Post by g7vikings on Dec 13, 2013 13:11:40 GMT
A thread to talk about books, blogs, articles, whatever takes your fancy.
Here is something Tony Barrett wrote today for The Times. I enjoyed it.
Here is something Tony Barrett wrote today for The Times. I enjoyed it.
The year is 2028 and Gabriel Clarke, ITV Sport’s ageing, award winning interviewer, is working on an updated version of his famous “Keane & Vieira: Best Of Enemies” documentary from fifteen years earlier. He interviews the two participants who best personify the modern rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal in the same way that Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira did a generation earlier.
Gabriel Clarke: “What did you most admire about Mikel Arteta?”
Tom Cleverley: “He was Mr 90 per cent. Whatever the game, whoever the opponents, that would be his pass completion rate. Backwards and sideways the ball would go. There were times when he kept possession like his life depended on it. But no matter how much he passed, he would still come off the pitch at the end of the game without a hair out of place. Incredible.”
Gabriel Clarke: “What didn’t you like about him?”
Tom Cleverley: “I couldn’t get the ball off him! No matter what I did – whether I tried to pinch it off his toes, got in front of him or pressed him – he would just pass it five yards to his right and five yards to his left. Sometimes, I got so close that he could feel my breath on the back of his neck but he still moved the ball. It frustrated me then and it still frustrated me now.”
Gabriel Clarke: “Mikel, you had a wonderful career in England and came up against countless opponents, what was it about Tom Cleverley that made him the most difficult one for you?”
Mikel Arteta: “Definitely his pressing. He would chase me and harry me. Wherever I went on the pitch he was five yards away from me. But he never went too far. He never got in my face or tried to take the ball off me. Just press, press, press. I knew I’d been in a game when I came up against Clev. I saw his stats once and he’d ran 11km but not once had he resorted to a tackle. That’s special.”
Gabriel Clarke: “Although you respect him, there was a time when your rivalry threatened to get out of hand.”
Mikel Arteta: “That was a bad moment. I have to be honest, it left a bad taste in my mouth. We had to be separated in the tunnel at half-time because he’d offered to give his shirt to Aaron Ramsey instead of me. That’s what happens when you have such an intense rivalry though. The good thing was the likes of Santi Cazorla, Mesut Ozil, Theo Walcott, Nani and Shinji Kagawa were around and guys like that don’t mess about. Any sign of trouble and they’re there sorting it out.”
Mercifully, a lack of public interest means none of the above will never happen. The demise of warrior midfielders in the mould of Keane and Vieira has removed much of the drama that was once associated with the position. “We don’t see it anymore,” Vieira complained in Clarke’s compelling documentary. “They’re almost too nice to each other,” Keane responded. “They’ve got too much respect for each other.”
Most forms of nostalgia demand a profound feeling of things not being what they used to be. When you’ve been involved in a rivalry as intense as the one shared by Keane and Vieira it is inevitable that what comes after cannot live up to your own combat. So when they claim that today’s midfield players do not have it within them to engage in a similar form of mano e mano, you have to bear in mind that neither of them is unbiased in their appraisal.
But it is also unquestionable that, regardless of their justifiably high opinion of themselves, Keane and Vieira are right about the changing face of midfield play and how it is no longer as physically challenging as it once was. On Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, in the absence of Steven Gerrard, are likely to line up with a midfield comprising Lucas, Jordan Henderson and Joe Allen, a world away from the days when Graeme Souness, Jimmy Case and Ray Kennedy secured those key central areas with a potent mix of silk and steel.
Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham and Chelsea will also rely more heavily on technique, that is the idea at least, than they will on testosterone. It is the modern way. For purists, watching these technicians go about their work unencumbered by undue physicality, being pressed rather than tackled and harried instead of fouled, this must be a joy.
For the rest of us, though, it leaves a profound sense of longing for what went before, for the days when midfield was the area, more than any other, where you had to earn the right to play and competitors went up against each other with the kind of physicality that brought roars of approval from crowds as supporters thrived on the intensity.
Last weekend, Arsene Wenger, one of the architects of the cultural revolution that has transformed midfield play in this country, inadvertently captured everything that is bad about this change. After an absorbing 1-1 draw with Everton in which both teams gave their all, the Arsenal manager complained at the way the visitors had earned their point. To paraphrase Wenger, it just wasn’t fair.
“I believe they put very good pressure on us when we got the ball to stop our flow but when we got out of the pressure they stopped us every time with a foul,” Wenger said. “Just to make a foul without being punished by the referee is a huge advantage.” The post-match statistics revealed that Everton had made eleven fouls but had suffered thirteen.
Wenger’s comments seemed to have been prompted by a feeling that his team had not been allowed to play. It should have been music to Roberto Martinez’s ears, particularly as Everton had also out-passed the Premier League leaders for much of the game.
That Wenger, the manager who brought Patrick Vieira to these shores and unleashed him on the Premier League to wreak havoc on opposition midfields, is now outraged when an entire team makes fewer fouls than the France World Cup winner would sometimes make in a single game, is a depressing sign of the times. Managers increasingly believe that their own players should just be allowed to play and that physical contact is as passé as knee length shorts and the maximum wage.
When people wonder what has happened to the atmosphere in English football grounds, this attitude and its inevitable results are one of the reasons. It is nice to watch players make pretty passing moves sideways, backwards and sometimes forwards, but fans in this country have always thrived on the kind of physicality that the modern game denies them. The days when supporters would be brought to their feet by a thunderous tackle are almost gone. A quarter is being asked and it is being given.
That is why so many players react like a scalded Yosemite Sam when they are challenged with any kind of force, jumping around in furious indignation that such a thing could happen to them. There is no chance of a repeat of that famous incident from a Merseyside derby in 1987 when Steve McMahon and Peter Reid launched into a fifty-fifty tackle as if their lives depended it, felling each other in the process only to immediately jump to their feet and share an embrace before racing off in search of the ball. Nowadays, an ankle tap is sufficient to cause a crowd scene with players calling upon referees to take action and managers urging fourth officials to intervene.
The warrior spirit – of the kind that was highlighted and exalted in the Keane and Vieira documentary – is dying out. Under a slew of rule changes, one of which even goes as far as mitigating against “excessive force”, and cultural trends which prioritize pressing and possession, English football is losing its physicality. Some will claim that is for the best but anyone who does should ask themselves one simple question – would the current Arsenal and Manchester United sides be better or worse off with a Roy Keane and a Patrick Vieira in their midfields?
Gabriel Clarke: “What did you most admire about Mikel Arteta?”
Tom Cleverley: “He was Mr 90 per cent. Whatever the game, whoever the opponents, that would be his pass completion rate. Backwards and sideways the ball would go. There were times when he kept possession like his life depended on it. But no matter how much he passed, he would still come off the pitch at the end of the game without a hair out of place. Incredible.”
Gabriel Clarke: “What didn’t you like about him?”
Tom Cleverley: “I couldn’t get the ball off him! No matter what I did – whether I tried to pinch it off his toes, got in front of him or pressed him – he would just pass it five yards to his right and five yards to his left. Sometimes, I got so close that he could feel my breath on the back of his neck but he still moved the ball. It frustrated me then and it still frustrated me now.”
Gabriel Clarke: “Mikel, you had a wonderful career in England and came up against countless opponents, what was it about Tom Cleverley that made him the most difficult one for you?”
Mikel Arteta: “Definitely his pressing. He would chase me and harry me. Wherever I went on the pitch he was five yards away from me. But he never went too far. He never got in my face or tried to take the ball off me. Just press, press, press. I knew I’d been in a game when I came up against Clev. I saw his stats once and he’d ran 11km but not once had he resorted to a tackle. That’s special.”
Gabriel Clarke: “Although you respect him, there was a time when your rivalry threatened to get out of hand.”
Mikel Arteta: “That was a bad moment. I have to be honest, it left a bad taste in my mouth. We had to be separated in the tunnel at half-time because he’d offered to give his shirt to Aaron Ramsey instead of me. That’s what happens when you have such an intense rivalry though. The good thing was the likes of Santi Cazorla, Mesut Ozil, Theo Walcott, Nani and Shinji Kagawa were around and guys like that don’t mess about. Any sign of trouble and they’re there sorting it out.”
Mercifully, a lack of public interest means none of the above will never happen. The demise of warrior midfielders in the mould of Keane and Vieira has removed much of the drama that was once associated with the position. “We don’t see it anymore,” Vieira complained in Clarke’s compelling documentary. “They’re almost too nice to each other,” Keane responded. “They’ve got too much respect for each other.”
Most forms of nostalgia demand a profound feeling of things not being what they used to be. When you’ve been involved in a rivalry as intense as the one shared by Keane and Vieira it is inevitable that what comes after cannot live up to your own combat. So when they claim that today’s midfield players do not have it within them to engage in a similar form of mano e mano, you have to bear in mind that neither of them is unbiased in their appraisal.
But it is also unquestionable that, regardless of their justifiably high opinion of themselves, Keane and Vieira are right about the changing face of midfield play and how it is no longer as physically challenging as it once was. On Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, in the absence of Steven Gerrard, are likely to line up with a midfield comprising Lucas, Jordan Henderson and Joe Allen, a world away from the days when Graeme Souness, Jimmy Case and Ray Kennedy secured those key central areas with a potent mix of silk and steel.
Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham and Chelsea will also rely more heavily on technique, that is the idea at least, than they will on testosterone. It is the modern way. For purists, watching these technicians go about their work unencumbered by undue physicality, being pressed rather than tackled and harried instead of fouled, this must be a joy.
For the rest of us, though, it leaves a profound sense of longing for what went before, for the days when midfield was the area, more than any other, where you had to earn the right to play and competitors went up against each other with the kind of physicality that brought roars of approval from crowds as supporters thrived on the intensity.
Last weekend, Arsene Wenger, one of the architects of the cultural revolution that has transformed midfield play in this country, inadvertently captured everything that is bad about this change. After an absorbing 1-1 draw with Everton in which both teams gave their all, the Arsenal manager complained at the way the visitors had earned their point. To paraphrase Wenger, it just wasn’t fair.
“I believe they put very good pressure on us when we got the ball to stop our flow but when we got out of the pressure they stopped us every time with a foul,” Wenger said. “Just to make a foul without being punished by the referee is a huge advantage.” The post-match statistics revealed that Everton had made eleven fouls but had suffered thirteen.
Wenger’s comments seemed to have been prompted by a feeling that his team had not been allowed to play. It should have been music to Roberto Martinez’s ears, particularly as Everton had also out-passed the Premier League leaders for much of the game.
That Wenger, the manager who brought Patrick Vieira to these shores and unleashed him on the Premier League to wreak havoc on opposition midfields, is now outraged when an entire team makes fewer fouls than the France World Cup winner would sometimes make in a single game, is a depressing sign of the times. Managers increasingly believe that their own players should just be allowed to play and that physical contact is as passé as knee length shorts and the maximum wage.
When people wonder what has happened to the atmosphere in English football grounds, this attitude and its inevitable results are one of the reasons. It is nice to watch players make pretty passing moves sideways, backwards and sometimes forwards, but fans in this country have always thrived on the kind of physicality that the modern game denies them. The days when supporters would be brought to their feet by a thunderous tackle are almost gone. A quarter is being asked and it is being given.
That is why so many players react like a scalded Yosemite Sam when they are challenged with any kind of force, jumping around in furious indignation that such a thing could happen to them. There is no chance of a repeat of that famous incident from a Merseyside derby in 1987 when Steve McMahon and Peter Reid launched into a fifty-fifty tackle as if their lives depended it, felling each other in the process only to immediately jump to their feet and share an embrace before racing off in search of the ball. Nowadays, an ankle tap is sufficient to cause a crowd scene with players calling upon referees to take action and managers urging fourth officials to intervene.
The warrior spirit – of the kind that was highlighted and exalted in the Keane and Vieira documentary – is dying out. Under a slew of rule changes, one of which even goes as far as mitigating against “excessive force”, and cultural trends which prioritize pressing and possession, English football is losing its physicality. Some will claim that is for the best but anyone who does should ask themselves one simple question – would the current Arsenal and Manchester United sides be better or worse off with a Roy Keane and a Patrick Vieira in their midfields?
