Defensive tactics - the death of football?

mike65

On Sky Sports News Steve Clarraige was following the days, ahem Big Game
and he predicted 0-0. He noted afterwards how neither side was wiling to risk exposing thier goal by attacking the other with any force (I only listened to the game so I'll have to take his word), his words suggested that Rooney spent more of the game in defence than attack.

Was has happened to the 'beautiful game'? Won't anyone play open attacking
football now?

Discuss!

Mike.

Lemlin

I think its foreign managers and their defensive tactics ruining football. Chelsea and Liverpool are two of the most boring teams to watch.

Its now far more interesting to watch matches between the lower teams than the top sides.

applehunter

You can have excellent 0-0's too.

Todays was not one of them.

KdjaCL

mike65 wrote:

Was has happened to the 'beautiful game'? Won't anyone play open attacking
football now?

Discuss!

Mike.

Greece...simple as that Euros and Wcs dictate club football for the next 2 to 3 seasons, to stop it we need an attacking WC but brazils 4 up front vs any 10 man back team wont work so we kinda buggered. As chelsea show get the best players in the world to do it and it works wonderfully well.

Cant see it changing anytime soon, why change a winning forumla.


kdjac

KdjaCL

Lemlin wrote:

I think its foreign managers and their defensive tactics ruining football. Chelsea and Liverpool are two of the most boring teams to watch.

Its now far more interesting to watch matches between the lower teams than the top sides.

By foreign do you mean not irish or not english? Eithey way its stupidly flawed argument, Mc Claren, Allardyce and this season Fergie hardly known for their attacking football are they?



kdjac

Lemlin

By foreign I mean continental and I mean Benitez and Mourinho in particular. Mourinho has changed the way teams play in the Premiership.

Bolton don't play wonderfully attacking football like Arsenal, but at least they can be entertaining. The same can be said of Boro. United used to play great football but have had to adapt their game.

Arsenal haven't adpated to the defensive game yet and that is why I think they will struggle this season.

Chucky the tree

Lemlin wrote:

By foreign I mean continental and I mean Benitez and Mourinho in particular. Mourinho has changed the way teams play in the Premiership.

Bolton don't play wonderfully attacking football like Arsenal, but at least they can be entertaining. The same can be said of Boro. United used to play great football but have had to adapt their game.

Arsenal haven't adpated to the defensive game yet and that is why I think they will struggle this season.

they have both only been here a seson. Fergie has been trying out his 4-5-1 for a it longer then that.

Lemlin

Mainly only in Europe though.

Necronomicon

There's so much at stake these days that losing can be disasterous to a club, there's a real air of caution around Premiership games for a lot of teams.

edit, sometimes it's not just defensive tactics; I'm watching Blackburn vs. Newcastle at the moment and the game is 0-0, not pretty to watch. There's just a real lack of quality.

Jonny Arson

The lack of quality has been appaering for last few years now. I'm getting turned off football very slowly due to the boring, negative standard that is infesting the game (Premiership in particular)

What I would to increase positive and attacking football is to introduce increase points for a win to 4 and a bonus point for the maybe scoring 2 or 3 goals in a game. It's worked for Rugby so why not for football?

Lemlin

You can't blame games being boring on poor players. Some of the most exciting games are between poor teams. In fact, you're far more likely to get a 4-3 match between Fulham and Portsmouth than you are between United and Liverpool.

Also, Chelsea have some wonderfully gifted attacking players, yet play defensive. The same can be said of United and Liverpool.

jank

Wenger touched on this last week and its totally true. Today for an example, what a ****e game from the so called biggest 2 clubs in english football who have a tradiaiton of attacking football.

Not anymore. English teams now a days are more fearfull of losing then winning.
That 4-5-1 should be outlawed for the sake of the beautiful game

Give me Spanish football anyday. Think the bubble has burst big time in the premeirship.

applehunter

Does this mean that Alan Matthews is trying to bring a Serie A type of game to Flancare Park or what?

jank

http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,4284,1572820,00.html

Good article there about the rip off nature of football in the UK.

ntlbell

I think people forget too quickly the season or seasons gone past, even tho the start of this season has been excsivley tight, simply because so much has been on teams this year not to loose,

I don't think it's the death off football for real fans, but it will hopefully get rid of alot of the fanboys.

We're 5/6 games in and what seems to be the norm on this forum is for people to moan about nothing.

West brom against sunderland yesterday looked like it was a great game,same spurs against villa was suppose to be a great match didn't see it tho.

there was plenty of stale mates last year and lots of big games that disapointed.

if you want to watch end to end football week in week out then try leeds,preston.derby county or maybe a team closer to home.


for chelsea fans, would you prefer you won the league last year after such a long time, or play flair football week in week out and came 3rd?

mr_angry

About a year and a half ago, a couple of the managers of some of the Premiership's weaker teams (Chris Coleman, Gary Megson, Gordon Strachan, etc.) copped onto the fact that if they stifled midfield with a load of players, they didn't seem to get beaten quite as much. Then managers like Dave O'Leary and other mid-tablers thought "We're getting beaten by poor teams - lets give 4-5-1 a go ourselves", and all of a sudden, the Premiership was catapulted into a downward spiral of defensive crud. The end result is that the weak teams lost the benefit of 4-5-1, but still haven't really realised that its stopped working. Only West Ham seem to be really breaking the mould.

At the top end of the table, things are a bit different. Chelsea's current team is built on defence, but they have the quality attacking players to damage other teams aswell. That makes them a bit of a twist on the 4-5-1 theory. Becuase of their success, Fergie seems to have thought to himself that he might give it a shot too. Benitez had massive success with the formation in Spain, but then again, he was the only one in the league playing it. All together, its making for some crap viewing at the moment.

The smaller teams would probably abandon the tactic at this stage if it weren't for Chelsea's success. Unfortunately, they don't seem to realise that Chelsea have billions in the bank, and a lot of good attacking players to balance it out. The likes of West Brom, Fulham, Birmingham, etc. don't. But if you go and attack Chelsea all-out, they'll probably beat you on the counter-attack. Therefore, the rest of the league says "That tactic is still working, lets stick with it". Viscious circle.

Slash/ED

The premiership is now an inferior version of Serie A. At least Serie A when it plays defencive football have players of real quality to do it, outside the top three the standard of football in the premiership is shocking imo. See the fouth placed team last years exploits in Europe this year for example.

Like someone said, give me La Liga any day of the week. Absolutley brilliant to watch.

Thanx 4 The Fish

You are of course absolutely right Slash/ed :rolleyes:

The 4-5-1 that the italians are masters of stands them really well with their superior defensive players (Liverpools defensive record in CL was pretty decent iirc) when a team from an "Inferior league" manage to beat the first and second placed finishers in that league....

I can see where you are coming from.

Slash/ED

If you think that makes Liverpool better than those teams, you're frankly deluded, or I suppose they're better than Chelsea too.

Ronan|Raven

Stuff cork tonight as hard as it may be and I will be happy. Cmon DE TOWN!

Lemlin

I have to agree with Slash/Ed. The season before last there's no way you would of said Porto were the best team in Europe because they won the Champions League and there's no way you can say Liverpool are the best in Europe.

They finished 30-40 points off Chelsea last season. It was a miracle that they won the Champions League last season. Even Liverpool fans admit that.

They are not as good as Chelsea, Juventus or Milan. Like Mourinho says, you have to have alot of luck as well as good players to win a knockout competition. Liverpool had alot last year.

mike65

If I see Liverpool, Champions League and Luck mentioned in the same sentence again I'll scream.

Mike.

Thanx 4 The Fish

Slash/ED wrote:

If you think that makes Liverpool better than those teams, you're frankly deluded, or I suppose they're better than Chelsea too.

No they are not but those teams that you look up to as playing the defensive system well are obvously not as good at it as you made out, even though they are the best at it, what's more as the pool showed, there are ways to break down the defensive teams and come out with a result.

Slash/ED

'Pool got completley and utterly outplayed for all but 6 minutes in the CL final, if anything it showed the direct opposiate.

applehunter

Liverpool have been playing defensively for the past 5 years.

Nothing much has changed since the Houllier era.

Chucky the tree

Slash/ED wrote:

T See the fouth placed team last years exploits in Europe this year for example.

Like someone said, give me La Liga any day of the week. Absolutley brilliant to watch.

yep, sure look at how well depor did last season in the champions league.


Played shelbourne off the park in both qualifying legs, then they strolled past their group and finish in a mightly impressive last place wasnt it?

Then we have madrid, who have already been embarrised by a team from the french league. Betis who started there campaign of to lose........against a team from the Premier league aswell!

Alll the class teams are in La liga arent they....

Thanx 4 The Fish

Except the champions league tally son, hurts you don't it that the pool have your CL trophy

And slash, how do you see that then ? Once Hamann came on and put Kaka in his pocket, AC had nothing, a couple of shots but no more than the pool. Their defence was shown up for it's fraillty and once one man was taken out of the midfield they lost that too.

You neglected to mention the previous games V Juve though son, possibly because by leaving it out it made your argument a little less weak. The italians are by no means the masters of defensive footy, it is just something that they have had a bit of practice at. Liverpool showed that the defensive game can be broken down and quite easily if you study them. I think that is what the "Foreign" :rolleyes: managers have done is brought in more science into the game, they watch vids of previous games, study the weaknesses and expose them but more importantly study the strengths and nullify them.

MisterAnarchy

Interesting thread this.
For the last few years the standard of football in England has been dropping at an alarming rate.
The standard of the Premiership is abysmal.
Most teams are playing 'Fear football' .
They are afraid to try and pass the ball around in a positive way for fear they may make a mistake and give away a goal.
We have Liverpool the European Champions sitting in mid table after 4 matches.
No goals conceded,1 scored (From a set piece).
That is atrocious ,only 1 goal scored in 360 mins of football.
Man Utd are a pale shadow of the team that dominated the 90's.
Where is the team that regularly thrashed bottom of the table teams 6 and 7 nil ?
Now United struggle to beat bum opposition 1-0;opposition that would have been routed 10 years ago in a much superior league.
Obviously United have lost vital players and the urgency/legs in midfield is gone.
Valencia won the Spanish league playing defensive football and they were hated .
In England the amount of goals scored from setpieces seems to be a vital factor in most teams successes.
Chelsea have built alot of their success on set pieces.
In the Sunderland - WBA match yesterday both goals were from set pieces.
Very sad.
I'm sure football will revert to more attacking football but until then I shant be watching The Premiership 'The most exciting league in the World' much.
Spanish football is still attacking and entertaining.

applehunter

Chucky the tree wrote:

yep, sure look at how well depor did last season in the champions league.


Played shelbourne off the park in both qualifying legs, then they strolled past their group and finish in a mightly impressive last place wasnt it?

Then we have madrid, who have already been embarrised by a team from the french league. Betis who started there campaign of to lose........against a team from the Premier league aswell!

Alll the class teams are in La liga arent they....

Why are you standing up for the Premier League and what have you against La Liga?

KdjaCL

Umm isnt this a decline of attacking football thread not a Pool were lucky vs the bestest teams on bad days ?

Anyhoo OT...

In 96 Czech rep started (well not started but did it well) the 352 some PL teams copied some Serie a teams had it already but with a sweeper inf ront of the back four as opposed to centrally. Pool tried it for a while, Chelsea etc: the problem with the 352 was that it only worked when the wingbakcs could do it. I only know of a handful of players who could do it hence it died when bad wingbacks were exposed.

In 98WC France played a solid 442 with wonderfully gifted players in the attacking positions, Arsenal found that system worked for them too(they had half of them anyway ) Again in 2000 it worked for france but with a possibly better attacking line up which could score from anywhere.

2002 the teams that did well were turkey senegal playing that 433/451 hybrid where the attacking wing forwards were also covering mids. The Asian teams had flat fours. Brazil were just deadly in attacking and using the good old rampant fullbacks full won it "man overs". 2004 Greece vs portugal was like the death of football, regardless of how portugal robbed england they played attacking football trying to walk the ball in as always and that was their downfall in the final. Greece with that 433/451 just nulled them and scored 1-0.

I cant see this changing if you have the best players playing that system ie Chelsea you will be very hard to stop as 1-0 is the perfect result. The PL now has taken this on board and as today showed its horrible to watch but effective. Would either a pool fan or a Utd fan have liked to see their team go for it in the last 20 and possibly lose to one on the break?

Maybe if Brazil and A N other show the world in the wc2006 that attacking is the way forward or someone murders chelsea in CL or PL, it may change, i mean playing a 451 puts you in a position where if you go 1 down early you HAVE to play, but that means other team has gone for it early and thus laid out their gameplan.

Be boring to see how it works out, but i think its the way season will work out.

kdjac

mike65

What he ^ said!

I think the excitment this season wil be almost entirely in the Champions League were goals are, if anything, more frequent per minute which is odd since the 4-5-1 ethic was adopted by Prem clubs for the CL away games initally. Now they're all at it.

This from the telegraph

Eriksson follows the crowd -and leaves striker all alone

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger's complaints about the negative attitude of Premiership teams struck a chord with my colleague Gary Lineker. In truth, it was really the other way round since Lineker was the first to draw attention to the sudden predilection of coaches for using suffocating 4-5-1 formations, simply hoping to steal games with breakaway goals.

Lineker is still deeply worried about how the game is going, telling me a few days ago: "Football has been going through a massive boom period in recent years but it now really has to watch itself. It's now so important for clubs not to lose matches or get relegated that they are becoming too defensive, when it is the teams who express themselves who generally win things. The England team, who had been doing so well, are also struggling. The game needs a boost and it will probably have to come from England." Oh, dear. Just when England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has also become a convert of the dreaded 4-5-1.

Mike.

evilhomer

The reason Mourinho adopted the 4-5-1 last year was to accomodate bothe Duff and Robben in the team, and they scored 17 goals in 5 matches last year in October/November. Before that when Robben was injured they played with Drogba and Kezman/Gudjohnssen up front in a 4-4-2. They didn't play too well as the midfield was too narrow. (Tiago, Lampard, Makelele and Duff/Joe Cole.)

Mourinho changed to 4-5-1 because it suited the players he had. He tried to play the way Porto played with Joe Cole taking the Deco role and three more defensive midfielders behind him. that was a disaster.

The other teams playing 4-5-1 seen Greece play it very well in the Euro's and also seen Everton do very well with the formation at the begining of the season (which they adopted after a 7-0 trashing by Arsenal).

I don't like a 4-5-1 that is just meant to kill a game, I do like a 4-5-1 come 4-3-3 that chelsea played very well last season.

Hopefully lots of the poorer teams will realise that the way West Ham are playing is the way to go and we can see som entertaining football. Other then that I will have to stick to the La Liga matches which are far more open and flowing.

KdjaCL

Duff and Robben were perfect players to play the wing forward, they work their bollix off playing that style but against **** teams they will score more than one goal. I get reminded of those goals by a chelsea fan but they were against West Brom 5 or so 4 against Norwich or other bottom 5 team. When players like that time to run at **** players there is going to be chances.

Players like that were meant for that system so is Joe Cole but they have to work and work hard. Cole was a revelation last season only for one thing he tried, most fans biggest problem with him is he is lazy but Jose made him work and it worked.

kdjac

vorbis

tbh, Chelsea are the main problem that managers are picking the 4-5-1 formation. 451 is a formation usually picked when you believe that you can't match the opposition. To have a team that can spend over 200M in transfers pick it is disastrous!

With the same amount of money they could have built a Barcelona type team. Instead, they've gone for a team that plays the percentages: nullify all attacking threats and get a goal from set pieces or a counter attack. Frankly its a disaster in terms of watching football.

BaZmO*

vorbis wrote:

tbh, Chelsea are the main problem that managers are picking the 4-5-1 formation. 451 is a formation usually picked when you believe that you can't match the opposition. To have a team that can spend over 200M in transfers pick it is disastrous!

Yeah, you're right it's an absolute disaster of a system. Last year they won the PL with the most amount of points ever and only lost 1 game. And this year they've won 6 out of 6 and haven't conceded. It's a disaster alright. :rolleyes:

B.

Kingp35

vorbis wrote:

tbh, Chelsea are the main problem that managers are picking the 4-5-1 formation. 451 is a formation usually picked when you believe that you can't match the opposition. To have a team that can spend over 200M in transfers pick it is disastrous!

With the same amount of money they could have built a Barcelona type team. Instead, they've gone for a team that plays the percentages: nullify all attacking threats and get a goal from set pieces or a counter attack. Frankly its a disaster in terms of watching football.

Maybe it is a disaster in terms of watching football but it is certainly no disaster in terms of winning football matches. Ultimately Chelsea spent £200m on players in order for them to win matches and trophies and they have done just that. Why build a Barcelona type team when they dont have to. Chelsea have a successful team that is based on the 4-5-1 style of play because they have the exact type of players needed to execute that style of play. they have 2 solid cenral midfield players and one attacking central midfield player, 2 world class wingers who put in allot of work, a solid physical centre forward and then an excellent back four and golakeeper. they are never going to change their system while they keep on winning matches.

I have to agree with what Kdjac said earlier in that teams have seen what Greece achieved using the 4-5-1 system and therefore they try to imitate what Greece did by playing the same system. Every major tournament that happens inspires teams to use the system taht the successfull team used. I think we will have to get used to the 4-5-1 system for this season at least but I dont think it will last past the World Cup in Germany

KdjaCL

Kingp35 wrote:

but I dont think it will last past the World Cup in Germany

Who do you see as changing that? Obviously Brazil and there "who needs defenders policy" maybe Ukraine if they dont bottle it and try not to lose as it is their 1st WC. I cant see anyone playing atm that wont go that way inc Holland Germany and Italy.

Irony..... only 1 league i know this hasnt happened to yet and Fridays 3-2 between Derry and Bohs proved that. To Derry defenders are a nuisance they just dont stop trying to go forward regardless of the score :eek:


kdjac

Kingp35

KdjaC wrote:

Who do you see as changing that? Obviously Brazil and there "who needs defenders policy" maybe Ukraine if they dont bottle it and try not to lose as it is their 1st WC. I cant see anyone playing atm that wont go that way inc Holland Germany and Italy.

Yeah you have a point here all right but as far as I can tell its only really some of the European sides that play the 4-5-1 system. Teams outside Europe tend not to use it so maybe one of the non-european teams could be the influence needed for change

vorbis

BaZmO* wrote:

Yeah, you're right it's an absolute disaster of a system. Last year they won the PL with the most amount of points ever and only lost 1 game. And this year they've won 6 out of 6 and haven't conceded. It's a disaster alright. :rolleyes:

B.

Talk about missing the point. Its a disaster in terms of watching football. With 200 million to spend on transfers you could build just about any type of team you want. Chelsea have chosen to build a team that is incredibly strong defensively. How is that not a disaster in terms of watching football. Its allowing them to be more consistent than a team with attacking flair but its fairly boring to watch.

BaZmO*

I didn't miss the point, I just commented on what you said, which was...

vorbis wrote:

With the same amount of money they could have built a Barcelona type team

Now why would he bother going with any other system other than the one he's been going with when it has obvious successful results?

Although I do accept your point that it's not necessarily the most attractive spectacle to watch, he's under no obligation to entertain. He's there to win matches, pure and simple. And so far that's what he has been doing.

B.

mike65

BaZmO* I'd say you are missing the bigger point, which is that if this football "style" becomes the norm then punters will simply not watch in sufficent numbers to prop up the house of cards that the Premier League is becoming. Most clubs are top heavy, most are carrying significant debt (passing suger daddys notwithstanding), when the TV rights are up for grabs next time they will proberly be sold off for 25-30% less than the current deal. Mind you sports rights are a whole new thread esp as BBC and ITV are preparing the go head-to-head with SKY in 2007 but I think the deal whatever it is will again be worth less cash per game

http://money.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/09/11/ccsky11.xml

http://sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml;jsessionid=GLRZRUGLVCHKLQFIQMGSNAGAVCBQWJVC?xml=/sport/2005/09/01/sfnbos01.xml&sSheet=/sport/2005/09/01/ixfooty.html

Mike.

PHB

If TV rights go nuts in the next deal, I fully expect the top clubs to go into total damage control, and do whatever it takes to get individual rights

BaZmO*

mike65 wrote:

BaZmO* I'd say you are missing the bigger point, which is that if this football "style" becomes the norm then punters will simply not watch in sufficent numbers to prop up the house of cards that the Premier League is becoming

I'm not missing the bigger point, it was just making the point that if a manager is using a negative system/style and he's getting results, why would he change?

Now don't get me wrong, while I can enjoy and appreciate good defensive football, when executed correctly, I would much prefer to see attacking open football.

The problem lies with Managers worrying too much about conceding, and with the precarious nature of their profession, they are right to worry. No point in a Manager trying to tell his Chairman after loosing by 2 or 3 goals, "Well we did play open attacking football!!"

B.

evilhomer

The whole problem stems from
A) the huge drop in income when a team is relegated to the lower leagues.
the pressure that the managers are under from their chairmen to make sure they don't go down.

If a manager thinks in the short term he can keep his job by playing 4-5-1 then he is going to play 4-5-1. The bigger picture of fans loosing interest in watching negative football is not his prime concern.

The entire league as a whole has to agree on a philosophy of attacking football otherwise none of the teams will change.

Lets just hope we are not restricted to watching teams like bolton bombard other teams with long throws and long balls for 90 minutes forever.

Lemlin

Lets just hope we are not restricted to watching teams like bolton bombard other teams with long throws and long balls for 90 minutes forever.

Its not just Bolton use that tactic now, as Big Sam pointed out last year, Chelsea play exactly like Bolton in some games.

And Liverpool are starting to do it too.

Seaneh

I'd like to piont out to all the english football fans that the Premier League has for the last two or three seasons been possibly the most boring league in europe.

The Italian League has more goals per season for the last few seasons than ever before, Teams like Inter, Milan and Juve have completely changed the "Italian Football" mindset and even teams lime Parma, Fiorentina and Palermo are playing open, flowing attacking football, yes it is still mostly possession bassed but atleast thier is width, pace and most of all end product to the attacks and counter attacks.

The spanish league is as open and exciting as ever, the french league is (if a little predictable) very attacking and even the german leagues have become heavens for attacking teams (note the demise of Laverkusen and Dortmund, the strong holds of "oragnised german football").

Slash/ED

I'm a fan of the German league alright. Great stadiums, incredible fans and some good quality football mixed with passion too.

Chucky the tree

applehunter wrote:

Why are you standing up for the Premier League and what have you against La Liga?

i am not really standing up for the premier league. I just dont understand how people can say la liga is so good when it clearly isnt?


Spainish teams struggled badly last year. Even the great Real madrid are very poor lately.


The way people go on, you'd swear la liga is the best thing ever.

KdjaCL

Chucky the tree wrote:

The way people go on, you'd swear la liga is the best thing ever.

If the judging is how many teams in the semis or later in CL is anything to go by it certainly is the best league ever. But the OP is about defensive football not whether PL is better or not. La Liga is better tho as proved by results vs Pl teams in last 13 years.


kdjac