Sheffield United’s innovative tactics are derived from the influence of Pep Guardiola and changes in the lawsLast Saturday, Rochdale scored a brilliant goal against Southend, working the ball from front to back in 16 rapid passes. As is the way of things these days, clips circulating on social media have not merely celebrated the artistry and the technical mastery of the goal, the courage to attempt it, but have rapidly followed football’s equivalent of Godwin’s Law and degenerated into deeply tedious rows about Pep Guardiola.To parse these as briefly as possible: somebody invents an army of neanderthal straw men and tweets something like: “Who says Guardiola isn’t having an influence on English football?” To which the correct answer, you would...
The midfield problems at the root of Frank Lampard’s early defeats as Chelsea manager will have been familiar to anyone who followed the ups and downs of his playing careerC enturies from now, when the world is a wasteland and football exists only in the ruins of stadiums half-buried in the desert, there will still come a wind through the dusty valley and on its breath will be the question: “But if they were great players, why couldn’t they play together?”The few surviving humans will huddle in caves, squabbling over the meagre crops that remain, divided implacably into two tribes, the Gerrardites and the Lampardians, deaf to the various efforts of minority groups such as the Barryists and the Hargreavesians...
Gareth Southgate has led a revolution that has produced better results and entertainment while England’s cricketers have also benefited from a more aggressive attitudeAmong the myriad skills that are employed in different sports one that is shared by all is risk assessment. Though it sounds like some dark art practised by insurance agents, it is the basic cost-benefit analysis that most competitors make intuitively and upon which all coaches are fixated. Namely, does a given action increase the likelihood of gaining an advantage more than it increases the likelihood of suffering a setback? That is the question a full-back has to ask each time he sprints down the wing. Or a tennis player when she rushes the net.And overall it...
Liverpool and Spurs rely on the role to wreak havoc in attack and Saturday’s game will show how the position has evolvedIt is quarter of a century since Jack Charlton observed after the 1994 World Cup that full-back had become tactically the most important position in football, and with each passing year his words have come to seem increasingly true. It is entirely possible – likely, even – that Saturday’s Champions League final could be decided by the performance of the respective pairs of full-backs, something that would have seemed absurd even a couple of decades ago. Related: Why I gave away my Champions League final ticket to watch it with dad | Max Rushden Related: Sadio Mané happy at...
Attacking Barcelona is not wrong given it can unsettle them but it leaves teams exposed and Liverpool found that can be fatalContemplating his side’s Champions League quarter-final against Manchester City last season, Jürgen Klopp said that to sit back and look to absorb pressure against such a side was in effect to try to “win the lottery”. Against the very best, he believes there is no point – at least for a team of Liverpool’s ability – in curling up like a hedgehog and hoping the threat somehow goes away. He vowed to attack, and did, and his reward was three goals in an extraordinary 20-minute spell that settled the tie before half-time in the first leg. Related: Incomparable Messi...