The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines

by Michael Cox

  On the opposite flank there was Ryan Giggs and Denis Irwin, a long-standing relationship that worked excellently. Giggs dribbled considerably more than Beckham, so Irwin overlapped less regularly than Neville, was right-footed anyway so less inclined to go down the outside, and was now 33 and happy to play a more reserved role.

  Finally, in midfield there was Roy Keane and Paul Scholes. The former now occupied a deeper, more defensive-minded role that gave Scholes licence to push forward, spraying passes to Giggs and Beckham before bombing into the box to become a goalscoring threat. In fact, more than a midfield partnership, this should be assessed as a brilliantly balanced quartet: Beckham, Keane, Scholes, Giggs. A crosser, a tackler, a passer, a dribbler.

  While Keane and Giggs had both featured heavily in Ferguson’s first great United side of 1993/94, Beckham and Scholes had yet to become regulars. They were different to the usual template for players in a four-man midfield, offering more guile; Scholes was a creator rather than a ball-winner (tackling was his major shortcoming), while Beckham was a ball-player rather than a speedster. This proved crucial in European football, where retaining possession was more important than in the Premier League, simply because, as Ferguson regularly explained in the mid-1990s, once you lose the ball in Europe, you don’t get it back quickly. Indeed, while United’s ‘class of ’92’ had been inspired by Cantona’s professionalism, it was Scholes and Beckham who benefited most from his retirement. Scholes emerged as a deep-lying forward ‘in the Cantona mould’, to use Ferguson’s words, and United’s manager explicitly said he’d long earmarked Scholes for a regular role once the Frenchman left United. Beckham, meanwhile, took Cantona’s famous number 7 shirt, became United’s chief assister and – albeit in a very different manner to Cantona – was the individual who commanded the most attention. Besides, Cantona had often struggled to influence Champions League games, in part because European opposition were more accustomed to dealing with deep-lying forwards. ‘I can’t recall one important European game that he turned for us,’ Keane bluntly stated.

  There was also a significant change midway through United’s treble-winning campaign, with Ferguson’s assistant manager Brian Kidd leaving to take charge of Blackburn. His replacement was Steve McClaren, who had earned a reputation as England’s most promising young coach at Derby County. McClaren, like Kidd, took the majority of United’s training sessions and the players were hugely impressed by his innovative methods and engaging sessions. He brought in a laptop – then something barely seen in a dressing room – to use ProZone, downloading footage of matches and personally editing clips of specific situations. Keane, Beckham and Giggs all said exactly the same thing about McClaren: he was an innovator, and always keen to try new things. He helped bring United into the modern era in terms of pre-match preparation.

  Tactically, United were becoming more intelligent than any other Premier League side, primarily because Ferguson was learning lessons from his European experiences. Even with the influx of foreign playing talent, English football remained isolated from the rest of Europe during this period – there was little TV coverage of overseas football, few foreign coaches and relatively few European runs. By the time United lifted the European Cup in 1999, it was their fifth Champions League campaign; no other Premier League side had enjoyed more than one. Top-flight European sides were, tactically, on a completely different level to Premier League sides, allowing Ferguson a significant advantage over his rivals. ‘I’ve been fascinated by looking at all the systems,’ Ferguson said of his European experiences during the mid-1990s, marvelling at Ajax’s use of a sweeper, Milan’s compactness and Barcelona’s possession play. He regularly travelled abroad to scout upcoming opponents.

  Ferguson had been nicknamed ‘Tinkerbell’ by some Manchester United fans in the early to mid-1990s because of his tendency to make apparently unnecessary changes to his starting XI at key moments – his decision to use a 4–5–1 for the fatal final-day draw at West Ham in 1994/95 was a particular source of frustration – but the meddling became more necessary against superior sides, and more advanced tactics, in the Champions League. Ferguson was always learning lessons from Europe. After the 4–0 thrashing by Barcelona at the Nou Camp in 1994, he realised United needed to catch up. ‘You hold your hands up when you are beaten tactically,’ he said. ‘The problem is that we don’t have a tactical game in England … at United, a lot of the players have their own profile and want to play their own way. It doesn’t work in Europe, as we’ve discovered. There has to be a better tactical discipline … they can’t just play their own game.’

  This, then, was the start of English football ‘getting’ tactics in the Premier League era, discovering that adjusting your style for the specific challenge of the opposition was crucial. The Barcelona defeat came just four days after United had defeated Newcastle, whom Ferguson considered United’s main title rivals, 2–0 at Old Trafford. It was a superb United performance, but the contrast in performances between those games highlighted the difference between English and European football. The Newcastle game was extremely open, a classic end-to-end match. But Ferguson was struck by how United conceded possession readily against Barca, then couldn’t regain it because their opponents kept the ball so effectively. From then on, United concentrated on improving their possession play.

  ‘In Europe they pass to each other in midfield,’ Ferguson said, making a simple concept like seem like a revelation. ‘They play in little triangles and keep it there, they play one-twos against you in midfield, whereas our midfielders service the wide players, the full-backs and the front men.’ This sounds simple but it was a crucial point. The next couple of decades of European football would be dominated by the battle for midfield possession, whereas in the Premier League the midfield was a war zone, all about tackling hard to get the ball, then quickly distributing it elsewhere. The concept of midfield creativity was, at this point, almost foreign to English football.

  Ferguson also recognised the value of defensive versatility, admiring the use of a spare man across Europe. In 1996/97 he sometimes used Premier League games as preparation for Champions League fixtures, taking the rare decision to deploy a three-man defence against Derby County because he intended to play that system against Juventus. United didn’t perform well in the 1–1 draw at the Baseball Ground, however, and Ferguson turned against that idea. Still, it showed how Ferguson was experimenting, and after United lost 1–0 at Juve with a back four, with Ferguson again concentrating on the strategic side of things, he complained that ‘the players need to be aware of the tactical implications’. But United continued to improve. Ferguson became convinced of the need to man-mark opposition number 10s, a tactic essentially reserved for Gianfranco Zola, Juninho and Steve McManaman in the Premier League. But almost every Champions League opponent had a player in that mould, and it was notable that, in 1996/97, Keane did a fine job on Rapid Vienna number 10 Dietmar Kühbauer, while Ronny Johnsen was deployed in midfield and tasked with stopping Fenerbahçe’s Jay-Jay Okocha.

  To beef up the midfield Ferguson started using only one striker, with mixed success. The use of a three-man defence, meanwhile, rarely worked well for United, a poor performance (albeit in a 2–1 win) at Tottenham Hotspur in January 1997 again dissuading Ferguson from that system in Europe. Most pleasing was the 4–0 thrashing of Porto in the first leg of the quarter-final two months later, a rare occasion when Ferguson used a diamond midfield, with Ryan Giggs tucking inside to produce, in his words, the best performance of his career. United were now tactically flexible, and while they lost 2–0 on aggregate to eventual winners Borussia Dortmund in the semi-final, they dominated both legs and created more chances.

  United’s 1997/98 European campaign ended tamely with quarter-final elimination at the hands of Monaco, but they had performed impressively in the group stage with a 3–2 victory over Italian champions Juventus. This was an extremely significant result; having failed to beat Barcelona, Juve and Dortmund in previous campaigns
, it was the first time Ferguson’s United had triumphed over a genuine European giant. Of all the European sides, it was Marcello Lippi’s side whom United held in highest esteem and would come to resemble most closely; Juventus couldn’t boast the romance or style of Ajax, Milan or Barca, but they were extremely efficient, professional and tactically adaptable. ‘During the mid-1990s when we were growing as a team and learning all about how to succeed in the Champions League, Juventus were the benchmark,’ recalled Gary Neville. ‘They had everything that I would love to have in my team.’ Ferguson was the same. ‘I have developed an immense respect for Juventus, a class act from top to bottom,’ he purred. ‘Lippi is one impressive man.’

  Juventus were the most tactically impressive side in European football at this stage, in part because they could always call upon a group of versatile, disciplined and tactically intelligent workhorses to perform a particular role. Their 1997/98 squad contained four players – Moreno Torricelli, Angelo Di Livio, Gianluca Pessotto and Alessandro Birindelli – who could play on either flank, in defence or midfield, while future Chelsea manager Antonio Conte was another highly adaptable player; you saw the names on the team sheet, but had no idea where they’d be deployed. ‘It was not just the real quality players like Zidane or Del Piero that captured everyone’s imagination,’ Keane later said. ‘But tough, wily defenders, guys nobody’s ever heard of, who closed space down, timed their tackles to perfection, were instinctively in the right cover positions and read the game superbly.’ They were entirely functional players, limited technically but perfect when Lippi wanted a player to ‘do a job’ in a certain game. And that expression is particularly pertinent when looking at Italian footballers during this period. In the aptly named The Italian Job, his excellent book about the differences between Italian and English football, one of Gianluca Vialli’s main conclusions is, ‘To the Italian footballer, football is a job: to the English footballer, it’s a game.’ Ferguson was clearly in awe of the Italians during this period, remarking on their ‘bigger respect for the profession’ (‘profession’ rather than ‘game’ indicating his stance). To catch up with Juventus, Ferguson needed more of his players to perform disciplined, somewhat joyless tactical roles in major games.

  That 3–2 victory over Juventus in 1997 was a perfect example. Ferguson used Johnsen, a natural defender who was also capable of playing a holding midfield role, and he performed a wonderful man-marking job on Europe’s most revered playmaker, Zinedine Zidane. Johnsen’s tactical discipline epitomised Manchester United during this period, and Ferguson increasingly embraced the functional player – that versatile, disciplined, hard-working and tactically aware squad member who could be trusted to ‘do a job’. When United lost key games during the Cantona era, Ferguson often regretted not using Brian McClair, the understated and adaptable ‘brainy player’, in Ferguson’s words, who could play anywhere in midfield or attack. For example, in a Premier League match against Liverpool early in 1994/95, Ferguson wavered over whether to select Mark Hughes or McClair, who could play a more disciplined role to stop John Barnes, Liverpool’s danger man. Ferguson eventually chose Hughes, but United lost their shape, Barnes was free to run the game and United were on the back foot. When Ferguson summoned McClair early in the second half at 0–0, he helped to stop Barnes and also made dangerous forward runs against the immobile Jan Molby, which forced Liverpool manager Roy Evans to replace the Dane. United eventually won 2–0, with McClair fittingly scoring the second. Tactically, he had simultaneously helped to nullify an opponent’s strength and exposed a weakness. Ferguson needed tactically intelligent players like McClair.

  Later, Ferguson became infuriated with Paul Ince’s inability to follow tactical instructions and was even angier when Gary Pallister and Paul Parker ignored his request for Parker to man-mark Barcelona’s Romario, with the defenders instead using their usual zonal system. But Ferguson loved Keane during the Irishman’s younger years because he could deploy him in various tactical roles. ‘He can do anything you ask him to because he has such a disciplined mind. You say to him, “Go and man-mark X,” and he’ll do it. “Play centre-half,” no problem. “Play right-back,” no problem.’ But Keane became too valuable in the engine room to shift around regularly, and by 1999 Ferguson had others who could ‘do a job’. Phil Neville could play in either the full-back role or in midfield; Johnsen could play in the centre of defence or midfield; Nicky Butt could be introduced as a midfield ‘spoiler’, while Jesper Blomqvist and Jordi Cruyff could play midfield roles that didn’t adhere to 4–4–2 principles.

  A 2–2 draw at Tottenham in December was particularly interesting. United raced into a 2–0 lead with two early Solskjær strikes, but shortly before half-time Gary Neville was dismissed for tugging back Spurs’ left-winger David Ginola, who would later be voted PFA Player of the Year, the only non-United player on the six-man shortlist. The Frenchman was clearly exaggerating fouls to draw the referee’s attention, and United ended up being shown no fewer than eight yellow cards, including the two for Neville. Therefore, to prevent United going down to nine men, Ferguson rotated the man deployed to mark Ginola, using Keane, Johnson, Berg and finally Phil Neville against him. United had used five markers against the Frenchman in the space of 90 minutes – which other club could have found so many disciplined tactical players in their side? Ginola was largely shepherded into non-threatening areas, although two Sol Campbell goals meant United dropped two points. Nevertheless, this was the major difference between Arsenal and Manchester United throughout the period of their fierce rivalry. Arsenal could usually offer comparable players to United’s superstars: Dennis Bergkamp for Cantona, David Seaman for Schmeichel, Patrick Vieira for Keane, Tony Adams for Stam, Marc Overmars for Giggs. But United boasted a reliable group of reserves who could be trusted to win games tactically, whereas Arsenal concentrated on a Plan A and their back-ups were stylistically similar to the first-choices. They had no one to do a job.

  On the way to their Champions League success Ferguson demonstrated his tactical acumen, in particular, with the two-legged victories over Inter and Juventus. Mircea Lucescu’s Inter arrived at Old Trafford in a 3–4–2–1 shape, with Roberto Baggio and Youri Djorkaeff floating behind Iván Zamorano. That’s a tough system for a 4–4–2 to cope with: two players between the lines and often an overload in central positions. Ferguson gave his players a complex, hybrid task. ‘We had to defend the centre of midfield and at the same time get our crosses in,’ he explained. ‘We had watched them several times and I felt sure we could score from centres.’ Ferguson adjusted admirably. His full-backs, Neville and Irwin, played extremely narrow to contain Inter’s two number 10s, while United exploited the space on the outside of Inter’s back three ruthlessly, with Beckham pushing into the space between left-wing-back Aron Winter and left-sided centre-back Francesco Colonnese. Ferguson’s determination to attack Inter with crosses proved crucial; Yorke twice headed in Beckham’s deliveries in a 2–0 victory and should have scored another from the same supply line.

  For the return leg Lucescu unsurprisingly changed both his left-sided defensive players and selected a fit-again Ronaldo up front. Although Inter’s shape was similar, Ferguson approached the task differently because he wanted United to focus on defence rather than attack. He therefore omitted Scholes and moved Johnsen into midfield alongside Keane, bringing in Henning Berg to partner Stam. The combination of Johnsen and Keane concentrated on stopping Inter’s number 10s, which left the full-backs – narrow in the first leg – able to push wide. ‘The key tactically,’ Ferguson would later say, ‘was to get the ball to our full-backs; that way Gary Neville and Denis Irwin could control the game.’ They enjoyed plenty of time on the ball as Inter’s forwards showed little interest in defending, and the wing-backs were frightened to push forward and leave their natural zones unoccupied after what happened at Old Trafford. United frustrated Inter, the game finishing 1–1 with Scholes off the bench to score the equaliser. United had controlled the temp
o excellently and Ferguson considered that two-legged victory ‘the biggest step forward under my management’.

  For the first leg of the semi-final against Juventus, United were badly exposed in midfield. Beckham and Giggs pushed forward down the flanks, which left Keane and Scholes overrun against a Juve diamond featuring Didier Deschamps deep, Conte and Edgar Davids shuttling from wider positions, and Zidane as the number 10. Zidane inevitably pulled Keane and Scholes around to create space for the shuttlers to exploit, and Davids teed up Conte for the opener. But Ferguson reshuffled at the break, telling Beckham to move inside and effectively become a third central midfielder, with Neville pushing forward to provide right-sided width. United got a grip of the game, built pressure, and Giggs – who had been excellent after half-time in a more advanced role – smashed in a crucial late equaliser. There was minimal celebration, however; Giggs simply pointed towards the ball and gestured for his teammates to get back into their own half and go for the victory. That attitude would prove particularly crucial later in their Champions League run.

  United attempted to start cautiously in the away leg, with Beckham and Blomqvist, in for the injured Giggs, remaining narrow. They actually dominated possession from the outset but found themselves 2–0 down thanks to two typical Pippo Inzaghi strikes: one a poacher’s effort from two yards, the other a ludicrously fortunate deflected goal. From then on, United were fantastic, effectively reverting to their Premier League style and producing, in Ferguson’s words, ‘the best-ever performance from a team under my management’. Keane drove United forward marvellously despite being booked, which ruled him out of the final. His header got United back on track, and he was helped by the fact that Ferguson had again omitted Scholes, using the more disciplined Butt, which allowed the Irishman to play an all-action role. Yorke headed the equaliser, Cole tapped in the winner. This time it felt like United had imposed their game plan on the opposition.