English football isn’t always enjoyable to watch. Not every game has to be a ‘great advert for the Premier League’. Some Sundays aren’t so ‘Super’ – and that’s fine. However, something about last week’s dreadfully dull Manchester derby irritated Gary Neville – and it wasn’t just the fact that his former club failed to beat their city rivals.
His disappointment went far beyond a vested interest in silencing noisy neighbours. According to Neville, the somber nature of the Old Trafford draw was indicative of a larger malaise afflicting the world’s most popular championship.
“It really was quite depressing for me because I think we’re seeing a lot of these types of games,” the former right-back said as he walked from the gantry to the Sky Sports studio. “The Premier League is about thrills, excitement, and risk, but there was none of that today.” It was very disappointing. I apologise even for my commentary; I believe it affected me. I was boring there, too…
“But this robotic nature of not leaving our positions, of basically being micro-managed to within an inch of our lives, of not having the freedom to take any risks in order to win a football match… It’s becoming an illness and a disease in the game.
Perhaps Paris Saint-Germain has already discovered an antidote…
‘Poor imitations’ of Pep
The alleged weakness of this year’s Premier League has become a major talking point in recent weeks and months, despite the fact that the dissatisfaction stems primarily from a title race and relegation battle that are both devoid of drama.
In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Premier League is more competitive than it has been in a long time, thanks to the obvious increase in quality among the mid-table teams, which has resulted in the top clubs dropping points on a much more regular basis.
Manchester United and Tottenham are regularly humiliated by Brighton, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, and Fulham, proving that the ‘Big Six’ no longer exists.
What Neville is referring to is not a lack of quality or positive narratives in the top tier of English football (such as Nottingham Forest occupying third place or Newcastle ending their domestic trophy drought), but rather a lack of tactical variety and adventure, a homogenisation of play that he believes is an unintentional consequence of Pep Guardiola’s success with a style of football known as ‘tiki-taka’.
“We’re seeing poor imitations of that across the board now,” Neville claimed, and he is far from the first to do so.
Inter restoring Italy’s identity
The notion that ‘Guardiolismo’, as Giorgio Chiellini coined it, has ruined football is not new. It’s been a source of heated debate in Italy for several years, with Fabio Capello believing that the country’s core values have been lost or neglected in a desperate rush to adopt the Catalan coach’s football philosophy.
However, not everyone joined the Guardiola bandwagon, as evidenced by Inter’s thrilling Champions League victory over Bayern Munich last Tuesday.
Simone Inzaghi’s side performed something akin to the ultimate Italian job at the Allianz Arena, evoking memories of the glory days of catenaccio with a wonderfully disciplined defensive display punctuated by top-notch counter-attacks, one of which resulted in a late winner from Davide Frattesi.
Inter won because they stayed true to “our football and our principles, which we’ve been relying on for nearly four years now,” according to an ecstatic Inzaghi after the game.
It would be incorrect to portray Inter as a defensive team; they are the best side in Serie A, so they are practically forced to play on the front foot against deep-lying opponents almost every weekend.
The Nerazzurri are also one of the few teams in Europe with two proper strikers, as well as some serious ballers in midfield and first-choice wingbacks Federico Dimarco and Denzel Dumfries, who are fantastic in full flight.
While width out wide is an important part of Inter’s offensive strategy, they lack the attacking threat posed by PSG’s fantastic array of wingers, who are currently providing a timely and much-needed reminder of the value of dribbling.
‘Never see a player like Ronaldinho again’
There is no longer room in the modern game for old-school No.10s, magical mavericks like Diego Maradona, Michel Platini, Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane, and Dennis Bergkamp, who were effectively free to do whatever they wanted. With the possible exception of Lionel Messi, these free spirits have been tethered to a highly automated modern game, burdened by pressing responsibilities.
As Patrice Evra stated on Rio Ferdinand’s podcast, “Everyone wants to play amazing, but this tiki-taka, only Guardiola can do it.” Why does everyone copy him? We have no creativity. We don’t have any geniuses anymore. We have robots.
“You will never see a player like Ronaldinho again because who knows what the coach will tell him when he is young? ‘If you don’t pass the ball, I’ll put you on the bench. But all football originates from the streets.” Nowadays, it often appears to have been formulated in a lab, due to how sterile it has become.
Elimination of unpredictability
For a long time, there was a genuine fear that wingers would follow in the footsteps of traditional trequartistas, or that they would be transformed into something very different from what was intended.
As football’s finest philosopher Jorge Valdano pointed out, these days academies don’t just refine rough diamonds; they wear them down to just another brick in one big defensive wall, resulting in a “overuse of one- and two-touch passing” while eliminating “the feints, dribbling, and those moments of unpredictability that made football so exciting.”
Of course, Guardiola should not be blamed for the game’s demise; at its best, his style of play was captivating, and it is not his fault that it spawned so many imitators. Let’s not forget that Pep decided to build an entire attack around Messi, the most devastatingly effective dribbler the game has ever seen.
However, as evidenced by his treatment of Jack Grealish at the Etihad, Guardiola does not allow wingers to go and attack defenders whenever they want. Fortunately, Luis Enrique is different.
‘I don’t get angry if a player dribbles’
Luis Enrique, like Guardiola, won a treble with Barcelona. However, unlike Guardiola, he did so with a much more direct and vertical style of play. Unsurprisingly, he used a similar strategy at PSG.
The main difference is that he has three wingers in his forward line, with Khvicha Kvartskhelia on the left, Desire Doue or Bradley Barcola on the right, and Ousmane Dembele playing in the centre.
When one considers that Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes can also play as wingers (the average position of both full-backs against Aston Villa last Wednesday was inside the opposition half and close to their respective touchlines), Luis Enrique’s emphasis on width and the ability to beat a man is clear.
Indeed, there was a telling moment after the game at Parc des Princes when a journalist asked the coach if Doue’s unsuccessful dribbling attempts were the reason he appeared so agitated in the first quarter. “No,” Luis Enrique said, “I don’t get angry when a player dribbles. Doue is a one-on-one specialist. And just one of several at Parc des Princes, prompting the coach to declare, “That’s the greatness of PSG.”
Whether wing wizardry is enough to finally win the perennial French champions a European Cup remains to be seen, but PSG are demonstrating in the most exciting way possible that the game is changing – and for the better.
‘More and more important’
After all, Luis Enrique is far from the only coach who allows his wingers to roam freely. Luis de la Fuente’s Spain won Euro 2024 with two delightfully direct dribblers in Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal, who is now running rings around Barcelona’s Champions League opponents, while it was no surprise to see the huge difference a fit-again Bukayo Saka made to Mikel Arteta’s attack in Arsenal’s rousing rout of Real Madrid, while Bayern Munich struggled against Inter without the elusive Jamal Musiala.
Arne Slot even mentioned the trend while discussing Liverpool’s decision to extend the contract of 32-year-old Mohamed Salah last Friday. “If I look at the Champions League this week, wingers are getting more and more important in the modern game because teams are going to lower blocks than ever before,” the manager of the Reds claimed to reporters. “Yamal, Kvaratskhelia, Doue, Saka and [Gabriel] Martinelli, they were all able to open up the last line, to create chances.”
This week’s second legs should provide even more exhilarating evidence of the value of variety, especially since PSG appears to be on a mission to remind everyone of how much fun it is to watch wingers take on – and beat – defenders. It’s a risky business, of course, but the rewards are now visible to all.
Indeed, Guardiola appears to have taken notice again, as Man City signed two classic wingers in Jeremy Doku and Savinho last summer.
So the art of dribbling hasn’t died yet. On the contrary, it could be the key to bringing new life to a game that Neville and many others are becoming increasingly bored with.
