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

by Michael Cox

  Another north-west club who received rave reviews for their possession play in 2010/11 were Owen Coyle’s Bolton Wanderers – largely on the basis of one excellent team goal against Blackpool, rounded off by midfielder Mark Davies. Coyle was largely credited with overhauling the long-ball legacy of Sam Allardyce, briefly being spoken about as a potential successor to Arsène Wenger. But statistics suggested this supposed revolution was a mirage; Bolton had the fourth-lowest possession share and the third-lowest pass completion rate in the division. They played the third-fewest number of short passes, but the fourth-highest number of long balls. They were still based around physical football – they made the most tackles, committed the most fouls and had the joint-best aerial success rate. It was essentially still Allardyce-esque football, and Coyle was unhappy when presented with these facts, simultaneously questioning the validity of statistics while claiming his statistics showed something entirely different. But Bolton evidently hadn’t embraced a possession-based model, this spell of praise was short-lived and they were relegated the following season.

  2011/12, however, featured an excellent passing side with a genuinely promising, upwardly mobile young manager. Succeeding Blackpool as Championship play-off winners were Swansea City, who had risen through the divisions impressively, having narrowly avoided relegation from the entire Football League with a final-day victory over Hull City in 2002/03. Nine seasons later they were in the Premier League. Their defining feature throughout this rise was an unwavering commitment to technical, positive possession football, which began with Kenny Jackett between 2004 and 2007, before he was replaced by Roberto Martínez, who had spent three seasons playing central midfield for the club. Swansea was Martínez’s first managerial role, and the Catalan was appointed because he perfectly understood the footballing culture Swansea were trying to create. Martínez left for Wigan in 2009, bringing his open, attack-minded football to the Premier League. Meanwhile, his successor Brendan Rodgers took Swansea’s emphasis on possession to an entirely new level.

  Stylistically, Rodgers is the most ‘foreign’ British manager the Premier League has seen. His professional playing career ended at 20 because of a congenital knee condition, but Rodgers was determined to make a serious impact on British football. ‘My ideology was, “OK, I’m not going to have an influence on the game as a player, technically or tactically. Can I do it as a coach?” My objective was to show that British players could play football.’ Rodgers particularly admired the Spanish model, long before their dominance at international level, and spent extended periods in that country furthering his coaching education. His ideal weekend involved flying into Barcelona on a Saturday evening, spending the Sunday watching Barça’s youth matches, heading to the Nou Camp to observe the first team, then flying home. He visited the training grounds of Valencia, Sevilla and Betis, always pinpointing clubs who emphasised a long-term, possession-based, collective football style and regularly promoted youth products – in other words, he didn’t bother with Real Madrid. He took Spanish lessons for seven years, conscious that a move to Spain might suit his coaching career, and he also paid close attention to the likes of Ajax and FC Twente in the Netherlands.

  Rodgers’ big break, however, came when José Mourinho recruited him as Chelsea’s youth team coach in 2004. Although possessing very different footballing philosophies, Rodgers was particularly delighted to be working under a man who learnt the ropes from Louis van Gaal at Barça. ‘Barcelona has been my inspiration, I never run away from that,’ he says. ‘I spent many years travelling there, learning about the model of Louis van Gaal and Johan Cruyff.’ Rodgers, therefore, was the perfect Premier League manager at a point when the Barcelona model was overwhelmingly celebrated – and he, like Holloway, used the phrase ‘tiki-taka’ to refer to his footballing approach. You didn’t need to know about Rodgers’ love of Spain, however, to grasp Swansea’s commitment to possession.

  The season before Swansea’s promotion, 2010/11, there was a strong correlation between possession statistics and league position. The top six – Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool – were also the six teams who enjoyed the longest periods on the ball. But Swansea completely smashed this link; in their debut campaign, 2011/12, their possession average of 56 per cent was the third-highest in the league, behind Arsenal and Manchester City – and they both outpassed, and outscored, those two sides at the Liberty Stadium, winning 3–2 and 1–0 respectively. Swansea offered little physical threat – they won the fewest aerial duels in the Premier League and committed the fewest fouls. It was all about passing, and Swansea stamped their authority upon matches in remarkable fashion. They finished the season in 11th place, a considerably impressive achievement for a small club boasting little top-flight experience and somewhat modest resources. Swansea didn’t even have their own training ground, sharing the facilities of Glamorgan Health and Racquets Club.

  Like Blackpool, Swansea played 4–3–3 or 4–2–3–1, always packing three technical midfielders into the centre of the pitch, while Nathan Dyer and Scott Sinclair stayed wide, stretching the play rather running in behind. Their passing started from the back. Dutchman Michel Vorm was shorter than most Premier League goalkeepers – just six foot – but was recruited because he was extremely comfortable in possession. Centre-back Ashley Williams usually played the most passes, but one of their key passers was, surprisingly, right-back Àngel Rangel. The Spaniard was a thoughtful, intelligent distributor of the ball, often holding his position and dictating play rather than continually overlapping. But there were inevitably mistakes at the back, with Rangel guilty of the most glaring example when Swansea lost 1–0 to Manchester United in November. Javier Hernández’s winner came directly from a mistake by the right-back, who played a weak pass in a dangerous position, allowing Ryan Giggs to intercept. Rodgers refused to criticise him. ‘Àngel Rangel was terrific, there’s no blame attached to him for giving the ball away because I ask my players to play football,’ he declared. ‘If there is any blame, it is to me. I ask my players to play and pass the ball out rather than kick it up the field.’ Rodgers accepted the odd mistake, believing Swansea’s overall control of matches made the risk worthwhile.

  While Blackpool’s star player, Adam, was all about spraying ambitious diagonal balls towards the flanks, Swansea’s key man was Leon Britton, the division’s shortest player and the safest passer around. His pass completion rate of 93.4 per cent was the highest in the Premier League, and a further breakdown of his contributions reveals precisely how committed he was to keeping passing moves flowing. He played 2,258 passes in 2011/12, but only one successful through-ball, and only ten of those passes resulted in the recipient attempting a shot. Britton ended the season without an assist, and also failed to score, which was unsurprising considering he only shot four times in 36 games. He had one job: short, sideways passing.

  Swansea’s style was misunderstood, however, as they were frequently praised for their ‘attacking football’. Technical football? Yes. Possession football? Yes. But attacking football? Far from it. Further statistics revealed Swansea’s complete lack of attacking; despite such impressive figures in terms of ball retention, they had the fifth-fewest shots (and shots on target) in the Premier League, and no side scored in fewer matches – Swansea failed to net in 15 of their 38 games. Instead, Swansea’s football was better as a defensive tool, as only three sides kept more clean sheets.

  ‘Our way of defending is to have the ball,’ explained Rodgers. Swansea would keep the ball for extraordinarily long periods in deep positions, simply passing between their defenders and midfielders without seeking to penetrate the opposition. ‘My template for everything is organisation,’ Rodgers continued. ‘With the ball you have to know the movement patterns, the rotation, the fluidity and positioning of the team. Then there’s our defensive organisation, so if it is not going well we have a default mechanism which makes us hard to beat and we can pass our way into the game again.’ The
concept of using possession for defensive purposes wasn’t a revelation – holding onto the ball to preserve a lead was an established tactic – but by starting matches with such a conservative approach in possession, Swansea were very different from anything the Premier League had previously witnessed, and the closest thing to Spain.

  Shortly after Swansea’s debut campaign Spain won their third straight international tournament at Euro 2012, courtesy of even more cautious possession play. This brought critical remarks from Arsène Wenger, the man usually so enthusiastic about possession. ‘They have betrayed their philosophy and turned it into something more negative,’ he complained. ‘Originally they wanted possession in order to attack and win the game; now it seems to be first and foremost a way not to lose. They have become more conservative, and they don’t want to give the ball up because they don’t want to give you a chance to score.’ That’s also a perfect description of Swansea’s approach under Rodgers, who visited Spain’s Euro 2012 training sessions, keen to learn more ideas from his favourite footballing nation.

  Swansea’s caution, however, only became obvious when witnessing them repeatedly or by comparing their statistics with Premier League rivals, and opposition supporters were rather taken with Swansea’s philosophy. After a 3–0 victory at Craven Cottage, for example, their players were enthusiastically applauded off the pitch by Fulham fans, which had become such a regular occurrence that Rodgers occasionally got carried away. ‘It is great for the public here at Sunderland to see us,’ he beamed after a trip to the Stadium of Light. ‘They must have been wondering what this team everyone is talking about are all about – and now they have seen. We were wonderful.’ His team had just lost 2–0.

  To Rodgers it was about the process as much as the outcome. He was an ambitious young manager who arrived in the Premier League at the perfect time, when possession was revered like never before aesthetically and was considered crucial for winning matches. One of the grounds that Swansea were applauded off was Anfield. ‘That was really touching,’ said Rodgers, ‘because that is such an historic ground.’ That ovation would prove particularly prescient.

  21

  Assisters & False Nines

  ‘I prefer to call myself a “9 and a half”.’

  Robin van Persie

  The increased emphasis upon passing quality was particularly obvious during this possession-based period, but it was also a long, gradual process that occurred over the course of the Premier League era. Assessing this development in a positional sense suggests it originated at the back, before slowly working its way forward.

  The Premier League’s first tactical development came from the back-pass rule forcing goalkeepers to participate in passing moves, while the knock-on effect of defenders becoming ball-players quickly became obvious. Later, central midfielders were increasingly considered in ball-playing terms rather than the old-fashioned English ideals of getting around the pitch and battling hard. It was inevitable, therefore, that there was also a shift towards reliable passers among attacking midfielders and centre-forwards.

  The evolution of attacking midfielders during this period of Spanish dominance was epitomised by the arrival, in three consecutive summers between 2010 and 2012, of three truly outstanding Spanish playmakers: David Silva joined Manchester City, Juan Mata moved to Chelsea, while Arsenal signed Santi Cazorla. All three participated in their national team’s triumphs: Silva played a part in three straight successes, Cazorla missed the 2010 World Cup through injury but won the European Championships in 2008 and 2012, while Mata was involved in both 2010 and 2012. None of the trio was among Spain’s most revered midfielders, and only Silva was a regular, but they were nevertheless hugely talented creators and neat technicians who found pockets of space intelligently and slipped through-balls between defenders. This was the Premier League’s second ‘between the lines’ revolution.

  The first, of course, had taken place around 15 years beforehand with the arrival of Eric Cantona, Dennis Bergkamp and Gianfranco Zola. There were discernible differences, however; those three were deep-lying forwards who found themselves marginalised in other countries and took refuge in England, and who were all surprisingly physical. Defenders remarked upon Cantona’s height, upon Bergkamp’s surprising strength, upon Zola’s unrivalled ability to shield the ball. Silva, Mata and Cazorla were very different. They were unquestionably midfielders rather than forwards, they considered a move to the Premier League a natural step up from their previous clubs and they were diminutive footballers liable to being outmuscled.

  These three weren’t identical. Silva was the most effective at playing through-balls, Mata a more prolific goalscorer and Cazorla superior at controlling the game from deeper positions. But there were obvious similarities. All had emerged from a Spanish footballing culture that was – despite Barcelona’s insistence upon 4–3–3 – largely based around the 4–2–3–1. Although that had become an established formation in English football, in part thanks to Rafael Benítez, it was often simply a glorified 4–4–1–1, with wide midfielders shuttling up and down the pitch as they’d always done. In Spain the attacking band of three operated with more freedom and interchanged positions fluidly as their team held onto possession for longer periods. Indeed, Silva and Mata played together at Valencia in a perfect example of the Spanish 4–2–3–1, with those two and Pablo Hernández – who later ended up at Swansea, a fitting destination – all occupying right, left and central positions within the same match. David Villa remained the central striker, but the three attacking midfielders simply defended their nearest zone when long passing moves broke down. Cazorla played a similar role at Málaga alongside the wonderful Isco and had done something similar at Villarreal, where he and Cani both drifted inside to turn a 4–4–2 into a 4–2–2–2, almost permanently playing between the central midfielders and the strikers.

  Silva, Mata and Cazorla’s versatility ensured it was difficult to determine their best role. Instinctively, it felt as if such talented players belonged in the centre, although all three generally found themselves deployed from wide positions. This made sense, considering opponents increasingly played two deep-lying midfielders and protected the space between the lines keenly – these playmakers therefore could pop up unannounced in dangerous zones, rather than remaining there permanently and finding themselves closely marked. ‘It offers me the chance to come inside and that way I have a broader field of vision,’ Mata explained of his wide role.

  Besides, the idea of them having a favoured position was a moot point. Attacking midfielders based around crossing prefer playing on their natural side, and those based around shooting prefer the opposite flank, because their positioning dictates how they can use their stronger foot most effectively. But Silva, Mata and Cazorla were based around short passing, clever movement and pinpoint through-balls, so it didn’t really matter where they were deployed, as they always played the same role. This was, of course, another example of universality – players across the pitch becoming similar laterally, from left to right, not simply from back to front.

  English football now takes this mould of playmaker for granted, but until recently in the Premier League there were relatively few players like these three: attacking midfielders who could play right, left or centrally with minimal difference to their game. Arsenal were the exception, with Aliaksandr Hleb and Tomáš Rosický in that mould, although Samir Nasri, who later played alongside Silva at Manchester City, spoke about how playing on the right meant he was more likely to sprint in behind whereas from the left he drifted inside more. Joe Cole was another who could play in all three roles, although he never truly excelled in the number 10 position, having been converted to a hard-working wide midfielder by José Mourinho.

  Silva, Mata and Cazorla were, however, broadly a new breed. English football didn’t quite have an appropriate term to describe them – they certainly weren’t wingers or even wide midfielders, while ‘playmaker’ is too vague and doesn’t describe their positioning.
Perhaps the simple term ‘assisters’ explains it best. These weren’t proper midfielders but certainly not forwards; they weren’t hugely concerned with shooting or dribbling and they weren’t crossers. Their job was simply to provide assists.

  The assist is now an established concept in English football, but itself is very much a ‘Premier League era’ term. Opta, the most established football statistics provider, recruited former Arsenal manager Don Howe in 1996 to establish a precise definition for the concept, arriving at ‘the final pass or pass-cum-shot which directly leads to a goal scored by recipient of the ball’. Opta’s definition is now largely accepted, and is displayed alongside each player’s profile and goals record on the official Premier League website, but it was only around 2010 when reliable assist figures became widely available. Thierry Henry’s record 20 assists in a season, for example, came in 2002/03 but was barely mentioned at the time. The presence of these talented assisters coincided with the greater emphasis upon these figures; equally, they became particularly revered because their contribution had become more quantifiable.