by Michael Cox
Lampard was thriving at Chelsea, partly thanks to Roman Abramovich’s wealth turning them into title contenders, and partly because Claudio Ranieri changed Lampard’s game, ordering him to become more conservative with his running in a 4–4–2 system. Upon signing Lampard, Ranieri said his game at West Ham had been 70:30 in terms of attacking and defending, whereas at Chelsea he wanted it to be 50:50. ‘He wanted to balance my play by coaching me to be more aware of when to make runs forward, how to time them better,’ Lampard said. Until then he had been so determined to showcase his stamina by outrunning opponents that he turned up inside the box and waited for service, almost as a bonus striker. Ranieri would constantly shout ‘Stay!’ to Lampard in training matches, wanting him to advance as attacks were developing, delaying his runs to the edge of the box. ‘I learned how to react to play in individual situations, to sense when I might have the best chance of a goal,’ he said. He became more tactically responsible.
Then came Euro 2004, which is unfairly remembered as the tournament when England underlined their distrust of creativity by deploying Scholes on the left flank. The reality was very different. Eriksson found himself with four outstanding central midfielders: Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard and Scholes. Beckham was captain and often England’s saviour, Lampard had enjoyed the most impressive club season of the quartet, while Gerrard provided all-round midfield qualities and was undroppable. But Scholes, for all his incredible talent, simply wasn’t playing well for England. All four were naturally creative, attack-minded midfielders, and Eriksson should probably have introduced a more functional holding player to provide some balance – Butt and Owen Hargreaves were also in the squad. If so, Scholes would have been the natural player to drop out. Eriksson’s decision to keep him in the side, potentially compromising England’s shape, underlined his faith in Scholes’s talent.
Indeed, far from banishing him to the fringes, Eriksson tried to play a diamond midfield with Scholes, whom he later described as ‘England’s best player’, at the top, the side effectively built around him. The diamond made sense. Gary Neville and Ashley Cole would overlap to provide the width, allowing the four midfielders to play centrally. It’s significant that in this diamond system Lampard was deployed in front of the defence, underlining the extent to which he was considered England’s most disciplined player, even if he disliked that deep role. Gerrard, meanwhile, was frustrated playing on the left of a diamond. He and Lampard wanted the advanced role, but Eriksson entrusted this to Scholes.
At Euro 2004 England tried the diamond system in a training session with disastrous consequences, the first XI finding themselves 3–0 down to a second-string side. Eriksson subsequently gathered the midfielders together and asked them which system they liked best. Scholes preferred the diamond, but the other three favoured the four-man midfield, so Eriksson reverted to 4–4–2. Scholes was disappointed, but it would have been ludicrous to ignore the majority to placate the one midfielder who, by his own admission, simply wasn’t playing well enough. Furthermore, Scholes wasn’t likely to last the duration of matches. Eriksson says that when England practised penalties in training during that tournament, Scholes didn’t bother. When the Swede asked why, Scholes replied that he’d do well to make it past 60 minutes, let alone 120.
Playing Scholes centrally in a flat, attack-minded midfield would have been unwise. At this point, screening the defence was still widely considered to involve plenty of tackling, and this was unquestionably Scholes’s weakness; each of his four managers – Ferguson, Hoddle, Keegan and Eriksson – highlighted tackling as a significant shortcoming in an otherwise flawless skill set. Scholes simply couldn’t master the art of dispossessing opponents, wildly mistiming challenges and being punished particularly severely by continental referees; he is the most booked player in Champions League history. Eriksson simply couldn’t risk a poor tackler who lacked stamina in a two-man central midfield.
Meanwhile, Gerrard was still renowned as a predominantly defensive midfielder, with Beckham specifically saying England were ‘so much better balanced with him in the side’, while Lampard had become more disciplined at Chelsea thanks to Ranieri’s tutelage. Those two, at this stage, made the most sense as a central midfield partnership, and Scholes’s left-sided positioning didn’t prevent him from coming inside, especially with Cole overlapping. Indeed, Eriksson deploying a creator drifting inside from the left was a significant improvement upon the previous situation, when England had worried for years about their ‘left-sided problem’ solely because there was a dearth of talented left-footers around. It’s notable that the three subsequent World Cup winners, Italy, Spain and Germany, featured natural central midfielders playing from the left: Simone Perrotta, Andrés Iniesta and Mesut Özil. There’s no reason Scholes couldn’t have played there successfully.
England broadly played well at Euro 2004, courtesy of a gung-ho approach that depended upon the precocious Wayne Rooney. His tournament-ending injury at the quarter-final stage, rather than Eriksson’s system, was England’s major problem. Scholes retired from international football afterwards, and repeatedly said his positioning wasn’t the reason for his decision. ‘A lot of people blamed Sven for me quitting England, but the truth is I played on the wing for Man United too and scored a lot of goals,’ he said. It just wasn’t working out with England, and Scholes admits he simply didn’t enjoy international duty, particularly being away from his family for extended periods. However, much later he criticised England players for being too selfish. ‘We have some of the best players,’ he said, ‘but maybe some of them are out there for personal glory.’ Scholes’s most significant contribution to the tactical development of English football would actually occur much later, in a considerably deeper role, which has seemingly convinced many he’d always played that position.
After Euro 2004 things changed dramatically in England’s midfield zone. First, there was no more Scholes. Second, José Mourinho took charge of Chelsea and deployed Lampard in the left-centre position of a 4–3–3, giving him the most attacking role in Chelsea’s midfield triangle. Third, Rafael Benítez arrived at Liverpool, and while he initially used Gerrard in the centre or the right of a 4–4–2, it became apparent that Gerrard’s optimum position was at the top of midfield in a 4–2–3–1, with two holding midfielders behind him. It’s worth underlining how brilliant Lampard and Gerrard were at this stage – in the 2005 Ballon d’Or they finished second and third respectively, behind Brazilian forward Ronaldinho. England therefore officially had Europe’s best two footballers – and the world’s best two midfielders – at their disposal.
Lampard was fundamentally a basic footballer. He had three primary strengths: he was excellent physically, timed his runs to the edge of the box perfectly and was superb at firing home from around 25 yards. As a youngster his dad’s favourite motto was ‘Simplicity is genius,’ and Lampard proved this perfectly – few players reach his level, the world’s second-best player, with such a straightforward game. Lampard’s frequently scored from long-range, hitting the most Premier League goals from outside the box, but genuine thunderbolts were relatively rare. Instead, he possessed an uncanny knack of scoring slightly scuffy efforts from that range, often catching a favourable deflection or benefiting from a goalkeeping fumble. Interestingly, he says that this stemmed from a deliberate change. ‘The increase in goals was in part due to changing my technique in hitting the ball,’ he explained. ‘I used to strike it much more true, which is fine if you can direct the ball into the corner at power. The modern football is lighter, though, and if you hit across it you can make it move around in flight, which makes it much harder for a keeper to save. Even Petr Čech ends up palming a shot that is coming straight at him into the net if you catch it right and it suddenly changes direction.’ That summarises Lampard, efficient rather than beautiful.
Incidentally, the change in footballs themselves is often underestimated as a factor in the development of the game. Surprisingly, it took the Premier League unti
l the late 1990s to insist upon a standard football – until that point, teams often had their own preferences. While the Mitre football dominated, Chelsea used an Umbro ball that goalkeepers considered unpredictable, while Liverpool’s Adidas ball was faster through the air. It provided an extra dimension to the concept of home advantage.
Gerrard’s tactical history, meanwhile, was more complex. Although Benítez often played 4–2–3–1, with Gerrard behind the main striker in big games, the Spaniard spent much of 2005/06 and 2006/07 convincing the media – and Gerrard himself – that he could play effectively on the right of a 4–4–2, pointing to his increased goalscoring return. However, Gerrard thrived when switched to a permanent position at the top of a 4–2–3–1, driving forward and becoming a regular goal threat. He credits Xabi Alonso for his ability to play that role. ‘I didn’t think I could play as a number 10,’ Gerrard admitted. ‘But I could, because of the amount of time Xabi gave me on the ball with his speed of thought.’
His tactical deployment could have been very different, however, because Gerrard came extremely close to leaving Liverpool to join Lampard at Chelsea. There were initial rumours about the switch in 2004, but a year later, shortly after Gerrard led Liverpool to the Champions League, he handed in a transfer request when Liverpool rejected a British record fee from Chelsea. Gerrard later insisted he never wanted to leave, blaming Liverpool’s poor handling of contract negotiations, but had the transfer materialised – as briefly seemed inevitable – Gerrard and Lampard would have played together week in, week out, in Mourinho’s 4–3–3, and Eriksson would have felt compelled to replicate that template. Instead, the transfer never materialised, Gerrard withdrew his transfer request and Chelsea turned to Michael Essien instead.
The opening game of the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, away at Austria, set the tone for what followed. Without Scholes to worry about, Eriksson provided some midfield balance by using Wayne Bridge on the left flank. Beckham was still on the right, and Lampard and Gerrard again started centrally. Lampard and Gerrard both underlined their attacking capabilities by scoring to put England 2–0 ahead, but then both showed defensive lapses to allow Austria to snatch a point. First, Lampard conceded a free-kick that was fired home by Roland Kollmann, then Gerrard got caught ahead of play and desperately tried to recover and block Andreas Ivanschitz’s shot, only managing a deflection that helped the ball squirm under David James. This was the start of a debate that dominated much of the ensuing decade: could Gerrard and Lampard play together?
Really, of course, the question was whether they could play together in the centre of a 4–4–2. Although the obvious move was switching to a 4–3–3 to get the best from both, Eriksson was dissuaded because three other key players were all more suited to a 4–4–2: Beckham, a right-sided crossing midfielder; Rooney, a second striker; and Michael Owen, a quick goalpoacher who needed a partner. Eriksson continued to shift between the diamond, which England never looked comfortable in, and 4–4–2, with Gerrard and Lampard together in midfield, a system that worked against minnows in qualifiers but seemed unworkable against major opposition. There was a brief experiment with 4–3–3 away at Northern Ireland, when David Beckham played the holding role behind Gerrard and Lampard, with Shaun Wright-Phillips and Rooney either side of Owen. That failed miserably in a 1–0 defeat, as Beckham, in Eriksson’s words, ‘kept hitting long passes that seldom found their target’. It was interesting, though, that Eriksson believed that Owen could play up front and Rooney could play on the left of a 4–3–3, but didn’t think that Beckham was suited to the right in that system. Beckham, therefore, was the barrier to playing 4–3–3, especially after underperforming in the deep role.
By the 2006 World Cup, Eriksson’s final tournament, the situation had become entirely confused. For a pre-tournament friendly against Hungary, Gerrard was stunned when handed the number 9 shirt and instructed to play just behind lone striker Michael Owen. It was a 4–1–3–1–1 system, with Carragher in the holding role and Beckham, Lampard and Joe Cole across midfield. This seemingly suited everyone nicely and England won 3–1, but then Eriksson used 4–4–2 with Gerrard and Lampard together for an inevitable thrashing of Jamaica, and stuck with that system throughout the group stage. Peculiarly, though, Gerrard was asked to play the more defensive of the two central midfield roles; in one system he was deployed significantly in advance of Lampard, in the other he was slightly deeper. It’s no wonder they never developed any understanding.
Owen sustained a serious knee injury in the final group game against Sweden, and for the knockout stages England switched to a 4–1–4–1 system: Rooney was up front alone, and Eriksson introduced a holding midfielder, allowing Gerrard and Lampard freedom to attack. In the second-round win over Ecuador, Michael Carrick played the holding role and was absolutely outstanding, controlling the tempo and playing penetrative passes. He was harshly dropped for the quarter-final against Portugal, with Hargreaves switching from right-back to the holding role. The Portugal game, where England were eliminated on penalties, was when everyone realised the importance of a holding midfielder.
Hargreaves had been the subject of sustained, unreasonable criticism going into the tournament, primarily because he was a rare England player who had never, at that stage, played his football in England. Few in English football watched the Bundesliga, although it was obvious Hargreaves offered quality, purely from the fact that he’d won four Bundesliga titles and the Champions League as a regular in Bayern Munich’s midfield. Still, large sections of the English press were oblivious to Hargreaves’s quality before the tournament, to the extent that one journalist asked Lampard at a press conference: ‘What is the point of Owen Hargreaves?’ A month later Hargreaves was widely acknowledged to have been England’s best performer in the quarter-final, and was subsequently voted England fans’ player of the year. Gerrard and Lampard remained England’s best midfielders, but it was obvious they required a holding player behind them. Combined with two seasons of Makélélé-inspired Chelsea success in the Premier League, the holding player had never been so popular.
This was evident throughout England’s ultimately disastrous Euro 2008 qualifying campaign under Steve McClaren, who at least understood the requirement for a holding player, fielding at least one of Hargreaves, Carrick or Gareth Barry in 11 of the 12 matches. The partnership between Barry and Gerrard worked well, partly because they’d become close friends as the youngest squad members at Euro 2000. England were largely very disciplined, keeping a clean sheet in nine of the 12 qualification games, and the real problem was attack, as England suffered two goalless draws against Macedonia and Israel.
Then came that infamous home defeat against Croatia. An improbable series of events meant England only required a draw at Wembley against a team who had already qualified and therefore had nothing to play for. Barry, Lampard and Gerrard were the midfield trio in a 4–3–3, but England started nervously, epitomised by the awful performance of goalkeeper Scott Carson, making his competitive debut. England found themselves 2–0 down at half-time. McClaren sacrificed Barry and switched to 4–4–2, England went all-out-attack and recovered to 2–2. They were on course for qualification. But then, crucially, McClaren didn’t seek control by introducing an extra holding midfielder; Hargreaves remained on the bench, and Gerrard and Lampard were overrun. It would be unfair to suggest a holding midfielder would have entirely solved the problem – England had conceded twice with Barry on the pitch – but it was the obvious approach when England simply needed to see out 25 minutes without conceding.
England, despite not needing a third goal, seemingly felt their natural attacking game was working better and kept on pushing forward, but the nature of their concession felt inevitable. Mladen Petrić collected the ball just outside the box in space, exactly where a holding midfielder would have been positioned – Lampard had been dragged towards the flank and Gerrard was slow to close down – and the Croatian forward fired home. England were eliminated, and even Gerrar
d realised England’s tactical naivety. ‘When you are 2–0 down you have to take risks, and there was a big improvement in the second half. We got back into the game,’ he said. ‘We should have shut up shop then. When you get back into it, you’ve got to see it out and take a draw. But we took risks and got done on the counter-attack.’
2008 was the year in which the Premier League became UEFA’s top-ranked league for the first time. But it was also the year in which England failed to qualify for the European Championships. England boasted the best league in Europe but weren’t among its best 16 international sides. The difference, more than anything else, was about tactical intelligence, underlining the Premier League’s reliance on foreign influences for strategic nous.
Part Six
Direct Attacking
16
Roonaldo
‘All the premeditated tactical theories I had learned about getting and staying in your shape and tracking back with your runner, all the things that had been drummed into me, were thrown out over two years because we had a player who could make up his own rules with the blessing of his team-mates. Ronaldo has helped to redefine the game.’
Gary Neville
Despite the woes of the national side, by 2008 the Premier League was officially Europe’s best according to UEFA’s somewhat complex coefficient system. You didn’t need a full understanding of their methodology, however, to realise the superiority of the English top flight.
For three consecutive seasons, 2006/07, 2007/08 and 2008/09, the Premier League provided three of the four Champions League semi-finalists, an unprecedented level of dominance. In truth, this wasn’t converted into enough outright success, and it’s notable that in four consecutive years – Arsenal in 2006, Liverpool in 2007, Chelsea in 2008 and Manchester United in 2009 – each member of the Big Four was a defeated finalist. It took an all-Premier League final, in 2008, for an English club to taste success during these years, when Manchester United defeated Chelsea after a dramatic penalty shoot-out.
