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

by Michael Cox

  Manchester United, meanwhile, later signed his old midfield partner Anderson – a swaggering, powerful playmaker who made driving runs from midfield. FIFA’s report from that World U17 tournament described him as ‘a playmaker with a seemingly inexhaustible box of tricks’, and their Technical Study Group identified him as ‘an outstanding individual player, who was fast, could take charge of game, skilfully linked up with teammates and very effective on counter-attacks’. But he was another converted to a deeper position in England, ‘a role that no coach in his native land would have considered for a nanosecond,’ as the BBC’s South American football correspondent Tim Vickery wrote at the time. ‘Could it be that in this new role Anderson is forced to sacrifice a bit too much of what he is naturally good at?’

  But the most obvious example was Makélélé’s successor at Chelsea, John Obi Mikel. There’s a very familiar story here; Mikel was a gloriously talented attacking midfielder in his younger days, leading Nigeria to the U20 World Cup Final in 2005, where his side were beaten by Argentina, and Mikel was voted the tournament’s second-best player, behind a young Argentine attacker named Lionel Messi. There was an extraordinary tug-of-war between Manchester United and Chelsea for his services, Mikel signing a contract with the former while the latter claimed they’d already arranged his transfer. United eventually received a fee of £12m from Chelsea, despite the fact he’d never officially joined them.

  Mikel was almost instantly cast as the new Makélélé, playing the holding role when the Frenchman was rested, and eventually succeeding him permanently when Makélélé returned to France in 2008. But, once again, Mikel was transformed into a scrappy, aggressive defensive midfielder, constantly in trouble with referees for poor tackles and criticised by supporters for his square passes. His goalscoring record, meanwhile, was as bad as Lucas’s – one in 249 Premier League games. ‘Mikel has lost the creativity that catapulted him onto the world stage,’ complained Samson Siasia, who managed him at U20 level and later for the full Nigerian side. ‘Chelsea destroyed the player Mikel once was.’ Mikel acknowledged that himself. ‘I have always said in my time at Chelsea that I am a team player,’ he said, as he approached the end of his decade at the club. ‘I’ve gone out of my way to do things to limit my game for the good of the team.’

  Premier League managers realised the potential value of playing a creative player in the Makélélé role, but by concentrating upon improving such players’ defensive qualities, they effectively turned potentially exciting playmakers into pure scrappers.

  Much later, Les Ferdinand – then a coach at Tottenham – was scathing about Makélélé’s impact upon the English game. ‘I was saying to William Gallas when he was here, the worst thing that happened in this league was Claude Makélélé,’ he said in 2014. ‘When he came into this country, he wasn’t a holding midfield player. He was a player who had the intelligence to say: “Frank [Lampard], you can score more goals than me so I’m going to tuck in here for you and I’ll hold. You keep going forward.” Then everyone went, “Right, we’ve got to have a holding midfield player,” and what we’ve done is produce a crop of players who don’t want to go over the halfway line, who don’t want to pass over the halfway line and are happy to just sit in front of the back four.’

  Ferdinand was widely criticised for his comments, but there’s an element of truth in his assessment of Makélélé’s legacy. The Frenchman himself was a perfectly effective footballer and wasn’t the problem. But his tremendous impact in English football was largely because of his role in a 4–3–3, which, as Mourinho outlined, meant he played a basic passing role in a system that outmanoeuvred a 4–4–2. Once other teams reacted and moved away from the 4–4–2 towards 4–3–3 and 4–2–3–1, Makélélé clones were now simply playing a basic passing role in a system that wasn’t outmanoeuvring the opposition, merely retaining the ball in deep positions without offering penetration. The impact of the Premier League’s most influential defensive midfielder was, unsurprisingly, entirely defensive – at a time when the division was becoming more cautious than ever.

  Part Five

  Reactive Strategy

  13

  Iberian Influence I

  ‘If you have a Ferrari and I have a small car, to beat you in a race I have to break your wheel, or put sugar in your tank.’

  José Mourinho

  Identifying significant moments and historic turning points is simple in hindsight, but even at the time, 2004 felt like a watershed year in football.

  The first four years of the 21st century were largely about attacking football. Euro 2000 was a celebration of creative, technical play, while the 2002 World Cup was won by Brazil’s terrifying trio of attackers: Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo. Arsenal had become Manchester United’s regular title rivals by playing attacking football, Real Madrid won the European Cup in 2000 and 2002 with their galácticos, and Serie A – traditionally considered Europe’s most defensive league – was on the decline. Attacking football dominated.

  Then came 2004, which featured historic shocks at both club and international level. First, in a brilliant Champions League competition dominated by well-drilled underdogs, José Mourinho’s Porto recorded a sensational victory, defeating Monaco 3–0 in the final. Thirty-nine days later, there was an equally improbable triumph at Euro 2004, when 80/1 outsiders Greece shocked Europe by lifting the trophy. Both Porto and Greece, while thoroughly impressive, were unquestionably defensive. Porto’s outstanding qualities were their defensive shape and their incredibly effective offside trap. Mourinho had deliberately made a defensive shift – in the Portuguese league, where Porto were champions, Porto both scored and conceded their fewest number of goals in nine seasons, as he realised a more cautious outlook was required to succeed in Europe. Greece, meanwhile, used man-marking at the back, a tactic rarely witnessed in top-level modern football, combined with a reactive formation and a heavy reliance upon set-pieces for goals. They won their knockout games 1–0, 1–0, 1–0 against the holders (France), the best attacking team (Czech Republic) and the hosts (Portugal), each time with a headed goal. Suddenly, it felt like Porto and Greece had shown the way to succeed, particularly for underdogs – play defensively.

  The UEFA Cup also proved significant. It was won by Valencia, who also triumphed in La Liga, and they were another side who focused upon defensive structure rather than attacking firepower. Their coach, Rafael Benítez, was famed for his excellent organisational skills, and while his 2003/04 side were perfectly attractive, he’d developed a reputation for defensive football, as his 2001/02 title winners scored just 51 goals in 38 games, an astonishingly low tally for champions. In each of Benítez’s three campaigns at Valencia, the team conceded the fewest goals in La Liga.

  When both Chelsea and Liverpool found themselves with managerial vacancies that summer, they turned to Mourinho and Benítez respectively. Both could have ended up in either job; a young Mourinho was a huge admirer of Liverpool, and his agent approached the Reds in March, when Gerard Houllier was still in charge, trying to broker a deal for the following season. Liverpool were reluctant to go behind Houllier’s back, but Chelsea had fewer reservations, and even their manager Claudio Ranieri was aware of the situation – when Charlton fans sang ‘You’re getting sacked in the summer’ to the Italian, he showed typically good grace by turning around and responding, ‘No, I will be sacked in May!’ His prediction was correct – he headed to Valencia as Benítez’s replacement, and wouldn’t reappear in the Premier League for 11 years.

  Had Liverpool been bolder and pounced for Mourinho, it’s likely that Chelsea would have turned to Benítez – he would join many years later, winning the Europa League in 2013. But regardless of their specific destination in 2004, Mourinho and Benítez’s joint arrival was a significant moment; two managers who had triumphed in continental competition through defensive football were about to transform English the game. It made the Premier League more tactically intelligent, more suited to European football – a
nd, almost immediately, more cautious. The goals-per-game rate dropped from 2.66 to 2.57 for 2004/05, before falling further to 2.48 in 2005/06 and then 2.45 in 2006/07, the lowest rate in the Premier League era. It’s also the only time that figure has declined in three consecutive campaigns – the three years Mourinho and Benítez were together in the league. Their impact is difficult to ignore.

  The more eye-catching appointment was Mourinho. English football had been introduced to the 41-year-old when he sprinted down the Old Trafford touchline to celebrate with his players after Costinha netted a late equaliser against Manchester United, sending Porto into the Champions League quarter-finals. He was unlike anything the Premier League had witnessed before: young, handsome, highly confrontational but also somewhat charming. At his unveiling he pronounced himself ‘a special one’ – not the special one, as is often reported – a quote that would dominate headlines for years. Mourinho, from the outset, provided tremendous excitement in press conferences, but rather less entertainment on the pitch.

  His coaching background initially appeared simple – a brief spell with Benfica, then half a campaign with União de Leiria before his success at Porto – but his experiences beforehand proved most fascinating. Mourinho studied for his coaching badges and worked with various small Portuguese clubs, but then received his big break in an unusual fashion, when former England manager Bobby Robson was appointed at Sporting Lisbon and required an interpreter. Mourinho got the job, and he subsequently followed Robson to Porto in 1994 and Barcelona in 1996. Initially Mourinho was literally a mere interpreter, translating Robson’s instructions to the squad, but Robson gradually recognised Mourinho’s footballing intelligence and his role steadily increased, to the point where he served as an assistant to both Robson and his replacement at Barcelona, Louis van Gaal.

  Under Robson, Mourinho was handed the task of planning training sessions, focusing upon the areas Robson tended to ignore – defensive issues. ‘If we were to divide the match into three parts, we’d see that Bobby Robson’s work concentrates mainly on the final part, finishing and scoring,’ Mourinho later explained. ‘I tried to take a step back – that is, while maintaining the primacy of attacking football, I tried to organise it better, and this organisation stems directly from the defence.’

  More than anything, however, Mourinho impressed both Robson and Van Gaal when scouting upcoming opponents. ‘He’d come back and hand me a dossier that was absolutely first class,’ said Robson. ‘I mean first class, as good as anything I’d ever received. Here he was, in his early thirties, never been a player, never been a coach to speak of either, giving me reports as good as anything I ever got from the top professional people I’d brought in to scout for me at World Cups … There would be the way the teams played in the match he’d been sent to – both teams – with defence and attack covered very well, patterns of play, nicely set out with diagrams and a different colour for each team, all clear as a bell. I remember telling him, “Well done, son.”’

  Mourinho thrived at Barcelona, where he worked with a considerably higher standard of players than in Portugal. Although some of Barcelona’s attacking superstars paid little attention to him, Mourinho developed particularly good relationships with two players, Laurent Blanc and Pep Guardiola. Both, notably, would later become top-level coaches themselves, the latter becoming his major rival. Robson was shifted upstairs after a season to accommodate Van Gaal, and convinced the Dutchman to retain Mourinho’s services. Van Gaal tells a familiar tale. ‘He was kept on, initially for a year. To start with he was just a translator, but gradually he became as valued as my other assistants – he could read the game and he analysed the opposition so well that, after my first year, when we won the Spanish championship and Cup, I was happy for him to stay for three more years.’ Again, an experienced manager was won over by Mourinho’s ability to assess the opposition.

  This emphasis upon the opposition became Mourinho’s defining feature as a coach. Here was no footballing philosopher in the manner of Arsène Wenger, who emphasised the importance of beautiful football and a consistent strategy, but instead a true tactician, someone who would vary his approach every week and concentrate heavily upon stopping the opposition. Ahead of Mourinho’s first match in charge of Benfica in 2000/01 he requested a scouting report on the opposition, eventual champions Boavista. But Mourinho was appalled at the amateurish nature of the report from the scouting department, which included a tactical diagram featuring only ten players, omitting Boavista’s inspirational midfielder Erwin Sánchez. He didn’t request another report, and instead hired an old university colleague at his own expense to scout the opposition.

  Mourinho continued to place great emphasis upon the opposition. Later, when at Porto and preparing for a crucial game against his former side Benfica, Mourinho sent a spy to observe Benfica’s training sessions because he was unsure whether they would use a tall centre-forward, Edgaras Jankauskas (whom Mourinho later signed), or the speedier Mantorras – his choice of centre-backs would change according to which one his team were facing. Mourinho’s opposition scouts went above and beyond the call of duty. By the time Porto had qualified for the Champions League Final against Monaco in 2004, the opposition scouting was even more thorough. Mourinho’s staff created a personal DVD for each individual player, showing clips of their direct opponent. Then, after the players had watched the DVDs, Mourinho assembled the squad and chaired a discussion about Monaco’s characteristics, effectively transforming opposition scouting into a group activity. It’s little surprise that when he arrived at Chelsea a few weeks later, captain John Terry declared that Mourinho ‘prepares for the opposition more thoroughly than anything I have ever known.’

  At a time when Wenger seldom mentioned the opposition to his players and Sir Alex Ferguson did so primarily for major games against tough opponents, Mourinho was entirely different. A couple of days before each game Chelsea’s players would return to the dressing room after training to find a dossier, usually six or seven pages long, next to their peg. It was entirely devoted to the opposition, explaining their team shape and set-pieces, and featured a paragraph on each player. It contained specific information and diagrams for key danger men – the runs they made at corners, the type of passes playmakers attempted. Tellingly, Mourinho handed the job of opposition scout to the most talented member of his coaching staff – a young André Villas-Boas, who would later win the Europa League with Porto before taking charge of Chelsea and Tottenham. Like Mourinho, he became renowned for the quality of his dossiers.

  This approach continued in Chelsea’s training sessions. Pre-season, which had been heavily dominated by fitness work under Ranieri, was now all about defensive organisation and team shape, and once the season was under way there was a specific focus upon the opposition. Ranieri had introduced this practice, although many Chelsea players felt he simply highlighted the opposition’s strengths, which they found demoralising – ‘After three years at Real Madrid, where we were never asked the slightest question about our opponents, it was bizarre to me,’ complained Claude Makélélé. Mourinho was keener to suggest how weaknesses could be exploited.

  Like many other clubs during this period, Chelsea increasingly used ProZone to statistically analyse their performance. But, as Terry said, ‘We get the same information about the other team, and that’s what we tend to focus on more.’ Chelsea had a team meeting the day before a match, when Mourinho would talk through video clips of the opposition, and then the final training session would be specifically geared towards that weekend’s task. ‘You believe you are playing your opponents in that final training session,’ said Terry. ‘Everything you are doing is with them in mind. Your whole week has been building up to this point – you’ve read the dossier the manager has prepared, you’ve listened to what he has had to say at the team meeting and by Friday afternoon you feel ready.’ While opposition scouting was hardly a new innovation, this level of focus was generally considered the preserve of underdogs. Chelse
a were no underdog – in Mourinho’s first season they won the league with 95 points, the Premier League’s highest tally.

  This was a defensive side. Chelsea sat deep, with Terry partnered by the excellent Ricardo Carvalho, who boasted a great relationship with right-back Paulo Ferreira, both players having followed Mourinho from Porto. Mourinho chopped and changed at left-back, but the most common starter was William Gallas, a right-footed centre-back who inevitably played more defensively than a natural left-back. Makélélé, of course, sat solidly in front of the defence. The midfielders were under strict instructions to track runners, and the centre-forward was expected to start the defensive work. One of Mourinho’s favourite training exercises involved Chelsea playing possession football, but always keeping at least five men behind the ball.

  No other Premier League team has recorded such incredible defensive statistics. Only 15 goals conceded in an entire campaign is remarkable, and somehow 25 clean sheets in 38 Premier League games sounds even better. Between mid-December and early March Chelsea didn’t concede a single league goal; for 1,025 minutes and ten complete games Čech remained unbeaten until Leon McKenzie – who later quit football to become a professional boxer – headed home for Norwich. McKenzie’s header was arguably the first time all season Chelsea conceded a ‘preventable’ goal from open play. Five of the eight previous strikes were unstoppable long-range efforts from Southampton’s James Beattie, West Brom’s Zoltán Gera, Fulham’s Papa Bouba Diop and two from Arsenal’s Thierry Henry, including a quickly taken free-kick. There was also a Nicolas Anelka penalty in Chelsea’s first and only defeat of the season – at Manchester City – while two concessions against Bolton came, inevitably, from free-kicks aimed towards the head of Kevin Davies, one he nodded in himself, the other he knocked down for Rahdi Jaïdi to smash home. Clearly, Mourinho would have been annoyed to lose goals from set-pieces. But as far as Chelsea’s shape in open play was concerned, it took until March for them to be breached properly. This largely stemmed from their incredible attention to detail in terms of stopping the opposition.