Dying a hero or living long enough to become a villain
Has there been a truly great Premier League team since Cristiano Ronaldo graced the league? Sir Alex Ferguson realised times were changing, perhaps its time Arsene Wenger did so too.
Is it a fair thesis to hold that there has not been a truly great Premier League team since before Cristiano Ronaldo left Manchester United in 2009?
You may ask what is the definition of a great team. Is it perhaps one that would be the defining team of a league, a rightful representative of that league on the international stage, a team that dominated domestically and were undoubtedly the best team in a fully functioning league of competitive and quality teams? See Barcelona 2009–2011 or Bayern Munich in 2013 for two such examples.
The past few months have seen Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal side humbled in defeat time after time, mustering a measly three wins in nine matches, two against non-league sides. In the esteemed manager’s post match remarks, often hijacked by the topic of his future, the embattled 67-year-old has been hitting the well worn beats of explanations, a repeated pattern of explaining away the reasons for defeat — the physicality of his opponents, his own team’s lack of focus, the unprecedented nature of the situation.
The style of his pattern has struck a chord and I thought back to excuses which were given about the same time as last season. That time, it was following a draw at West Ham last April considered a poor result at the time. Wenger’s excuse for the draw that weekend in April was two-fold. He did not expect Andy Carroll to play so his team were a bit naive about the crossing and physicality of West Ham, so his team lacked focus. Sound familiar?
While these can be valid excuses in a vacuum, such explanations appear absurd when first, they repeatedly reoccur and secondly, you consider that’s it hardly amateur teams playing. It should not have mattered whether a physically imposing strategy is used against your team — a manager’s duty is to devise a way to counter it, just as it then becomes the opposition’s prerogative to cope with that counter.
This ridiculousness was further heightened by West Brom’s head coach Tony Pulis’ own insights on his side’s recent victory over last season’s runners-up. His team had focused extensively on set pieces in training during the week. Amazingly, his comments nearly match those given by Andy Carroll in his post-match interview one year ago.
The West Ham manager that day, Slaven Bilic, had told Carroll a few weeks in advance to prepare for the game against Arsenal — to study Arsenal’s weaknesses, noting how poorly Arsenal have dealt with crosses, that it was practiced in training all week long before expertly executing it during the match. Nearly twelve months has past since that result, yet nothing has changed.
Now in isolation, that series of history repeating itself has little to do with the initial statement of this piece, that there has not been a great Premier League team since that last great Manchester United side eight years ago. However, it did make me think of that old phrase, you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain.
Wenger is quickly becoming that villain, he has been to many non-Arsenal fans for some years and now he’s losing the grass roots of his own support, as is clear from the reaction to this season from fans, a plane or two flying overhead notwithstanding.
Sir Alex Ferguson, a very similar character to Wenger (in terms of autocratic power) left Manchester United a hero, his mystique intact. But, in the years that have passed and knowing the shrewd operator he was, Ferguson must have known that the tide was turning against him. So much so that there must have been some form of shock when he won the league in 2013 with his final team. That same team, littered with aging veterans of past league and European triumphs (though without Robin van Persie), utterly blew the league the previous season to a rather disgraceful Manchester City team.
That City team, quite possibly the worst team to win the league in the modern Premier League era, they remain the only championship winning side to publicly concede the title weeks before lifting the crown. Excusing the frankly ludicrous circumstances which lead to a last minute goal difference league championship, their season was littered with in-fighting, poor performances and embarrassing defeats. Yet, they won, though — coincidentally enough — they also remain the most expensively assembled league winning side.
Contrast this City side to Manchester United’s and the Premier League’s last great team (c. 2007–2009). Ferguson had decided to adopt a floating/rotating attack with Cristiano Ronaldo at its core— taking a free role where he could play on the left wing cutting in or through the middle as Carlos Tevez, Wayne Rooney and whoever else was in the side would interchange with him, in a fluid counter attacking system. A system built on a highly impressive back 4, experienced goalie and, a mediocre though hard working effective midfield full of workhorses.
That said, there was still incision — old Paul Scholes or older Ryan Giggs playing in central midfield, good but still limited peak Michael Carrick — partnered with a reliable Darren Fletcher, battery-powered Park Ji-Sung and whoever else they had coming in the rotation, occasionally the majestic Anderson, John O’Shea or Wes Brown. That team will be remembered quite fondly by history, likely better than most of Ferguson’s all conquering late-90’s teams. I believe that eventual nostalgia will come down to their play, their tactics.
A lot of good and bad things can be said about the current Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho. For his many indiscretions, I do believe that he changed the way tactics are viewed in the Premier League.
Think back to his first season at Chelsea in 2004/05. A casual look at the television coverage shows you the limited way tactics were viewed back then. Analysts were trying to understand Mourinho’s early selections and fit them into the 4–4–2 system, ingrained for the length of my life as “the way” to play football — remembering the graphic of Damien Duff’s number 11 positioned as a centre forward on the pre-match team sheet was a favourite of mine.
Following a bedding in period, people began to realize that Mourinho had adjusted the classic 4–4–2 to, at first, a rather attacking 4–3–3 before settling into his preferred English system of 4–5–1. His focus was on defensive solidity, dominating midfield and choking the life out of the game to force mistakes and eventually goals. He was massively successful for two seasons and who’s to say that Mourinho’s acute self-destructive tendencies would ever have materialised if he had kept winning titles with his rigid 4–5–1 structure?
What changed for Mourinho — was it Abramovic’s need for exciting, attacking football? Did this undermine Mourinho’s inherent pragmatism and led them to conceding their title in 2007? No, it was the emergence of Cristiano Ronaldo.
An expensive Portuguese teenager, Ronaldo, in his first seasons at least, showed promise, but always seemed a bit “flash” for the Premier League — trying things that many others wouldn't, but usually failing to produce an end product. But Ferguson endured with the rambunctious young Portuguese and in 2006, Ferguson was rewarded, Ronaldo emerged.
Having significantly beefed up his physical presence and thoroughly blooded himself in the Premier League through a couple of United’s most mediocre seasons — staying in touch with the league leaders but eventually falling off domestically and on the continent. His time had come.
However, first changes had to be made. Roy Keane’s MUTV outburst enabled them. To Keane’s utter dismay, Ferguson had reached the end of his tether with the Cork man and he was the one to be sacrificed for attacking his team mates. His departure proved monumental. History has proven that this move was crucial to United’s eventual dominance for the rest of the decade.
Since Keane had joined the club until his departure, there had been dominant old-school personalities at the club — Eric Cantona, Peter Schmeichel, Steve Bruce, Paul Ince, Gary Pallister, Jaap Stam, to name but a few. With Keane’s acrimonious departure in 2005, he was the last of that old, no-nonsense generation. His personality had dictated how United played, how they had presented themselves on the field. Without him there, there would be a leadership vacuum in the team, but there would also be an opportunity for rebirth, for rejuvenation.
The tactical innovations of Mourinho’s Chelsea had forced their rivals to adapt. Mourinho’s 4–5–1 employed a trio of central midfielders upon which to build the team’s attacks and more importantly, add extra defensive solidarity to dominate the midfield battle. No longer could teams be cavalier with two box to box central midfielders — those big, all action athletic players were easily outmatched by the three clever central midfielders. This moved the creative centre of a team away from the all action midfielders of the likes of Keane and Patrick Vieira and towards a different kind of player — a more svelte character, a Carrick, a Cesc Fabregas, even a Jimmy Bullard.
This new found tactical flexibility gave opportunistic teams a perfect chance to enact further tactical tweaks — one of these opportunists was in charge of Manchester United. Early on in the move to three central midfielders, Ferguson maintained his decades old commitment to wingers, rotating Scholes, Fletcher, Giggs, Ronaldo and occasionally Rooney to wide positions.
However, with the loss of a second striker to come assist the wingers in their normal short work, the wingers were suddenly expected to do so much more work in attacking situations, more running, more pressing, more positional flexibility and more end product. This shift effectively ended Giggs career as a flying winger and curtailed Fletcher’s attacking role in United’s team. Ronaldo though, thrived, effectively doubling his goal and assists in that first year and powered United back into Premier League title contention.
A real memorable turning point came in the 2007 Champions League quarter final, a match which elevated United from promising challengers towards champions of Europe.
As crowd trouble marred a Champions League tie with Roma, Julio Spalletti, the bald tactical genius in charge of the Italian giants, one of the most experimental and influential teams of recent times, had the Romans playing a 4–6 formation. A clear attempt to completely dominate position in midfield and break forward with the linchpin being the enigmatic Francesco Totti in that famous “false nine” role which Lionel Messi would later make his own.
In the first leg, the strategy worked well for Roma, winning at home 2–1. In the return fixture, Ferguson threw caution to the wind. Choosing to step away from his normally cautious European team selection, he unleashed the team that had become the most feared in the Premier League. A fluid attack of Rooney and Ronaldo, switching positions and wings, contributing goals, creating space for midfielders and full backs to expose, destroyed Roma 7–1 at Old Trafford.
They utilized the shift to three in midfield not to dominate midfield but instead to enable the wingers to worry less about defending and more about exploiting the space between Roma’s overpowering midfield and defense. United continued with this tactic of fluid attack, without the focus on a clearly defined centre-forward, but instead on finding space for the remainder of the tournament and the following season, eventually coming out as victors, overcoming a Messi-powered Barcelona and the remnants of that first Mourinho Chelsea side.
United flourished and continued to employ these tactics for the proceeding two seasons, winning two further league titles, reaching another Champions League final (with John O’Shea in defense) until Ronaldo finally departed for Real Madrid.
Since those days, we have had seven different league champions, many with great players, sometimes playing exceptional football, but I do not believe that we have not had a great Premier League Champion since. No team has shifted the focus, changed the way the teams play and therefore react to truly dominate the league.
While I adored last season, the romance of Leicester City’s unbelievable triumph or even Tottenham’s zig-zag season were a joy to behold. Meanwhile, there was hilarity at the failure of every single big side, one or more becoming completely banjaxed just as you might think they had their stuff together. Yet, I had and continue to have concerns — the drama is great, the experience is great, but is the quality there? I don’t think so.
Arsene Wenger has endured throughout this whole time, battling it out with other sides of limited quality as no new tactical breakthroughs are adopted and no exceptionally gifted players, like Cristiano Ronaldo, partake in the Premier League. If rumours are to be believed (and given their proliferation in every major UK newspaper — they are), the old Frenchman has already agreed to sign another two year contract to helm Arsenal towards a new decade.
A new decade that will continue to be filled with uncertainty, tough challenges and the same old excuses. Sir Alex Ferguson knew that times were changing, things were becoming tough — that was and is still the reality. That’s why he left and I for one do not blame him, Ferguson chose to preserve his legacy before it could be destroyed by mediocrity. Perhaps Wenger will realize this too, so that he does not depart in two years, a villain to the fans that were once devoted to him.
