? If Blackpool’s team was ‘under strength’ before the game, after a good game and a narrow 3-2 loss, can we say that again today or has that performance increased their Premier League ‘strength’ rating?

Frankly, this is all unsustainable bollocks and is a classic example of Premier League meddling. While Ian Holloway can be a little too self-consciously wacky, his threat to resign if the club is fined is understandable because it undermines a manager’s autonomy. Some anonymous league official should not be sitting in anonymous judgement of his choices as a manager and dishing out fines based on a spurious concept.

There are no clearly defined guidelines for who you can pick and who can’t for a team. So how can a club be fined for fielding an under strength side when no definitive judgement of what under strength means?

Who at the Premier League is sitting there with Blackpool’s team sheet and making assessments of players? We want names.

I doubt that Blackpool will be fined purely because they played well but that shouldn’t deflect from the basic injustice that lurks behind this threat of fielding a weakened side. It is an affront to managers to players and to fans.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Foot ball Swal lowed Britain Whole” is avail able via Ama zon US or Ama zon UK.

Some nights of football defy you not to enjoy them. Even the most mean-spirited Arsenal fan must surely have felt at least a small stirring of joy in their souls at Spurs performance against Inter Milan. If Spurs can keep this kind of performance up and it is a big if, there will be two teams on North London capable of playing sublime if quite different kinds of football.

Arsenal’s cerebral game of intricacy and vision is often best appreciated by the impartial fan with the mind rather than the heart. For the neutral it is easy to admire but sometimes less easy to love. In contrast, Spurs’ cavalier blitzkreig game sets the pulse racing with its pace and openness and against Inter, it was utterly captivating from start to finish. In many ways, this is the kind of football that makes us fall in the love with the game. While there are many ways to play and win games, this mixture of free-running and open expansive play is the epitome of good-time football.

It is easy to over-react to a couple of good performances but wiser heads than I who have seen more than my 49 years of football are, like me, wondering if we have ever seen a marauding performance the like of Bale’s against Milan. It was that good, that breath-taking; his slow-and-then-go change of pace utterly destructive even in tight corners; his wild, stallion-like length-of-the-pitch sprinting even with two minutes left on the clock couldn’t fail to thrill even the most hardened cynic.

It seems unlikely that Spurs could win the Champions League or even go close because their defence, especially Hutton on the right, seems too porous. However, this is one more reason why they should use attack as the best form of defence. Inter are no mugs. And even into the last ten minutes after they scored who amongst us was sure they wouldn’t get an equalizer? It’s a dangerous game Spurs play, but unlike much Champions League football in the group stages, it’s worth paying good money to see.

Redknapp deserves credit for setting out a side that entertain and thrill. It will end in tears because playing such an open game probably means they need to score three in every game to make sure of victory, but who cares. Better to go out with all guns blazing, than try a more defensive, cautious game that goes against the instincts of the players. By not playing it safe, they have already provided one of the games of the season in the Champions League. Long may it continue.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK

Tony Mowbray took over as manager of Middlesbrough yesterday. I think all my fellow Boro fans will be delighted at this news.

For a start, he has taken a side out of the Championship before when he took WBA up, which wasn’ t something that his predecessor could have claimed.

But his appointment is more important than merely what he can achieve on the pitch. Mowbray, a locally born lad who captained the club with distinction in the 80s, will innately understand the club. He knows the local culture and he can set about restoring some warmth and heart to Middlesbrough FC; a warmth and heart that many feel was drained out of the club by Strachan’ s tenure.

A club like Middlesbrough has no tourist fans, it has no casual supporters. If the local community isn’ t engaged, inspired and excited by the football club then you get what Strachan created – dwindling attendances, disillusion and disappointment. Even the club shops sales were depressed.

Mowbray will understand the relationship between the club and the community. He will hopefully reconnect the youth team to the first team and once again bring local kids through. While you might argue only Adam Johnson and Stewart Downing have been big successes from the youth development at Middlesbrough that is to miss the point. By constantly feeding home-grown players into the first team, it gives the local community faith in the club. It bolsters the sense that dreams can be achieved through the club; that it’ s not just an inert institution.

This is so important to an unfashionable out of the way clubs like the Boro. It is part of their civic duty and certainly Chairman Steve Gibson sees it that way. The club is there for the people, to serve and feed their hopes and dreams on and off the pitch. Mowbray instinctively will understand this. A football club is more than just the eleven players on the rectangle of grass and I can see only good things happening under Mowbray. This might not even be promotion, not immediately, he’ s got all the Celtic players he dumped on Strachan to get rid of first, but more important than promotion, I think we’ ll see happier, more exciting times and just as importantly a bit of soul return to the club.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” is available via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

After an astonishing performance in Milan, there surely can’t be any doubt that the answer is a categorical yes. Who else is playing as well? Who else is having such a major impact? Who else has scored such a brilliant hat-trick on such a stage?

Had such a magnificent, irresistible hat-trick being scored by someone more high profile, someone more fashionable perhaps, he would be hailed as a new superstar. But Bale seems modest and unassuming. He is a workhorse with nuclear powered lungs and the work ethic of the Energizer Bunny.

Somehow, he seems to run as hard as fast and as direct in the last minute as in the first, leaving flagging defenders in his trail. His direct style of aggressive running, taking a man on and not only beating him but having sufficient composure to fire the ball three times unerringly into the corner of the net, beyond the reach of the keeper is thrilling, boys own stuff.

All the more astonishing that he was a left back for so long because he is so devastating as a progressive left-side midfielder.

It was interesting that after the game Redknapp was already on the defensive about keeping Bale at Spurs. He’ll know this performance will have revealed his talent for all the world to see and such talent will always attract the biggest, richest suitors.

At just 21 his career looks set to be a stellar one. There are so few players who come along with a game as irrepressible as Bale’s. It put me in mind of Rooney’s early days when he was an unstoppable force of nature, before being tamed into a more measured but less exciting player.

Hopefully Bale will continue to thrill us with such scintillating performances for the next decade and not end up in three years pissing in the street, smoking fags and bitching about his club’ s ambition.

The rise and rise of Gareth Bale is real British success story and one we should all rejoice in.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” has received the massive honour of being listed as one of William Hill’s Sports Book Of The Year 2010 – the biggest, most prestigious sports books prize in UK.

Buy it here via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

Football press conferences are usually quite predictable affairs with the manager trotting out the usual clichés and obfuscation in response to the same old questions from the press.

They are rarely places to deploy an extended metaphor but someone must have forgotten to tell Rafa Benitez because his latest comments about his time at Liverpool read more like T.S. Eliot on acid.

“We have a saying in Spanish….’white liquid in a bottle has to be milk’. He quipped to a presumably puzzled press corp. Yes, it’s likely to be milk, more likely than it is to be paint, but ….well…so what?”

He went on.

“So, white liquid in a bottle: milk. You will know who is to blame.”

Errr…..right. So who is to blame for the milk in the bottle? Is it the dairy that put it in the bottle? The manufacturer of the glass bottle, after all there’s no milk bottle without the bottle. Or is it the farmer who milked the cow or perhaps it’s all the fault of the cow for lactating in the first place? Christ, this is exhausting.

So that’s our options of who to blame, now which of them is Hicks and Gillett? Is he saying they are a couple of big cows having their udders pulled or is Liverpool the cow who is being milked? If so, who is the milker and where is the milk going?

Man, it’s like peeling an onion trying to understand this. Excuse me while I take some psychotropic drugs to try and understand this cryptic metaphor. It’s like something out of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

But he wasn’t done with the milky goodness yet. Oh no,

“White liquid in a bottle. If I see John the milkman in the Wirral, where I was living, with this bottle, I’d say, ‘It’s milk, sure’.”

Yeeeesssss….of course Rafa; now let’s take a little walk with these nice men in white coats.

It’s all as clear as…well, as clear as milk, as it turns out. I’m sure John knows its milk in his bottle and is not likely to ask Rafa to tell him what it is.

Even Cantona’s infamous seagulls following trawlers was a relatively straightforward analogy compared to this.

I’m sure ‘White liquid in a bottle: milk;’ would be a great slogan for the dairy industry. As a way to describe his time at Liverpool it is somewhat more opaque.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” has received the massive honour of being listed as one of William Hill’s Sports Book Of The Year 2010 – the biggest, most prestigious sports books prize in UK.

Buy it here via Amazon US or Amazon UK.

I’m sure most Middlesbrough fans are pleased that Gordon Strachan has resigned and walked away without compensation. Our league position tells its own story. It plainly wasn’t working and his increasingly eccentric media interviews revealed a man who looked to be under intense pressure. This didn’t stop a majority of the fans from turning against him in no uncertain terms. Things had started to get unpleasant and nasty.

A manager at a failing club attracts an extraordinary amount of ire and bile, especially when, as at the Boro, he was expected to achieve so much with the investment made.

What we often fail to remember in such times is that the manager concerned is actually a human being with feelings and sensitivities. He’s not a human pineta. He has to go home and sit there, the abuse of the crowd still ringing in his ears, unable to make anything right until the next game. None of us in our ordinary lives know what that must be like. It simply doesn’t happen in other walks of life.

He knows things are not going right. He knows he looks like an idiot for buying these under performing players and setting them up to play so poorly. The stress that comes with such public failure must be hard to bear. It’s no surprise that it might make you behave erratically or oddly. I’m sure I’d go certifiably bonkers and appear in front of the cameras with a pencil up each nostril and a pair of underpants on my head.

In few jobs do you get to fail in front of tens of thousands of people all of whom are willing and able to voice their displeasure towards you. Imagine if that happened in the corporate or local council office. Indeed, in many public buildings you’ll see signs asking you not to abuse the poor worker behind the desk or window. At my local post office collection depot there used to be a handwritten sign saying “Please do not swear at the Royal Mail staff.”

But go to a football ground and such behaviour is welcomed and is all part of the banter of football. All good fun unless you’re the one on the end of the limitless weekly abuse.

When I was watching the Merseyside derby, Roy Hodgson was standing on the touchline, almost paralyzed it seemed, his face set in a look of fearful bewilderment as Liverpool went two down. Only a cold soul could fail to have sympathy for someone in such a position.

All managers end up getting the sack, usually sooner rather than later, so clearly you need to be prepared for that, but when you see a man getting slowly destroyed by his own failure, it’s really a blessed relief when he’s put out of his misery.

It makes you wonder why anyone wants to do it. It always ends in tears.

Editor’s Note: Johnny’s new book: “We Ate All The Pies: How Football Swallowed Britain Whole” has received the massive honour of being listed as one of William Hill’s Sports Book Of The Year 2010 – the biggest, most prestigious sports books prize in UK.

Buy it here via Amazon US or Amazon UK.