The Genius of Passive Aggression (AKA Why Antonio Conte is managing and Gary Neville is Talking)

Let’s be clear, I quite like Gary Neville (and Jamie Carragher for that matter) as football pundits. Their analysis on Monday nights is amongst the most thorough, detailed and informative that we get from TV pundit land.

But they don’t get everything right. And tonight’s program was one of those where they get it horribly wrong. Tonight’s program saw Neville continue (following on from his match commentary on Sunday) his hyper critical diatribe at what he perceived was Antonio Conte’s – and Chelsea’s – affront to football, ably supported by Carragher, who declared it the strangest thing he’d seen – ever.

They were talking about Chelsea’s refusal to play ball, almost literally, with Manchester City in Sunday’s big game. The apoplexy from Neville began during the game with him shrilly declaring his disgust at the perceived lack of “effort” from Chelsea.

“They’re walking” he shrieked.

On tonight’s Monday Night Football on Sky they used last season’s Chelsea performance at Manchester City as an example of a more fluid and dynamic performance, but that’s totally bogus, as this season’s Manchester City is a completely different animal. Then he said he’d reflected and even looked to stats to see if they supported some tactical plan from Conte, then came back with a bunch of stats that showed how many shots Chelsea had had, which was very low (3 shots off target and none on) as evidence to support his theory that Chelsea got it horribly wrong. But he was missing the point completely.

The most revealing stat he missed was Manchester City’s XG.

XG is the measurement of not just chances created, but the actual tangible quality of the chances created (ie how likely a side is to score from that chance – so for eample an XG of 2 suggest a team created suitable quality chances to score 2 goals in the game).

Manchester City’s average XG this season is 2.48. In Sunday’s game it was 0.95. This was the second lowest XG that Manchester City had recorded all season (the 0.72 at Liverpool being the least they have recorded and in that game they still scored 3 goals). It was the lowest XG that Manchester City had recorded at home all season, the next lowest being 1.12 when they only had ten men for most of the game, their first home game of the season, against Everton.

What does this tell us? It tells us that Antonio Conte is not the tactical fool Neville was suggesting.

Conte figured out that it isn’t his job to entertain Gary Neville, or the world at large. He also didn’t care about being seen or perceived to be “brave” by the football world.

He figured out the things you have to do, or things you don’t want to do, if you want to stop City doing what they love to do. He instructed his players not to charge about, engage and start chasing City’s midfielder’s around like love sick puppies chasing sticks. He told them not to expend valuable energy getting sucked into City’s little traps, that’s exactly what they want you to do. Just like Guardiola’s Barca, they start popping the ball about and try to suck the opposition out of shape, and if you are stupid enough to start scurrying around trying to win the ball 50 yards out, they’ll spring a little triangular passing move and before you know it, they’ve broken your lines and channels, are through you like a knife through butter and then, in behind and scoring.

This brought about those passages of play that so vexed Gary Neville, with DeBruyne, Gundogan and Silva tapping the ball around, completely unchallenged as Chelsea’s players, 5 yards away, downed tools, unfolded deck chairs, put their feet up and happily sat munching pop corn, enjoying the tippy tappy show.

But what Neville seemed to miss completely was the method in what appeared to be Conte’s tactical madness. So bamboozled was he by Chelsea’s apparent lack of “running” that the fog of his affronted rage clouded what was actually happening, and that was not much. Which was exactly Conte’s plan.

Their defensive plan was almost perfect. Don’t even engage until they are withing 35 yards, don’t run around like headless chickens, expending valuable energy, stay focused, keep shape, don’t let them get behind you, and hopefully with quality, quick feet and brains up front of Hazard, Willian and Pedro they would always have a chance to create something.

Unfortunately the attacking side of their game was poorly executed by the individuals involved, but this was much to the annoyance of Conte, who was going bananas on the touch line when Chelsea were wasting the few attacking situations they had.

But this should detract from what was actually a very smart tactical defensive application, which limited City to the least amount of quality chances they have had all season at home.

And this was no, one off, fluke from Conte. He used similar tactics, all be it not quite so passive aggressive, a couple of weeks previously to take a point from Barcelona, and possibly could and should have had all three that night.

The Folly of Youth

So, England is the new hot house for production of youthful talent. Only Gareth Southgate and the woefully inept Aidy Boothroyd have let the side down, by allowing England youth sides to play poorly at international tournaments in the last couple of years.

But even in those Southgate and Boothroyd teams there were kids with huge potential. Look further down the age range and the cup of talent positively runneth over.

Currently England’s youth are world champions at U17 and U20 level and Euro Champions at U19 level. But it’s not just those trophies alone that have got the rest of Europe paying attention, it’s the way those trophies were won and the depth of individual talent in all areas of the pitch that were displayed whilst winning.

Directors of football from Germany, a country with a very pro-active disposition to providing a pathway for it’s young players, are starting to talk about mining English academies of their raw materials. I believe this would be a great thing for both the kids and English football, because these kids are not getting the opportunities they need to develop in England. When it comes to youth development, England has become a great greenhouse with no retail outlet. If these kids get opportunities in Germany, it will be good for them, they will get good coaching and game time; good for the German clubs who’ll get good players and handsome profits when they inevitably sell them back to the cash rich Premier League clubs looking for the next big thing.

As a result of the Premier League’s EPPP directive, large amounts of money and resources have gone into improving every aspect of youth development at a handful of the very top English clubs, and the success the England national teams are reaping at youth level right now is almost entirely down to a handful of these superb academies, with Manchester City and particularly Chelsea’s academy leading the way.

 

EPPP Interlude (A brief explanation of EPPP)

 In 2011 The Premier League introduced the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), which contained some good and not so good provisions, designed to help produce better quality young footballers from English academies. It encouraged clubs to improve their coaching, coaching environment, facilities and very importantly tie in the academic education of it’s academy kids.

But the clubs wanted some quid pro quo, and that came in the shape of an increase of the time clubs are allowed to spend with kids and also, and here’s the real kicker, clubs qualifying for EPPP status, were no longer restricted to recruiting kids from within the 90 minute catchment area. This made it much easier for the top clubs, who had attained EPPP academy status, to poach kids from much farther afield.

So what we have seen is a concentration of much of the high profile youth talent at a handful of these “Elite” academies. But I feel it is too easy to point the finger at these elite academies and blame them entirely for the lack of first opportunity for some of the kids.

 

The problem is, England’s incredible summer of international youth success has created a bit of negative blow back for the architects of that success, namely the Premier League’s elite EPPP clubs, and in particular, Chelsea. It is continually pointed out that Chelsea acquire some of the country’s best young talent, that their youth sides -featuring some of that talent – dominate English youth football, and also triumph in European club youth football, yet fails to provide a pathway to first team football for those young players.

I personally think Cheslea (and to a lesser degree Manchester City) have become a scapegoat for the rest of English football’s failure and to a lesser extent the failure of the kids, their parents and their advisors too.

I don’t believe these academies are blameless; they have and are continually making mistakes in terms of their risk assessment with regards to integrating academy players verses buying in. But in all honesty, of the top half dozen clubs, Chelsea and Man City probably have the best rationale for this, as they are continually winning titles and the quality of their first team’s have consistently been the best in the Premier League, making it very hard to integrate young players.

The excuses become less plausible as we descend the league table, and lower leagues though, and I think there is far less rationale for ignoring the talent pool in their own midst from other elite clubs, and exponentially less excuse the further down the food chain we go.

Whilst everyone is pointing at the top handful, and particularly Chelsea and Man City, I would like to know what excuse the other eighty odd league clubs have for not maximizing very valuable footballing and potentially massive financial assets.

OK, so some of the best talent in England is getting hoovered up by the elite academies, but that still leaves hundreds (maybe thousands) of the country’s most talented young players trying to make their way at the other eighty odd clubs.

Many of whom can’t use the excuse of having Top 6 Premier League kudos to attract the best players and oodles of money to splash on top shelf product from the continent; in fact, most of them, if they used their noggins would realise the massively inflated profit that could be gained from the sale of any English (ie home grown qualified) kid who can be seen to be kicking a ball straight for 40 games at almost any level of the professional game. The massive recent inflation in transfer fees means for any club from 7^th or 8^th in the PL downwards that can produce a Rashford, Sterling, Loftus-Cheek or Alli for themselves could well hit the kind of financial jackpot that could balance their books for a year or two.

And that’s after they’ve probably had a year or two of footballing benefit from the kid, maybe helping a promotion push (eg Deli Alli) that also bumps revenue.

You can just about buy some of the excuses made by Chelsea and Man City for them not providing many of their kids with a first team pathway, the pressure on their manager’s to win every game, every trophy, every year to keep their job is ever present and relentless, and almost certainly leads to the kind of risk aversion to youth integration that, though I believe strongly is often misguided, is understandable. But I don’t believe the rest of England’s football teams can offer up that same level of excuse. Including the next handful of top clubs in the Premier League.

Mauricio Pochettino at Spurs is held up as a great beacon of youth integration, but so far not a single player is established in the Spurs side from their own academy that hadn’t already been established by previous Spurs managers. Winks may be on the way to being the first to break that cycle under Pochettino without prior exposure under a previous Spurs head coach, but it’s not quite happened yet. The two U20 world cup winning stars haven’t fared too well either. Recently Spurs chose to add yet another international RB to their squad rather than persevering with the outstanding Kyle Walker-Peters. The player they added has so far been sent off and given a penalty away in two of his half dozen games – would playing the novice Walker-Peters been any more costly ? England’s best player in that U20 final was Josh Onomah, he’s been packed off to the Championship after getting 20 minutes league football in two years under Pochettino, whilst the same manager was trying to sign 19yo Diop from Spain.

The other group of people in this equation that I think are getting away without being heavily criticised are the players – and by this, I very much mean players, their parents and agents/representatives. I can fully understand these players/parents choosing Chelsea over their local club, or any other club where they might get a greater chance of first team football one day. Chelsea pay some of these kids the kind of wages that lower league players with years on the clock might envy, which can set a family up and change their lives for a good few years to come, even if the player doesn’t make it.

Chelsea also have a great loan experience policy. People mock the Vitesse Arnhem tie in, but this – and other foreign and English based loans – gives these players experience of first team football in games that matter, and in the case of players sent abroad, these players have their character’s fully tested, life skills enhanced, multi-language skills improved. So even if they don’t make it with Chelsea they have been paid well, educated well and stand a very good chance of some kind of career in football.

I can fully understand why a kid would choose Chelsea (or Manchester City). But it’s still their choice. No one puts a gun to their (parents) heads and makes them choose Chelsea. And there are many, many examples of youth players leaving their local clubs who have trained them for a few years as soon as “bigger” clubs come knocking, only to end up regretting that decision as their career stagnates, whilst former team mates are playing more first team football.

If they really want to stand a better chance of eventual integration, surely the logical choice would be a club where the first team isn’t almost entirely made up of expensively assembled, world class players?

The non “elite” clubs need to start realising the footballing and financial benefits of investing in better quality youth coaching and understanding the longer term benefits of better integrating that well coached youth.

I think rather than solely blaming Chelsea and a handful of so called elite academy clubs, a larger portion of the blame needs to be shouldered by these other two factions in the development equation, ie everybody else and the players themselves. They could both benefit each other greatly by being more intelligent in their choices and application.

 

Other opinions are available, and these are two of the best bloggers on youth football, particularly their respective clubs Chelsea and Spurs:

https://youthhawk.wordpress.com

http://windycoys.com

Link:

http://www.thefa.com/england/youth-teams

Set The Video

A couple of days ago I watched two of the world’s biggest teams duke it out for a place in the Champions League semi finals at the Bernabeu in Madrid. Let’s be honest, it wasn’t a tactical tour de force from either team, and it wasn’t an aesthetic footballing feast of flowing synchronicity either, but for 84 minutes it was bloody entertaining match that ebbed and flowed.

We had some of the world’s best footballers on show (some, perhaps, not as “best” as the once were it has to be said)  playing in one of the worlds most iconic and atmospheric amphitheatres, 80,000 fanatical fans creating a fervent atmosphere, another few hundred million watching on their HD, 4K, curved flat screens; basically it doesn’t get much bigger than this, this is the type of game that UEFA knows sells it’s flagship tournament to the world’s great unwashed, this was the Monaco Grand Prix of football, not the main event, but a biggy.

What a shame then that the game ended up the victim of a homicide, with the post match morphing into an episode of Silent Witness, with the watching world – pundit’s professional and amateur – performing an autopsy on the corpse – and all coming to the same conclusion, that the killer of this spectacle was the officiating.

It was indeed a heinous crime. We had two of the game’s behemoths all square in the quarter final of the game’s blue chip event, the match was beautifully poised, waiting for a moment of collective or individual brilliance, or comedy as is the way of football, to decide it. But we were all denied that drama by a sequence of awful officiating, the worst of which was a ludicrous sending off and two offside goals, one utterly blatant. What should have been a thriller with a sting in the tail ended up degenerating into pantomime farce.

As I put the finishing touches to this article I am watching another of football’s show piece events, an FA Cup semi final at Wembley in which the first half saw the three major decisions all called completely wrong, denying two blatant penalties and disallowing a perfectly valid goal – because a linesman decided to guess that a ball had gone out, when it hadn’t.

Even Barcelona’s greatest comeback in history, a few weeks ago, was tainted by a penalty that never should have been.

The real culprits here aren’t the referee and linesmen, they are just human and human’s will always make mistakes, the real villains are football’s governing authorities, who have had the technology and abundant resources to eradicate much of this from the top level of game for a couple of decades, but continue to stick their fingers in their ears and whistle Dixie.

Whilst most other major (and often financially poorer) sports, where applicable, embrace video technology and officiating because they want their sport to be the best it can be, after all, that is what sport is isn’t it – the pursuit of excellence? They want the talking points to be the pivotal participants; the players, coaches, their technical and tactical ability (or lack thereof) – not how a piece of flawed guesswork by an official has denied those qualities that we are all paying for with our admission or subscriptions.

The old chestnut of “stopping the game” is no more valid now than it ever was. Football stops, continuously. It usually stops as a result of the contentious issues that referees are getting wrong continually. A workable system could easily introduced where video is reviewed as play continues and then stopped if necessary or allowed to continue if not, and if the ref has already stopped play for a perceived infringement it makes no difference. Any minimal “ball in play” time lost could easily be recouped if the league in question adopted the French league’s policy of constantly having ball boys with match balls round the pitch, ready to chuck them to players the minute any ball goes out of play, rather than the ludicrous “one ball” system used in other leagues such as the English Premier League. It could also get to grips with the amount of time lost to fake pitch injury treatment that litters most games.

As a bonus by-product it might also spare us the duplicitous excuse apoplexy of the post match manager, one week decrying the ref for not giving them a penalty when their striker was tickled with a feather by a defender at a corner, the next week vexing about how the penalty given against their defender for tickling a striker with a feather at a corner is given against them. Managers (and players) would no longer have the officiating to hide behind, there own talents or failings would be what the live and die by.

The powers that be, FIFA, UEFA and/or major leagues need to drag themselves into the 21^st century and stop this omnipresent pantomime that is making a mockery of its sport.

Four – It’s the Magic Number (yes it is)

Part 1

The Magic of the Cup Four

“Fourth is not a trophy” they cry. Invariably in tandem with “the magic of the cup is dead, but…”.

There’s no but really, much of the magic of the cup has gone, but not for the reasons that many proclaim. It’s not because of the copious money flooding into the English game, it’s not because of Johnny Foreigner and his lack of comprehension of the importance of that once hallowed bauble, it’s not because of the TV companies and scheduling FA Cup games for 8pm on a Monday evening.

The magic of the cup has diminished because fans aren’t stupid. They are able to work out that finishing in a top four (or even top 17 for many) place in one of the world’s most competitive leagues is actually more meritorious than defeating a handful of – often – lower strata opposition who’s annual resources scarcely match the weekly pay packet of their star player, or similar level opposition fielding reserve and youth sides, only to watch the predictably boring outcome of a top four team winning the thing anyway (as it has bar twice in the last twenty plus years) and almost apologetically accepting their shiny coins from some old windbag who they don’t recognise and immediately bequeathing the unwanted Europa place it garnered to some ne’er-do-well who doesn’t have the resources to play in it.

Whilst the reward of the big day out at Wembley is lovely (apart from the torturous mind fuck of leaving the ground, which invariably involves being wedged in the middle of an 80,000 queue for the tube consisting of middle aged men smelling of burgers stewed in onion water, the very cheapest vintage of lager, piss and – depending on the result – abject misery) – also lovely is knowing that your top four finish, unlike the cup final, doesn’t end the day you achieve it, it is the gift that keeps on giving, and trips to gin palaces that have as much, or more exotic allure than Wembley await.

Unlike the unwanted chore of the Thursday night trip to some godforsaken place you’ve never heard of and can’t even pronounce, It gives you a minimum of six plays of that most glorious crescendo of footballing anthems, telling you that you have arrived, tonight you are dining at football’s top table, and your opponent will be another arriviste, or even better, a member of one of football’s royal family, and even better than that, they come with a reciprocal invite back to their p(a)lace.

As well as the smugly comforting kudos blanky that embraces you, it also gives you practical rewards too, it will boost your revenue by something like £20-£30m, this and the kudos will usually help you attract a higher caliber of player, which in turn increases your chance of sustaining your success, of winning more games, of watching better football and even, if it still floats your boat, winning that trophy, maybe even the big one.

Should you progress, your cup of kudos and cash will really start to runneth over. A trip to the Camp Nou, Bernabeu, San Siro, Allianz Arena or other iconic venue almost certainly await, along with £40 million plus in revenue. Allure the FA Cup’s offering of a trip to Banana Skin Wanderers played on a field resembling the Somme in a stadium resembling a flapping greyhound track circa 1984 just cannot live with.

And before the FA Cup’s Sir Galahad pundits get all moral glory on my ass, I suggest they listen to every interview with every lower or non league chairman or manager who progresses past the third round of the FA Cup. They’re not in it to win it, know they won’t (a non league team hasn’t won it for over a hundred years, and that was when everyone bar Balckburn and Preston North End were non league). To them the FA Cup is their Champions League. It promises a soupçon of kudos and wheelbarrow full of cash.

Awarding the FA Cup winners a big shiny oversized tankard might distort the reality for some, but not for many, who can evaluate that finishing in the top four of the Premier League is a far greater test of a teams true merit. It is achieved over 38 games, against 19 of the country’s very best opponents, some of the world’s best managers and players, playing their strongest team, applying their most rigorous tactics, treating just about every game as if it were the battle of Waterloo, played through ten months in all weathers with no break. The league is the truest test of a team’s abilities, of it’s manager’s intelligence and guile, of it’s fans endurance.

 

Part 2

Mr Top Four

And it with this in mind that I find myself empathising with Arsene Wenger’s annual jump from the ledge or not plight. I heard Chris Sutton (and he’s not alone) call Wenger a failure this week. It seems we have now reached the stage where finishing in the top four of one of the world’s top five leagues for twenty-one straight seasons is deemed failure. Giving your fans that music, those wonderful games in fantastic stadiums for twenty years is failure. Playing some of the best football in their league for most of those twenty-one years is deemed failure. Doing this whilst building the EPL’s best stadium is failure. Doing this whilst refusing to put your own glorification above your club’s solvency is failure.

I am not an Arsenal fan, but I hope I speak for most football fans when I say, I’ll take that failure for my club for the next twenty-one years, especially if it comes with the three league victories and six FA Cups as a bonus along the way, that his failure has.

Wenger’s not perfect, tactically he’s a bit of a pigmy, but as a coach, as a steward of his club, as a man of integrity (the odd bit of post match myopia aside), dignity and as a contributor to the English game, he’s been a towering success.

The Tournament of Tactical Turpitude

A fitting End to Euro 2016

Kind of fitting really that this tournament ended with a tactically inept France being undone by a Portugal team, synonymous for a couple of decades with wasting talented individual flair, that ground it’s way to victory. That’s not to say this Portugal team doesn’t have talented individuals, it has, but for the umpteenth time in this tournament it was almost more a case of a team beating itself with poor tactical decisions, applications or changes than it was a team actually winning a game in style and that style being deliberate and containing good or innovative tactical application.

France didn’t deserve to be in this final after Deschamps’ poor selection and application against Germany saw them completely outplayed, but typically Löw failed to capitalise on Deschamps foolish decision to play a CM2 of Pogba and Matuidi by playing the plodding Schweinsteiger next to the German Dier, Çan. The manager who needed to be a little more pragmatic went gung ho, the manager who could afford to be a little less risk averse went all stodgy. In the end neither really won the game, Germany just lost it.

The same could be said tonight. Once again, Deschamps persisted with the Pogba/Matuidi CM2/4231. Yes, Sissoko was in there again to provide some insurance and make it a triangular 433 pretty much, but as impressed as I was with the discipline and maturity Pogba actually showed, it’s just a complete waste of his attributes to have him as a water carrying foot soldier and we saw virtually nothing of that injection of impetus that he can bring when unshackled by so much responsibility. And there was still that slight vulnerability to the French midfield.

The substitutions Deschamps made were really poor. Taking Payet off, a player who is always capable unpicking the stubbornest of locks, was crazy, only to put another direct type, albeit one with a little more trickery than Sissoko, just made France’s attack to samey and it lost diversity of threat. Why not just replace Sissoko with Coman. Gignac for Giroud was equally baffling. Giroud has his critics, but he’d played well this tournament, proved a superb fulcrum and intelligent foil for the outstanding Greizmann. It was just like taking Giroud off and putting his dad on.

Portugal were well drilled, barely allowing France a sniff, Carvalho quietly very efficient as DM, Sanchez having Seedorf-esque moments, the back four were all impressive throughout. In this game their subs were at least more logical and added something unlike Deschamps, whose subs were just counter intuitive, but you still can’t say they deserved to win the game. But then that’s been the theme of the tournament mostly. Teams contriving to lose more than striving to win.

Following France and Germany, England, Croatia and Spain were all contenders for the “David Cameron shoot yourself up the arse trophy”, all with their own unique methodology for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but none of them reached the level of tactical blasphemy of Marc Wilmots and his Belgian debacle. I’m still waking up in the middle of the night screaming “Fellani’s not a trequartista” and I’m not even Belgian.

Rise of The Foot Soldier

When asked who the best player in the world is, or the best player in the league is, or even who is the best player in your team is, there is always a tendency in football to choose the most prolific goal scorer, most creative or flamboyant player, or maybe the swashbuckling marauding midfielder of a Gerrard-esque disposition. Occasionally a goalkeeper will get the nod, even more rarely a commanding centre-back. But almost never will that choice be the humble foot soldier. The functionary. The water carrying midfielder.

Best is such a subjective term. It is so much easier to look “best” when putting the ball in the net or playing that incisive little through ball. But without someone to win the ball in the first place there would be no glory to grab for the peacocks who take most of the plaudits.

Les Ferdinand once opined that the worst thing to happen to English football was Claude Makelele. He was talking about the fact that Makelele wasn’t what he deemed multifunctional enough. He was also talking about a player who won 5 league titles in 3 countries as well as a Champions League and several other domestic trophies and a runners up medal in a world cup final. Ferdinand was echoing the sentiments of Real Madrid president Florentino Perez when asked why he was selling Makelele from Real Madrid to Chelsea:

“We will not miss Makélelé. His technique is average, he lacks the speed and skill to take the ball past opponents, and ninety percent of his distribution either goes backwards or sideways. He wasn’t a header of the ball and he rarely passed the ball more than three metres. Younger players will arrive who will cause Makélelé to be forgotten.”

Makelele’s team mates did not share Perez’s view. Indeed, when Real Madrid sold Makelele and bought Beckham, Zidane was quoted as saying:

“why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine”.

Fernando Hierro went even further:

“I think Claude has this kind of gift – he’s been the best player in the team for years but people just don’t notice him, don’t notice what he does. But you ask anyone at Real Madrid during the years we were talking about and they will tell you he was the best player at Real. We all knew, the players all knew he was the most important. The loss of Makélelé was the beginning of the end for Los Galacticos… You can see that it was also the beginning of a new dawn for Chelsea. He was the base, the key and I think he is the same to Chelsea now.”

If Ferdinand had his way N’Golo Kanté would probably be emptying bins in a Paris banlieue now, luckily for Leicester, France and football in general, Ferdinand’s footballing intuition is as astute as his recruitment record as Director of Football at QPR.

Anyone who knows me, knows I have a predilection for what I lovingly call the busy c***. They come in different shapes, sizes and hues, but invariably the most successful sides have one.

And in N’Golo Kanté I think we are seeing another of this endangered species at it’s very finest. His rise has been pretty remarkable. From third division French football, to title challenging EPL player who may yet go on to lift an International Trophy this summer with France, all in the space of three years.

Last year in Ligue 1 for Caen he recovered possession more times than any other player in Europe’s top leagues.

When Steve Walsh, Leicester City’s head of recruitment mooted Kanté to Claudio Ranieri the new Leicester manager, in the summer of 2015, he was not convinced; worried his diminutive stature may not be up to the rigors of the EPL. A few weeks into the season Ranieri was recanting, apparently quoted as joking to Walsh:

“Steve, don’t ever listen to me again, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

This season Kanté has the highest tackles/interceptions per game combo (8.7) in Europe and is the dynamic, thumping heart beat that has been driving Leicester City’s miraculous assault on their first ever English league title. He is the heir apparent to Makelele and, as with Makelele, there is more to him than just winning the ball and covering vast swathes of grass per game, he is technically proficient, and has an excellent game reading brain which gets him into the positions to continually win the ball and then the ability to distribute it simply but effectively.

As well as outperforming the rest of his peers in the EPL defensively, if you compare his offensive contribution to the midfielders doing similar jobs at the other top four teams he comes out very favourably too. Making nearly twice the chances and key passes per 90 minutes on the pitch as Spurs Eric Dier, four times the chances and key passes as Arsenal’s Francis Coquelin, virtually identical key passes and chances created as Manchester City’s (£34m) Fernandinho, whilst creating more assists than all of them put together.

Leicester have other outstanding individuals of course, such as Vardy and Mahrez. Various other players from various other teams are also deservedly vying for the accolade of best player in the EPL this season. Kane, DeBruyne, Martial, Ozil and the inimitable magician Payet all have strong claims. They have all provided wonderful moments, but none of them deliver the goods every single time they walk onto the pitch. Kanté does.

Which is why I may be in a minority but I think Kanté has been the best player in the EPL this season.

in FORMATION technology

It’s easy to see which teams are doing well, we just look at the league table, but ever wondered how they are doing it? What shape does success take? If you have, then this is the place for you, if you haven’t, then this is possibly literary mogadon.

Do formations matter? Well they do in as much as they are the architecture of the structure of the football team. What, almost certainly, matters more is the materials and building methods employed, but you still need the architecture as a guiding plan on which to construct.

With that in mind I thought it worth taking a brief peek and see who are the Wimpy Homes and who are the Huff houses of Europe’s elite leagues.

 

Who’s on Top

Currently topping three (Spain, Italy, France) of Europe’s five (English, Spanish, German, Italian, French) major leagues is the 433 formation, or to put it more accurately, 3 teams (Barca 19/20, Napoli 18/21, PSG 21/22) who have predominantly played 433 in their games. Topping the EPL is the predominantly (19/23) 442 playing Leicester City. Romping away with the Bundesliga is Bayern, but they haven’t really settled on predominant formation, they have played 4141 (7 times out of 18 ), 343 (4/18), 433 (3/18), 3142 (1/18), 3421 (1/18) & 4231 (1/18).

 

Predominant Formations

(Formations used as much or more than any other by teams in the whole of Europe’s top 5 leagues)

Despite not currently topping any of Europe’s top five leagues right now the ubiquitous 4231 is being used the most, a total of 40 teams use this formation as much or more than any other. Currently 2^nd in the formation of choice league is 433, currently being used by 20 teams as much or more than any other, third in the charts is our old favorite 442, 17 teams are using this as much or more than any other formation. Tied for fourth favourite we 4411 (4 teams), 41212 (3 teams in France and 1 in Germany), and tied for fifth 4312 (3 teams in Italy) and 352 ( 3 teams in Italy).

 

The Big Three (4231, 433, 442)

4231

Possibly pioneered by Mário Zagallo and his 1970 Brazil side, this formation has become de rigueur in four of the five major European leagues for it’s flexibility. More attacking teams will play it with a high line, high press, more attacking or creative CM’s, a playmaker in the ACM (central of the advanced 4231) and full backs that play as de facto wingers. More defensive applications will sit deeper, play it mostly as a 451 with 2 ‘holding” or defensive CM’s and then there are the various nuanced variations between attacking and defensive application. Particularly popular with teams that like to press high up as it loads up the forward areas numerically, as was possibly never better evidenced than by Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund circa 2010-12 or Jupp Heynckes all conquering 2012-13 Bayern Munich side.

In the EPL a total of 14/20 teams predominantly use the 4231. In Spain, 11/20 teams predominantly use the 4231. In France 9/20 teams predominantly use 4231. In Germany 6/18 teams predominantly use 4231. Italy, with its typical desire to be tactically different from the rest has shunned Europe’s most popular formation for a raft of alternatives and not one club uses 4231 more than any other formation.

Top4

In the top 4 of the EPL, the 2^nd (Man City), 3^rd (Arsenal) and 4^th (Tottenham) all use the 4231. In the Bundesliga, the 3^rd team (Hertha Berlin) use 4231. In Ligue 1, the 2^nd (Monaco) and 4^th (Rennes) are 4231ites. In Spain, none of the top four clubs are using 4231. In Italy, 4231 is so out of fashion it’s untrue; the formation used most widely as a predominant formation in the rest of Europe’s top five leagues isn’t used predominantly by a single Italian club let alone any in the top4.

7 of Europe’s Top 4 teams are predominantly using 4231: ManCity, Arsenal, Tottenham, Dortmund, Hertha Berlin, Monaco and Rennes.

 

433

Although versions of the 433 were possibly pioneered by South American sides like Uruguay or Argentina in the 60’s, the 433 formation really came to life with Rinus Michels Ajax and Dutch, total football teams of the mid 70’s. The most successful European club side of the last two decades, Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, were also strict 433 exponents.

Currently most popular in Italy where 9/20 sides use the 433 as their most predominantly used formation. In France it’s used predominantly by 5 teams. In Spain 4 teams. In Germany 2 teams and in the EPL only one team (Aston Villa) have used this formation predominantly more than any other.

Top4

In Italy, the current Serie A leaders (Napoli) and 4^th placed (Inter) use the 433 (though Inter it’s equally shared with 442) predominantly. In France only the leaders (PSG) of the top four use the 433 predominantly. In Spain the 1^st placed team (Barca) and the 3^rd (Real Madrid) are the only top4 teams using 433 predominantly . In Germany the 2^nd placed Dortmund have started to use 433 more than the previously beloved 4231, but are the only top four team currently using the 433 predominantly. And in the EPL none of the top four teams predominantly use a 433.

So, 433 is giving us 6 top4 teams right now including three country’s league leaders: Napoli, Inter, PSG, Barca, Real Madrid & Dortmund.

 

442

If we think of 4231 as a flexible formation, more about triangles created in various zones, then 442 is more binary, squarer format about partnerships in the various zones. The pivotal positions in the 442 are the 2 central midfielders and how you balance them off to achieve the tactical character of the team. You can have a more defensive and more attacking one, two defensive ones, two multi faceted box to box cm’s etc etc. Hard to say who pioneered the 442 but great European examples of the format were Saachi’s Milan of the 80’s and Capello’s Milan of the 90’s that made a habit of winning titles and European Cups.

Currently most popular in Germany where 7 teams predominantly use 442, in Spain 4 teams are predominantly using 442. In England, France and Italy, 2 teams use 442 predominantly.

Top4

In Spain it’s the 2^nd placed team (Atletico Madrid) and the 4^th placed (Villareal) team using 442. In the Bundesliga the only top 4 team using 442 is the 4^th placed (Borussia Monchengladbach). And again in Italy it’s only the 4^th placed (Inter) using 442 (and even then they are sharing it equally with their use of 433). In England only the first placed (Leicester City) are using 442 predominantly and no teams in France’s top 4 are using 442.

So of Europe’s top4 teams only 5 are using 442: Borussia Monchengladbach, Atletico Madrid, Villareal, Inter & Leicester City.

 

Diversity

When just including formations used 3 or more times by any one team to qualify, France is currently the most tactically diverse league, where 11 different formations (4231, 433, 41212, 343, 4411, 352, 4312, 4321, 3412, 4141, 442) have been used at least 3 times by individual sides. Italy next best with 10, Germany with 9, England with 7 and Spain the least tactically diverse with 6 different formations used 3 times or more by individual teams. In fact Spain is a bit of a tactical desert right now because 19 of Spain’s 20 clubs are predominantly using just 3 formations (4231, 433, 442).

Italy is the only country boasting any teams (Juve, Torino, Udinese, Fiorentina) predominantly playing 3 at the back.

 

Mavericks

So, who are the current European mavericks, innovators, the teams ploughing lone tactical furrows? Italy are out in Front with three teams using a unique formation within their league, with Genoa playing a 343, Fiorentina playing a 3421 and Carpi playing 3511. In Germany it’s Werder Bremen’s 41212 and Darmstadt’s 4411. In France, Toulouse are flying the maverick flag by predominantly using 4312. In Spain it’s Levante’s 532 that’s unique and in England it’s Villa’s 433 that is the only predominant formation of one side alone.

England also boasted the most tactically diverse single team I could find in Sunderland, who have played a grand total of 9 formations (4231, 433, 4141, 352, 3412, 343, 442, 532, 541). Results would suggest this is bamboozling Sunderland more than the opposition.

 

Conclusion

If you want to win the league, play 433. If you want to see tactical variation, go to France. Bored of 4231, go to Italy. Long for a 442 renaissance, go to Germany. Don’t want to be confused by tactical variation, go to Spain.

The P Word

I was listening to a BBC FiveLive football podcast a while ago and Mark Chapman was talking to Graham Hunter, the Scottish football journalist based in Spain. I actually forget what they were discussing but Chapman said something like “I feel silly using words like philosophy and project but…” and Graham Hunter, in rather bemused tone replied, before Chapman could finish his sentence, “why”? Chapman had no answer and just bumbled on with his question.

Why indeed?

I frequent English football forums, my own team’s particularly, and the little exchange above perfectly encapsulates the attitude toward the “P” word when used in any footballing context in any discussion of English football for many years.

Up until very recently anyone using the word “philosophy” in any footballing context was treated with the disdain and ridicule of a bricklayer trying to offer an opinion on the pre-raphaelite artistic movement to his hod-carrying comrades over a Kitkat and a Styrofoam tea elevenses.

“Fuck philosophy, football’s a simple game” seemed to be the general consensus. Philosophies were for Johnny Foreigner manager with his poncey clipboard or Guardian Football Weekly Podcast listeners.

English football has had managers with clear philosophies for almost a century, from the likes of Herbert Chapman (1920’s), Arthur Rowe (50’s), Bill Nicholson (60’s), Bill Shankly (60-70’s), George Graham (80’s), through to Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho of the last two decades (and many, many more). But it was banter heresy to call their approach philosophies.

But the times they are a changing.

The best football journalists, the Rafa Honigstein’s, the James Horncastle’s, the Philipe Auclair’s, the Alyson Rudd’s et al had never been scared to use the “P” word but no self respecting football geezer read the Guardian or The Times, so they were only really preaching to the converted, so when the football geezer’s icon St Gary of Neville frequently started using the “P” word without any hint of irony or making the derogatory hand quote gestures during his superb stint on Sky’s Monday Night Football, a watershed moment had arrived; like finding out Rock Hudson was gay or Kim Khardashian’s dad wanted to be her mum. Suddenly it wasn’t just OK to be a philosophile it was cool and lately everyone has been coming out of the “P” word closet. Even John Hartson nearly said the whole word last week on a Five Live podcast.

Never before has the EPL been so rife with philosophy. We have philosophy royalty like Wenger and LVG still doing their thing, we’ve had Swansea (Martinez/Sousa/Rodgers/Laudrup) with their club philosophy Ticky Tacka light, first Mauricio Pochettino and now Jurgen Klopp with their high, gagen (for it) press, stalwarts like Sam Allardyce, Tony Pullis and Allan Pardew with their deep (bus park) press and counter, Quique Sanchez Flores at Watford with his middle press, young guns like Eddie Howe with his obsessive attention to detail and his total football on a shoestring and super preparation specialist Alex Neil going to Old Trafford and out philosophising LVG.

Where once football chairmen almost had to apologise to their fans for hiring someone with a thought process deeper than how do I fit Van Der Vaart into a 442, now if the guy they hire doesn’t come with a “philosophy” (cough Tim Sherwood) they not only run the risk of losing the battle of hearts and minds of the newly “out” enlightened football fan, they run the risk of losing their Premier League status.

Mourinho Sparks Game of Top Table Musical Chairs

So, after submitting 16 resignation drafts, José Mourinho finally got Roman Abramovich to accept one.

You can just feel the panic ripple this must be spreading amongst Fleet Street’s Sports Editors, I would imagine their offices are reminiscent of the scene from Arthur where Liza Minnelli breaks the news to her father that multi millionaire Dudley Moore’s jilted her. Harry Redknapp’s been unemployable since most top flight football chairmen finally realised that Kevin Bond’s mastery of the training cone was not quite at the forefront of tactical innovation, Tim Sherwood was last seen disappearing up his own rectum and now christmas has been utterly ruined for English football journalists everywhere by the removal of the undisputed heavyweight champion of the soundbite. 22 weeks of LVG matter-of-factly explaining the meaning of existential football realism beckons.

What next for Chelsea in a moment, the real burning issue is what next for Mourinho. Here is a guy who you get the impression has been working a life time career play book since the age of 6. He knows his high intensity methodology for success has a limited life span of about 3 years, he knows that football is cyclical and managers of the top clubs have to win the league and Champions League double every year to last longer than 2 or 3 years anyway. He knows the score, he gets with the program and he knows how to play it.

Anyone thinking they were seeing a new, emotionally fractured Mourinho, behaving bizarrely, going out of his way to alienate even the most loyal of his playing foot soldiers, clearly  had missed his three year tenure at Real Madrid.

He walks away a champion, again, and with (possibly) the biggest payoff in football history, again.

But why ? Where’s left for the man who needs to mainline winning into his veins. Who can offer that and keep him in the ever ludicrously increasing salary to which he has become accustomed.

Real Madrid are a basket case right now, but I don’t think even they could pay him enough to take that most poisoned of chalices again.

Berlusconi (AC Milan) would probably chop off his own todgerino if it meant he could persuade Mourinho to go there and with new investment coming in and the Italian league very open right now it wouldn’t be a terrible match. But enough investment ? Enough salary ? I don’t think so.

But I think there is a much more tempting proposition out there for Mourinho, a (possibly the only) team that can afford his gargantuan pay demands, guarantee to feed his title winning addiction, offer him no conflict of loyalty interest, as jobs at other English clubs, Inter, Barca, Atletico (should Chelsea fancy swapping for Simeone) would, very obliging owners when it comes to recruitment (none of this “we want to be self sufficient” nonsense spouted by Bruce Buck) and life in one of the few cities he could possibly sell to Mrs Mourinho as an even better place to spend some of that colossal housekeeping allowance. In return, PSG get to move their profile at least one more rung up the kudos ladder and get one of the few managers they know can go toe to toe with any of the big boys over two legs and provide them a chance of winning the Champions League, the only way they can truly join the old boys elite club.

Suivant Paris St Germain ?

As for Chelsea, Hiddink’s current out of work status is an interim match made in heaven and would please or at least pacify all parties including most of the fans. Then who ? I can’t see Guardiola going for a bunch of what he perceives as new money upstarts, it really isn’t part of his career play book, and it’s hard to imagine a top club who’s footballing philosophy has been more anathema to his puritanical footballing ideology. Surely his eyes are set more on the footballing blue blooded heraldry of the United job, where LVG is already laying the ticky tacky groundwork.

Simeone would be the perfect philosophy fit. A man after Mourinho’s own high intensity, death by brutal pragmatism heart.

Let the musical chairs begin.

 

 

Let Me (NOT) Entertain You

 

Football is not an Entertainment industry. It is a sport which people watch. The goal of sport is to win. The best teams are the teams that find a methodology to do this consistently.

I keep hearing the “E” word continually used as a stick to beat managers with, and the current recipient of the “how dare you not entertain me” gong is Louis Van Gaal and his Manchester United team. Despite the fact that he took over a team that finished seventh, 22 points behind the champions and now sits fourth, 3 points behind the leaders.

I keep hearing “the word “boring” and phrases like “this isn’t the United way”. But most of all – and United fans are not the only ones guilty of this but are by far the most vociferous chorus right now – like romans at the coliseum not seeing enough christian heads being chomped like malteesers  by lions – it is the cries of “we are not being entertained”.

It is often the most ignorant and disingenuous insult slung in football. It demonstrates an inability to appreciate the many tactical and coached facets of the game that take place outside the oppositions penalty area, that there is more than one way to win and more than one way to be entertained, it ignores that some people can appreciate more than what happens in one small square at the opposition’s end of the pitch, and worst, it is invariably used as a substitute for “we are not winning as much as I want us to”.

The United fans calling every phone in and pundits alike keep wailing “where are the wingers”. But where are these world class wingers that they should have? They are even rarer than world class defenders. European Football is being dominated by teams without conventional wingers, Bale and Ronaldo became instantly more successful the minute they were inverted (Ronaldo by Ferguson at United), so why do United fans and pundits see orthodox wingers as they only cure all answer ? The only top European team to play an orthodox winger last season were Man City with Navas, and they woefully underachieved both domestically and in Europe and Navas managed less assists in 35 games last season than Ozil has in 12 this year. Van Gaal understands the need for width, but understands it can come from full backs as well, and fans don’t seem to allow for the loss of Luke Shaw when grumbling about a lack of width.

What do these pundits and fans think was going to happen, that somewhere in a lab in the bowls of Carrington, clones of Ryan Giggs and Andrei Kanchelskis had been manufactured? That there was only one blue print for footballing success and Alex Ferguson took it home with him and has it locked in his safe with a test tube of Rock of Gibralter’s semen ?

I hear murmurings of “Ancelotti’s available”. This is a guy who managed to finish 3^rd in a two horse race with a team worth about a trillion quid.

It’s like United fans want to cover their houses in Christmas lights and a neon Santa before they’ve even managed to install the central heating and fit the plumbing.

What United fans seem utterly unable to get their heads round is that the football landscape, particularly their football landscape, both domestically and in Europe has changed almost beyond recognition in the last 8-10 years, but particularly in the last 5.

Domestically, in terms of finance and “kudos” United were in a league of their own for two decades. They were to the EPL what PSG are now to Ligue 1. Sure there was Arsenal and Liverpool in the early days to offer a token challenge now and then, with a brief Leeds interlude, but they were never in the same league. Not even close. United were global leviathans and enjoyed the massive marketing and merchandising advantage that that status brought. They also had the stadium and matchday revenues that dwarfed their rivals. They were the EPL’s golden goose, selling it to far flung corners of the world.

And whilst they are still the highest profile team in England, and still generate the most revenue, not only has their financial advantage over their rivals in the last 10 years decreased, more relevantly, there are now more of those rivals than ever before, both domestically and abroad who are making United’s former hegemony a much tougher proposition. A domestic pie that most seasons was cut into two, is now being sliced at least four ways.

First Chelsea, then Man City got all oligarched up and managed to invest heavily before UEFA’s bullshit FFP investment restrictions started to unfairly reign them in, meanwhile Arsenal built themselves a shiny new revenue boosting, oligarch sponsored, gin palace, which FFP’s old guard protectionism deal can’t touch, and even the “mid ranking” clubs, bolstered by bumper new TV deal bun fight between Sky and BT are wealthier than ever before and less vulnerable to the jackdaw shiny talent poaching (we might not want him, but you’re not having him either) that United used to partake in year after year. In recent years we have seen Spurs refusing to sell Modric and Bale to Chelsea and United respectively, Liverpool telling Arsenal they don’t give a monkeys if they better Louis Suarez’s buy-out clause by £1, Everton refusing the astronomically generous £40m offered for John Stones, and West Brom telling Spurs they’d rather have next years TV windfall than £25m spread over 25 years for Berahino.

Also improved from top to bottom of the EPL (and below) thanks to the ever increasing wealth as well as technology and the availability of information and more enlightened approaches those facets are bringing, is the level of science, nutrition, analytics, tactical awareness and coaching.

Over the last 8 years United have also slipped down Europe’s food chain as a destination of choice for the very best ready to roll talent. Barca, Real and Bayern have formed an elite trio, and PSG will not only pay a player as much or more in wages, they absolutely guarantee a championship and CL football every season (not to mention a City where culture means a little bit more than mushy peas and Sunday afternoon at the Arndale Centre) , something United, in Europe’s richest and most competitive league can no longer do, certainly not as emphatically as a few years ago.

And it is not just financially where United’s hegemony has shrunk, it is in the hearts and minds of the global fan. In the last Deloitte survey (2015) Chelsea and Arsenal had more twitter followers. And in terms of social media following United showed the 12^th highest growth year on year, behind the major European clubs but also clubs like Atletico, Dortmund, Juventus, Liverpool and Tottenham. Fans in Asia and America are no longer wearing Man United shirts with Beckham on the back.

Where Pep left a silk purse legacy at Barca that included the best attacker in the world (Messi) and the best midfielder (Iniesta) and the most efficient winning philosophy that Europe had ever seen, and was in turn left a silk purse legacy by Heynckes at Bayern, Ferguson left behind a real sow’s ear of a situation. A squad that boasted Phil Jones as it’s central midfield anchor, an ageing (and never world class) Carrick as it’s playmaker, the perma-crocked RVP, a waning (no pun intended) Rooney, and not a single top quality defender in their prime.

Manchester United can no longer rely on having the best squad of players in the EPL that their former fiscal and fame superiority afforded them and knowing that even on a bad day those individuals will be enough to win them games. There are now at least three other clubs who can match the wages, offer a guarantee of CL football, a shot at a title (well in Arsenal’s case a shot at not winning a title more stylishly the anyone else).

So, all these factors mean LVG is not competing on the same playing field that Ferguson did for decades.

I think United’s financial muscle, combined with UEFA’s bullshit FFP old money preservation act, was never going to allow United to become the (relative) basket case that has been Liverpool of the last half dozen years, but lets be clear about this, LVG took over a tanker that was listing, in choppy waters and in seas previously unchartered, and not only did he have to right the ship, he has to navigate it through choppy, unchartered waters into calmer seas.

It takes longer to right a tanker than it does a tugboat. United fans needs to realise this and show some patience (to be fair they are certainly not alone – football as a sport is a byword for short-term fundamentalism). You treat the most serious casualties first in a crisis, and in making United defensively sound (and his possession based football is part of that, not just buying world class defenders – of which their just happens to be a global shortage right now) LVG is showing methodical intelligence, doing what he knows is the logical thing, the thing he has always done, built solid foundations, put in place a clear philosophy on which his clubs have benefitted from long term, not just for the next 15 minutes. Building teams that win. Consistently. Exactly what Ferguson did , only he took five years to do it.

It was Van Gaal that helped lay the foundations on which success both Barca and Bayern reaped long term rewards from. And he took similar flak from players, pundits and fans in both jobs whilst undergoing the process. The possession based, ball domination philosophy that both those teams have as their hallmark, is what has seen those teams share domination of their domestic leagues and European football over the last few years, a domination that even in Ferguson’s best years, United never came close to emulating.

Pundits and fans need to accept that there was never going to be a quick fix, major surgery is painful, evolution is not a five minute thrill. Ferguson, Giggs and Kanchelskis are never coming back and neither is the footballing world they inhabited.

It’s possible that United fans will not see LVG lead them back to the glory days (though with Pellegrini’s tactical naivety, Wenger’s treatment of Arsenal’s bank balance as if it’s his own and Mourinho’s weekly resignation letter to Abramovic, I wouldn’t bet on it) , but if patient, they may just see their team reap the reward of the philosophy he is instilling and of the necessary salvage and overhaul operation he is undertaking.

(And for the record, my money would be on Guardiola being the one to do just that, and making it an “LVG start the job, Guardiola finish the job” hatrick).