The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines

by Michael Cox

  18

  Inverted Wingers

  ‘Bale can cross, his left foot is great on the run, he can shoot, dribble, head it – he’s got everything.’

  Harry Redknapp

  By 2010, the dominance of the Big Four had become suffocating. The Premier League might have been Europe’s best division according to UEFA coefficients, but it was also among its least competitive.

  In the four seasons from 2005/06 to 2008/09 the same sides always finished in the top four; Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal seemingly boasted an unbreakable stranglehold on the Champions League places. In fact, you can backdate this sequence even further. While Everton finished in fourth – and therefore ahead of city rivals Liverpool – in 2004/05, the Toffees failed to progress through the Champions League play-off round. Meanwhile Liverpool lifted the European Cup and, after a late intervention by UEFA, whose rules at this stage hadn’t stipulated that the holders would re-qualify if they finished outside their domestic qualifying positions, were allowed back into the competition. It was therefore the same four sides earning Champions League revenue from 2003/04 to 2009/10, strengthening their squads and thereby maintaining their advantage over the Premier League’s also-rans. This was the antithesis of how the Premier League marketed itself, as a division where anyone could beat anyone.

  For a major league this quadopoly was unprecedented. Four clubs had never monopolised the top places for four consecutive campaigns in England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy or Spain, although it had occurred in less respected leagues such as Portugal, Scotland and Turkey. It became impossible to imagine anyone breaking through, as Kevin Keegan suggested in 2008 during a brief spell back at Newcastle United, having just made the natural transition from his previous job, funding a ‘soccer circus’ in Scotland. ‘This league is in danger of becoming one of the most boring but great leagues in the world,’ he complained. ‘The top four next year will be the same top four as this year. I thought, “What can I do next year to get near them?” – and the truth is there’s nothing I can do at all. What I can say to the Newcastle fans is that we will be trying to get fifth and we will be trying to win the “other league” that’s going on within the Premier League.’ It was troubling to hear the divide described in such a stark manner, especially by a manager who had, in his previous spell, taken Newcastle from the bottom of the second tier to second place in the Premier League.

  Early May 2010, however, proved transformative for English football, which fitted the mood of the country. On 5 May 2010 Tottenham’s 1–0 victory at Manchester City confirmed Spurs’ Champions League qualification, effectively ending the Big Four era. The following day’s election resulted in a hung parliament, and prompted the formation of the first coalition government in Britain since the Second World War. This was a brave new world – things had opened up, and everything was suddenly more complex.

  The decline of the Big Four was primarily about Liverpool’s sudden decline. They’d slumped from runners-up in 2008/09 to seventh in 2009/10, resulting in Rafael Benítez’s dismissal, and so the last Champions League place was a fight between Tottenham and Manchester City. They’d originally been scheduled to meet in early March, but the fixture was postponed because of Spurs’ FA Cup commitments and handily rearranged for the penultimate game of the season, effectively turning the contest into a straight play-off for fourth place. With City boosted by a significant influx of money from the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates – the extraordinarily wealthy Sheikh Mansour – and set to challenge for the title long-term, they were considered the obvious contenders to take Liverpool’s place, which might have simply created a new Big Four. Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham, however, had other ideas.

  Redknapp had been appointed early in 2008/09, replacing Juande Ramos. The Spaniard was a high-profile appointment, having won consecutive UEFA Cups with Sevilla, and he took Spurs to the League Cup in 2008, but his start to the following campaign was disastrous, collecting just two points from eight matches – as his successor constantly reminded everyone. Redknapp was a surprise choice, but he’d recently won the FA Cup with Portsmouth and his back-to-basics approach proved effective. After hauling Spurs away from the relegation zone and into the top half, he turned the club into top four challengers in his first full season.

  2009/10 was an eventful campaign for Tottenham. They were top after four matches, and in October became only the second Premier League side to score nine times in a match, thrashing Wigan 9–1. They started the new year poorly, and dropped to seventh after a 1–0 defeat at Wolves in February. Then, however, they won nine of their following 11 matches, culminating in that decisive 1–0 victory at City. It was their highest-ever Premier League finish, and owed much to the sudden impact of emerging left-winger Gareth Bale.

  The Welshman’s contribution was entirely unexpected, because he’d previously been considered a figure of fun. Bale was a highly rated teenager at Southampton, where he roomed with Theo Walcott, before joining Tottenham in 2007. But amid injury problems and bad luck, Bale didn’t win any of his first 24 Premier League matches, the longest winless start by a player in the competition’s history. His technical and physical qualities were undeniable but some considered him a jinx, and it wasn’t until 26 September 2009 that he finally tasted victory. Even then he only appeared for the final five minutes of a 5–0 victory over Burnley, with Redknapp introducing him specifically to disprove the notion of a curse. It took another four months before Bale started in a Premier League victory.

  Bale wore number 3 because he was initially a left-back, in keeping with the tendency to convert young, dynamic crossers into overlapping full-backs. But Benoît Assou-Ekotto was impressing in that position, and Niko Kranjčar, a Redknapp favourite, was providing creativity from the left of midfield. In first 20 matches of 2009/10 Bale didn’t make a single start and only made five substitute appearances, of which three saw him introduced after the 85th minute. Redknapp, determined to afford the Welshman some playing time, seriously considered loaning him out in January. But then, with three minutes remaining of Spurs’ 2–0 win over West Ham, their final game of 2009, Assou-Ekotto collected a groin strain that sidelined him for two months. Bale started the next game, and then didn’t miss a single minute of Premier League action in 2010. This was the definition of a breakthrough year.

  Bale’s initial eight starts were at left-back, where he was particularly impressive in a 2–0 victory over Fulham, and he scampered forward to create the opener for Jermain Defoe in a 3–0 win at Wigan. When Assou-Ekotto returned, Bale pushed forward and became Spurs’ regular left-sided midfielder, and from that advanced position he was sensational, collecting the man-of-the-match award in 2–1 victories over both Arsenal and Chelsea within the space of four days in April, then picking up Player of the Month too. Almost overnight, Bale had gone from a bad-luck charm to the Premier League’s most dangerous winger.

  At this stage, 4–4–2 was considered almost dead at the highest level, with the Big Four all playing either 4–2–3–1 or 4–3–3 in big matches. But Tottenham’s victories over Arsenal and Chelsea demonstrated that the system was perfectly viable when used correctly – they didn’t engage their opponents in a possession battle, and instead played on the counter-attack. Their defending, meanwhile, was impressively flexible: against Arsenal they played deep and narrow to prevent their north London rivals playing through-balls, while against Chelsea they played higher up the pitch to force Didier Drogba away from goal. They compensated for their numerical disadvantage in midfield with strikers Jermain Defoe and Roman Pavlyuchenko dropping onto the opposition’s holding player. Going forward, it was classic 4–4–2: attack directly, get the ball wide, cross.

  That approach was particularly obvious in the victory over Arsenal, who lived up to the cliché of ‘trying to walk the ball into the net’, their wide players Samir Nasri and Tomáš Rosický unable to thread the ball between defenders. Debutant Danny Rose’s stunning volleyed opene
r meant Arsenal had to take the game to Spurs, and Bale proved a constant counter-attacking threat, adding the crucial second goal. He was even better against Chelsea, with Tottenham constantly finding him on the run and also sending goal-kicks towards him to take advantage of his aerial power. After Defoe opened the scoring from the spot, Bale surprised Chelsea right-back Paulo Ferreira by cutting inside before firing home with his right foot to put Spurs 2–0 ahead. Ferreira had a nightmare afternoon and was replaced by Branislav Ivanović at half-time. Bale continued to threaten, however, and John Terry was later dismissed for scything down the Welshman.

  A few weeks later Tottenham’s memorable victory at Manchester City secured fourth place, in what was essentially a 4–4–2 versus 4–4–2 battle. Roberto Mancini used Carlos Tevez dropping off Emmanuel Adebayor, while Redknapp used a classic little-and-large partnership of Defoe and Peter Crouch. But whereas Mancini’s wingers drifted in-field with right-footed Craig Bellamy on the left and left-footed Adam Johnson on the right, Spurs stretched the play with Bale and Aaron Lennon hugging the touchlines. ‘That’s one of my defining matches as a manager, because of the way we played,’ Redknapp recalled. ‘I decided that it didn’t matter that we were the away team. This was a Cup Final, one-off, and we were going to go for it.’

  Bale and Lennon were both outstanding – they were better than City’s wide pairing at protecting their full-backs and also more dangerous in possession. Assou-Ekotto and Bale were rampant down the left, and twice their combination play should have put Spurs ahead; first Bale released Assou-Ekotto on the overlap and the Cameroonian delivered a teasing ball across the six-yard box that Defoe and Crouch couldn’t quite reach, before Bale crossed from a similar position and Crouch headed straight at the goalkeeper. Eventually Crouch headed the winner, after a deflected cross from makeshift right-back Younès Kaboul. But the major difference was the nature of the wingers. Both Adebayor and Crouch were target men who thrived on crosses, but only Spurs’ pairing provided them. ‘As a striker, it’s a dream to have Bale on the left and Lennon on the right,’ Crouch said. ‘You just have to get yourself in the box and you know, nine times out of ten, they will get the right cross in for you.’ It was reminiscent of Les Ferdinand talking about David Ginola and Keith Gillespie – Tottenham were the new Entertainers.

  2009/10 proved a particularly successful season for London clubs. Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham all finished in the top four, while most impressively, Roy Hodgson’s Fulham defied expectations by reaching the Europa League Final. They were defeated 2–1 in extra-time by Atlético Madrid, but their achievements in progressing past holders Shakhtar Donetsk, Italian giants Juventus and German champions Wolfsburg shouldn’t be underestimated.

  When Hodgson took change of Fulham in December 2007 the Cottagers were in the relegation zone, having won just twice all season. It took a while for him to transform Fulham’s fortunes – at one point, when 2–0 down at Manchester City, they were set for relegation, but a fantastic late comeback meant they won 3–2, and they confirmed their survival with a 1–0 victory over Portsmouth on the final day. 2008/09 was a huge success – their finish of 7th was the highest in the club’s history and meant they qualified for the Europa League.

  Like Redknapp, Hodgson was 4–4–2 man, although the two were opposites in almost every other respect. Redknapp had never managed outside the south of England, while Hodgson had worked in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland and the UAE. Redknapp delegated training to his assistants, Hodgson was a tracksuit coach. Redknapp often dismissed the importance of tactics, Hodgson was all about shape and structure. It was notable that the Football Association were effectively choosing between them for the vacant England manager’s job two years later, with Hodgson preferred.

  Hodgson was a studious and intelligent man who emphasised the importance of collective organisation, and his success at Fulham owed much to constantly drilling his side in a solid shape on the training ground. When asked how he prepared players for a game, Hodgson responded simply: ‘You do it in the day-to-day training work. You don’t do it with a Churchillian talk 15 minutes before a game … the team talk should be nothing more than flagging up the most important things you’ve been working on all week.’ His training regime had a defined pattern – Monday was recovery work, Tuesday was defending, Wednesday was off, Thursday was attacking and Friday was based around the opposition. The drills were 11 v 11, 11 v 8 or 11 v 6, and always focused on shape and structure. The training sessions were, most players agreed, incredibly boring – about repetition and following pre-determined instructions. It’s funny that Hodgson later proved such an unpopular replacement for Rafael Benítez at Liverpool, because there were many similarities in their way of operating.

  ‘Every day in training is geared towards team shape in the match coming up,’ explained midfielder Simon Davies. ‘Every day is about team shape, and it shows. We have a laugh about it now and again, but when he came in we were fighting relegation and now we’re in the Europa League, so you take it. I don’t want to give any secrets away, but he gets the 11 that he wants on a matchday and he drills everything in that he wants. There are no diagrams. It’s all on the pitch with the ball, nothing unopposed.’

  Hodgson didn’t appreciate players who struggled to play within a system – he was happy to sell a maverick like Jimmy Bullard – but more functional players were fulsome in their praise. ‘I have a lot to thank Roy Hodgson for, because he helped me a lot,’ said holding midfielder Dickson Etuhu. ‘He almost coached me from the beginning again, and I understand football better now because of him.’

  The most impressive aspect of Fulham’s system, however, was Hodgson fitting four creative players into an otherwise highly structured team. With Etuhu the holding midfielder and Bobby Zamora a traditional targetman, Hodgson used Zoltán Gera just off the front, Danny Murphy as the deep-lying creator, plus Davies and Damien Duff out wide. But a major difference between Redknapp’s Spurs and Hodgson’s Fulham was the nature of the wingers. Whereas Bale and Lennon were fielded on their natural sides and hugged the touchlines, Hodgson used inverted wingers. Davies started on the left and cut inside onto his preferred right foot, while Duff started on the right and cut inside onto his left, although the Irishman became a well-rounded, two-footed winger when moved to that flank.

  ‘I probably left it too late. I wish I’d started when I was 15: just right foot, right foot, right foot, and now I prefer kicking the ball with my right rather than my left,’ Duff said. That’s a surprising revelation, although practising your weaker side sometimes means you ‘unlearn’ using your stronger foot – it’s notable that Blackburn winger Morten Gamst Pedersen and Gaël Clichy of Arsenal and Manchester City were right-footed as youngsters, but their fathers encouraged them to exclusively use their weaker foot in training and they became left-footed. ‘When I hit 30 I could play on the right and cut in, but I was happy getting down the wing and crossing as well, which I couldn’t have done ten years before when I was at Chelsea and Blackburn,’ Duff continued. ‘I didn’t look back. I became a right-winger, which is amazing after 15 or 20 years as a left-winger.’ This was, of course, further evidence that attackers were becoming all-rounders.

  Inverted wingers were becoming increasingly common, and in the semi-final against Hamburg and in the final against Atlético, Fulham faced opponents who also deployed wide players cutting inside. A contest between traditional wingers and inverted wingers often proved fascinating, as the aforementioned Manchester City versus Spurs match underlined. But games between two sides playing 4–4–2 (or 4–4–1–1) with all four wingers determined to cut inside were generally frustrating; the centre became congested, and if the full-backs were limited in possession there was little excitement out wide. Fulham’s goalless draw away in Hamburg was a particularly poor game.

  Nevertheless, Fulham were entirely happy to shepherd dangerous wingers into the crowded midfield zone, and in the final, Atletico’s right-footed left-winger Simão
Sabrosa and left-footed right-winger José Antonio Reyes were the first two players substituted by future Watford manager Quique Sánchez Flores. In a 2–1 victory sealed two minutes from the end of extra-time, Atletico’s goals were both assisted by Sergio Agüero and scored by Diego Forlán, an indication of the quality Fulham were up against. Davies had equalised for Hodgson’s side, but they were badly affected by Zamora’s obvious lack of match fitness and inability to play his target-man role properly. His replacement, Clint Dempsey, was less comfortable battling for aerial balls, and Fulham’s attacking game plan simply didn’t work.

  It was notable that the 2010 Champions League Final, like the Europa League Final, also featured two teams playing inverted wingers. José Mourinho’s Inter Milan, with right-footed Samuel Eto’o on the left and left-footed Goran Pandev on the right (granted, both were converted forwards rather than proper wingers), triumphed 2–0 against Bayern Munich, who used left-footed Arjen Robben on the right and right-footed Franck Ribéry on the left. Of course, there have been many wingers fielded on the ‘wrong’ flank before, but this generally happened when a manager had two star wingers who preferred the same foot, meaning that one was inevitably fielded out of position. Famously, in the 1950s England used Tom Finney on the left because Stanley Matthews was on the right, while in the Premier League era Mourinho’s Chelsea had two left-footers, Duff and Robben. The use of both wingers on their unnatural flank, however, was a deliberate ploy and a significant tactical development, marking the decline of the traditional winger.