Praising The Coach, Not Parking It
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Loading ...Tim Rolls returns with a look at the historical influence of “bus parking” or as José Mourinho would call it “being able to defend”. A thank you to the wonderful Steve Welsh for the fantastic image, a homage to catenaccio.
As a sadist once said “there is more than one way to skin a cat”. There is also more than one way to approach a football match if you are a coach. You can ignore the opposition and just play your own game – the Sunday football approach. You can analyse the opposition and still play your own game on the basis that you aren’t tactically astute or disciplined enough to do anything else – the Tottenham Hotspur approach. Or you can systematically analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition and pragmatically set your team up to counter and exploit these – the Jose Mourinho approach.
If you take the latter approach then you need a squad capable of understanding and acting on instructions, with the self-discipline and nous to deliver under pressure, as Mourinho has. There are times you can throw the shackles off and times when that would be suicidal. Liverpool have habitually scored early goals this season so it would have been lunacy for Chelsea not to set up to counter this. The fact that Chelsea are third highest scorers in the Premier League surely indicates that the team can play and I would have thought being the tightest defence (26 goals conceded being nine fewer than anyone else) would be a cause for congratulations. In 1978/79 Liverpool conceded just 16 goals in 42 games in winning the league, a superb achievement by Bob Paisley’s team, but somehow over the past 35 years defensive efficiency seems to have become a cause for denigration and abuse.
Spurs double-winning captain Danny Blanchflower famously said “The game is about glory. It’s about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.” Interestingly, the ‘glory, glory Tottenham Hotspur’ song comes from the Spurs 1961/62 European Cup run, where they lost in the Semi Final to a Eusebio-inspired Benfica. They have only qualified for the tournament once since, so any real glory would seem to be thinly spread. As an aside, there is an irony that Blanchflower, an intelligent and thoughtful footballer and man, was probably the least successful Chelsea manager ever, with a team that neither entertained supporters nor won football matches.
The ‘glory, glory’ approach to football is all well and good up to a point, and when it comes off can look fantastic, but it is not necessarily the best way to win trophies. History is littered with superficially attractive teams who failed to win major trophies. QPR in the mid 1970’s (Bowles, Francis, Givens etc) are a classic case. Spurs have had plenty. A google search on ‘The Spurs Way’ is instructive (and funny). ‘The Spurs Way’ is apparently ”…. great football …. great footballers …. a great football team; …. silver cups being held …. smiling, happy footballers” . There is nothing wrong with wanting your team to play attacking football, but the departure from reality in this case is somewhat worrying.
Alf Ramsey was probably the ultimate pragmatist. When he promised in 1963 that England would win the 1966 World Cup he was laughed at in the press. He ignored the snipers and slowly built a team he believed capable of doing exactly that. He put together a solid defence and made hard man Nobby Stiles a key member of the team.
Going into the tournament he had three wingers in the squad (Connelly, Callaghan and Paine). All three played in a group game each but England struggled against tight defences. Rather than bring in the one true ball player in his squad, George Eastham, Ramsey jettisoned genuine width, played 4-3-3 with the hard running Alan Ball fundamental to the system, and the ‘wingless wonders’ were born. Oh, and England won the World Cup.
Some (including broadsheet journalists) never forgave Ramsey for playing what they perceived as negative football without wingers, but his view was that he was employed to win the World Cup, not play a system he didn’t have the players for, simply to entertain. Glorious defeat was not a phrase Ramsey would have recognised. To be honest, the best football in that 1966 tournament was probably played by the Hungary team of Albert, Bene and Farkas. They were superb in beating Brazil, but lost in the quarter finals to a (predictably) efficient Russian side because they didn’t have the defensive rigour to go with their attacking talent.
Shankly. Revie. Clough. All three had trophy winning teams that were well set up defensively and all three were pragmatists. I have a huge respect for what Shankly did for Liverpool (he totally transformed the club) but he had no qualms about playing Tommy Smith (a scouse version of Ron Harris but without the charm), man mountain Ron Yeats and hard man centre forward Ian St John (an early version of David Speedie). Revie built his Leeds teams on a strong defence and had no qualms about intimidating his way to 1-0 victories. Only later did his teams regularly start to play attacking football. Clough was a genius at getting the best out of limited resources but entertainment was by no means his priority.
Over a season most supporters would want their team to play with flair and invention, but I did not hear any Chelsea supporters complain about the team’s tactics at Anfield – most seemed highly delighted. Football at the highest level is not just about Plan A, it is about having, and being prepared to implement, Plans B, C, D and E as well. Having the tactical agility to set your team up each game to give you the best chance to win that game is surely what top level coaching is about. Whether that plan is all-out attack, counter attack or blanket defence will depend on the opposition and the ability of the squad.
Chelsea are lucky in that they have a squad of 25 who seem capable of understanding instructions from Mourinho and have the technical skill to carry them out. The fact that other teams seem to lack the ability, nous and self-discipline necessary to consistently win games against top sides is for them to resolve. Chelsea also have a coach who can make changes, to plan and to personnel, if the original system is not working. To call him ‘anti-football’ because he keeps clean sheets at his four main rivals to me rather misses the point. If he was ‘anti football’ he wouldn’t be publicly fretting about needing to reinforce his strike force.
Chelsea probably won’t win the league this season. If that is the case then it will be points dropped to bottom eight sides that will be the cause, something for Mourinho to ponder over the summer. His tactics against the other top eight sides have been pretty much spot on – ten wins, three draws and just one defeat (at Everton). Every other Premier League club will wish they had that record and every other coach will wish they had Mourinho’s tactical and organisational ability.
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Preventing an opponent scoring and scoring at least one yourself has and will always be the prime method to win a game!
The price of admission to games has given more rise to be “Entertained”!
Quite the opposite - as many as fans are far more frustrated with their clubs than in the history of the game!
Money really is not everything!