The Premier League might be the wealthiest and most powerful division in the great game, but with that, it seems to have developed a hopeless devotion to the hottest new trends being flaunted in the footballsphere.
So ready to seem in-the-know with whichever ‘New Age’ is being fostered by Barca, Bayern or Dortmund, and so keen to borrow the mentality of these more successful European counterparts.
First we adopted tiki-taka as the way to play the game, Arsenal especially, as they went from being Invincibles to Trophylessers. All out pressing is now the brand, and Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool team nearly snatched their first title in 20 odd years with a high octane game, but then Steven Gerrard didn’t press his foot in the turf, slipped and Demba Ba ruined the party in Merseyside.
That’s just taking into consideration the domestic titles. Europe is even bleaker.
Chelsea and Man Utd are the only teams to win the Champions League since the tiki-take age started to dictate to EPL teams that there is apparently only one way to play football at any given time. Man Utd needed a Paul Scholes 25-yarder to edge out a Frank Rijkaard Barca outfit (not quite as trendy as the incoming Pep brand), and then to play another English team in a very English finale.
Chelsea was the interesting one, because they actually played like the English team they were. Strength in defence, frustrate the better teams, play on the counter and have a big man up top. Didier Drogba may well be most complete centre forward we’ve seen in the UK and he was worth his considerable bulk in Roman Abramovich gold that campaign. It was Savile Row stuff – understated and timeless.
Then nothing was to prepare us for the show stopping, season-long strut of Leicester City to the Premier League crown last year. How English do you want to get? 4-4-2, Schmeichel in net, two monster central defenders, an old fashioned water-carrying centre mid called Drinkwater and a former factory worker up front. They played with pace on the wings, classy crossing, hit teams on the break and could tear you apart, as well as grind you down.
But while fate is seemingly in the midst of an underdog love-in following this victory (Brexit, the Cubs and Trump), the Premier League elite doesn’t believe you can be acceptable on the European high-street in UK clobber.
So we’re back to copy-catting, with the new must have item being one of these trendy managers who play this trendy football.
Jose Mourinho came back, because he is seemingly like a pair of jeans and never out of fashion, and brought Pogba Delevingne with him. Antonio Conte, Jurgen Klopp and then the House of Guardiola brought showmanship to the glitzy lights of Manchester – the home of the expensive toys and haute football.
Furthermore, now we’ve ousted the unfashionably British Rodgers out of the league, we can now call the high-pressing football he adopted Gegenpressen, because we have a Klopp to validate our wholehearted adoption of a foreign style. This is all we’ve ever wanted – an italicised style of our own, albeit a thoroughly borrowed one.
And therein lies the problem, because while we’re too busy buying the new style of football from Europe, the rest of the continent is already figuring out how to beat it.
The suggestion is not that we need to rewind the clock to ‘getting stuck-in’, ‘lumping it up top’ and other atavistic tactics, but why no gradual approach? Alex Ferguson was the master of this, drip feeding new learnings into his team, evolution instead of revolution, and see what works. “Cristiano Ronaldo? Yes you work, we’ll keep you. Eric Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson and the very trendy Veron? No you don’t seem to work, we’ll leave you out.”
But, who’s got time to bed in a new manager and evolve a style with this amount of money and fame up for grabs? The required immediacy of success our hungry owners crave won’t wait. Not even for the likes of Carlo Ancelloti, who won a League and FA Cup Double then got the sack, only for pretty much his Chelsea team to cling on and win the Champions League the following year.
What this means for English football is several things. The 24-year wait for an English manager to win the Premier League looks set to continue. Only Sean Dyche’s Burnley are in the top ten currently with an Englishman at the helm. English football will always tactically lag behind European football and finally, and most sadly for this Englishman, the national team will continue to not know whether it’s pressing or passing it’s way to an abject tournament exit.
Viva 4-4-2.
j binnie
Guest
Fadida - Step carefully my friend. You are criticising,quite rightly, the refusal of those who run the game in England of ignoring the obvious lessons taught by Hungary& Real Madrid in the 50's and 60's but never forget that the "coaohing revolutiion" that gave us what was to become known as "continental football" actually started with the ideas of an Englishman, Jimmy Hogan, who, having had his ideas ridiculed by those same "power men" in the English game, took his ideas to Europe where he is regarded as the "godfather" of modern coaching. Now to return to my original thoughts lets look at that supposed "home" of "Total Football", Holland,where the professional game did not start until 1957 and they too only enjoyed a 3 - 4 year spell at the top of the ladder in the 1970's until the big money beckoned their stars to Italy and Spain just to mention a few. I know the history of the game,especially the coaching story, is taboo to many who are not inclined to look back more than 10 years but behind every observation like yours,there is an intriguing story as to what and why it happened the way it did and you should remember that when criticising coaching methods. I have in my possession ,an article, written in 1974, by an English coach domiciled in Australia that outines the benefits to be had from coaching juniors and seniors in various "breakdowns" including such ploys as small sided games on small pitches,and how a team should function in groups of 3 whether on attack or in defence. Remember this was 30 years BEFORE our National Curriculum was first mooted in 2004. Cheers mate jb.
Swampy
Guest
Agree wholeheartedly. There also needs to be somewhat of a culture change amongst young English players. There seems to be plenty of them coming up but they plateau so quickly and few seem to reach their potential. Spoilt brats and priviledged lives come to mind as issues. You can list so many straight off the top of your head - Wilfred Zaha, Andros Townsend, Jack Wiltshere, Adam Johnson, Ashley Young - the list just goes on and on - that have never scaled the expectations. Maybe there's hope with guys like Dele Alli that show a bit more professionalism coming through now.
Greg Hall
Roar Rookie
Fadida
Guest
England failed to qualify for WC 74,78, 94. "Foreign" or"overseas" players were unheard of, in the 70's especially. England always try and find an excuse. Their problem is they are inwards looking and think they know best. Decades have passed and still they haven't sorted out grass roots coaching. Still they choose brawn and pace over technique. Physical football over technical. And yet they won't change the up and at them style. It is only the arrival of foreign managers and players that have stopped the EPL becoming an elephants grave yard. Never has the English name been in a worse state. And it's all their fault.
j binnie
Guest
punter - I would suggest the young man who wrote this article should take a long hard look at how and why "English" football is where it is today. Surely the movement of players within the bounds of Europe has to be considered without getting in to the emergence of world class players from countries that only 50 years ago would have been classed as "backwaters" of professional football. I suppose one could "blame" the affluence of the "English game" but to me that is a "cop out" for the history of the game tells us that what was once regarded as the "home of football" has degenerated into a mish-mash of managers and players chasing the almighty dollar by going where the money is. Germany,and to a lesser extent Spain, have more recently become "the home" of top football but even an examination of their club sides show evidence of that culture being diluted so where does one go from here.? Does every country ban the use of overseas players (we already have limits in the HAL) as a means to an end of improving their national team performance? Tonight we will probably observe this thinking in reverse when AP trots out "our" Socceroo team ,95% of whom play in other countries. The problem inadvertently introduced by our young scribe in this article is not "rubbish" it is in fact an introduction as to how the standard of football in any country,ours included, has a direct connection as to the amount of dollars being pumped into the game by individuals or companies with no other objective than to measure success by results. Sad, but true. Cheers jb.
Fadida
Guest
Agree Swampy. I'd also argue that 95% of English clubs haven't changed their style at all. A slight tweak from 442 to 451 but it's still knock it long, run the channels rubbish generally. And English players are still technically and tactically abject on the whole
Greg Hall
Guest
@swampy, I agree we're not that good anymore, the halcyon days of 1996 are long gone unfortunately. But the potential is surely there with the amount of money the league has? More wisely invested in youth and coaches and the EPL could yet have another Renaissance of style and substance, rather than just clumsily splurging the money here there and everywhere in Europe.
punter
Guest
Well put Swampy!!!
Swampy
Guest
What was that rubbish? Memo to England: 1966 was a long time ago. So was 1996. You just ain't that good at football anymore. The team that plays the most English style and is wildly successful doing so both domestically and in Europe doesn't even play in England and I doubt will ever have an English player play for them: Atletico Madrid.