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

by Michael Cox

  English football essentially embraced the European model, thanks to a variety of factors, including more foreign players, stricter laws about tackling – which benefited technical talents – and, crucially, a dramatic improvement in the quality of pitches. As late as the 1990s winter matches were often played on horrendous mud baths, which made good football almost impossible. Now, with slick bowling greens up and down the country, teams could trust the pitch and pass the ball.

  In the days of two-man central midfields there were basically three types of combination. You could have two box-to-box midfielders, like a young Roy Keane and Paul Ince at Manchester United, you could have one player sitting in front of the defence and the other scampering forward into attack, like Lee Clark and Robert Lee at Newcastle, or you could have two defensive midfielders, like Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit at Arsenal.

  The three-man midfield made everything considerably more complex. For a start, the positioning of the midfielders took two different forms: always a triangle, but arranged in completely opposite ways. The 4–3–3, as popularised by José Mourinho, featured one holding player with the two others broadly playing box-to-box roles, whereas the 4–2–3–1 favoured by Rafael Benítez meant two players sharing defensive midfield responsibilities, often with some freedom to advance, and a proper number 10. That’s just the positioning of the players, too; their actual styles could vary wildly. The deepest midfielder could be a pure ball-winner like Javier Mascherano or a deep-lying creator like Michael Carrick, the ‘second’ midfielder could be a pure passer like Xabi Alonso or an enegetic all-rounder like Michael Essien, and the most attacking midfielder could be a driving, powerful player like Steven Gerrard or a playmaker like Tomáš Rosický. Forming a cohesive midfield became more difficult, and traditional midfield roles were crucially altered.

  During this period English football observers didn’t often appreciate the variation in the different midfield roles, in part because English football vocabulary is somewhat lacking in tactical terms. An Italian, for example, can instantly pinpoint the difference between a regista like Andrea Pirlo, a deep-lying midfielder, and a trequartista like Francesco Totti, who plays behind the forwards. But in England they were all ‘midfielders’, and the addition of ‘defensive’ and ‘attacking’ as prefixes didn’t differentiate between roles in a 4–4–2, a 4–3–3 or a 4–2–3–1. These terms also failed to appreciate that, as football became more universal, deep-lying midfielders could play creative roles and advanced midfielders could play defensive roles.

  Such changes are best explained by the tactical development of three outstanding English midfielders during this period: Manchester United’s Paul Scholes, Chelsea’s Frank Lampard and Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard. This trio were among the most revered players of their generation and represented the three most dominant sides during the mid-2000s. But, more significantly, they learned their trade in 4–4–2 systems before thriving in three-man midfields, and all played multiple roles throughout their career, because of personal development and the changing nature of the Premier League. Of course, they also played together at international level, which posed a tricky tactical conundrum never entirely solved, and England’s tactical inadequacy throughout the 2000s was particularly obvious when juxtaposed with increasingly sophisticated Premier League strategies.

  The first to emerge was Scholes, who is considered part of two ‘golden generations’, but was actually slightly separated from both. At international level he’s often remembered alongside Lampard and Gerrard, but was nearly four years older than the former and six older than the latter. At club level he belonged to the ‘class of ’92’, but it’s significant that while Nicky Butt, David Beckham, Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs all played regularly throughout United’s famous Youth Cup victory that year, Scholes didn’t play a single minute, and also made his first-team breakthrough later.

  Although a prodigiously talented youngster, there were major concerns about Scholes’s lack of physicality. He played alongside future teammates Butt and Neville even before joining Manchester United, in the all-conquering Boundary Park youth side. ‘He might have stood out to the trained eye for his lovely skills, but as a 15-year-old my first thought was that he was too small,’ remembered Neville. Mike Walsh, Boundary Park’s manager at the time, described Scholes as ‘like a baby’ in terms of stature, and tried to protect him against physical opposition, which included playing him on the right flank, although Scholes was ‘always drifting into the middle because he wanted to play centre-forward’.

  Upon joining Manchester United, Scholes suffered from knee problems and bronchitis, while youth coach Eric Harrison, responsible for developing the class of ’92, admitted Scholes had ‘no real pace, no strength’ and needed to convince him that this wasn’t a barrier to success. Ferguson was also unconvinced by Scholes’s physical capabilities. One day in training he turned to his assistant Jim Ryan and said of Scholes, ‘He’s got no chance, he’s a midget.’ But the more he watched Scholes, the more he appreciated his technical quality.

  When breaking through, Scholes was a deep-lying forward rather than a midfielder. Harrison said he reminded him of Kenny Dalglish, while Ferguson expressed concerns about playing him in the same side as Cantona because they were too similar. ‘When Eric goes, that’s when he will really emerge as a really key player,’ Ferguson said. ‘They play in similar positions, and I have him marked down as Eric’s successor.’ Scholes made his debut up front in a 2–0 League Cup victory over Port Vale in 1994, wearing the number 10 shirt and scoring both goals, a calm dink over the goalkeeper, then a powerful near-post header. But physical concerns remained a problem. ‘There was no getting away from the fact that Paul was small for a centre-forward,’ Ferguson later recalled, ‘And it was also clear that he didn’t have the requisite pace for that role.’

  After initially playing him in various positions, more in midfield than attack, Ferguson stuck to his word after Cantona’s retirement in 1997 and used Scholes in the Frenchman’s role. He was a classic number 10, and his first six starts of 1997/98 saw him playing just behind Teddy Sheringham or Andy Cole, with Butt and Roy Keane the two central midfielders. However, Keane’s season-ending knee injury in September meant United suddenly lacked options in midfield, so Scholes retreated to a position alongside Butt, with Beckham and Giggs either side. That became his default role – at least at club level.

  Scholes made his England debut that summer against South Africa, introduced in place of Sheringham to play off Ian Wright. He assisted England’s winner within ten minutes, a classic strike partnership goal, with Scholes’s flicked header finding Wright, who finished first-time. England’s manager at the time, Glenn Hoddle, was perfect for a cultured, un-English footballer like Scholes, who was all about technical skills rather than physicality, and he also starred in the Tournoi de France, a World Cup warm-up event, again combining brilliantly with Wright as they assisted one another in England’s 2–0 win over Italy. He quickly became a first-team regular, partly because of Paul Gascoigne’s sudden decline, and by the 1998 World Cup, only a year after his debut, was handed the number 10 role behind Alan Shearer and Michael Owen in a 3–4–1–2 system largely based around him. He scored seven goals in his first 16 games, including a hat-trick in a 3–1 victory over Poland in 1999, Kevin Keegan’s first game in charge, then hit two in the crucial Euro 2000 play-off away at Scotland.

  Before that two-legged play-off, Scholes was rested for a friendly against Belgium. The man who took his place was debutant Frank Lampard, and this is where the rivalry for England’s attacking midfield slot began.

  Lampard was a very different player to Scholes. He’d enjoyed the perfect footballing upbringing; his dad, also named Frank, was a West Ham legend, playing 660 games at left-back, and was twice capped by England. By the mid-1990s Frank Snr was West Ham’s assistant manager under Harry Redknapp, who was also his brother-in-law – that, of course, meant Redknapp was Lampard Jr’s uncle, and England interna
tional Jamie Redknapp was his cousin. Lampard also remembers Bobby Moore dropping around for cups of tea and chats about West Ham – he was immersed in football from an early age.

  Lampard lacked the natural ability of a player like Scholes, however, admitting that other West Ham youth products such as Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand and Michael Carrick had more technical quality, and his defining feature was his incredible dedication and commitment. More than anything, this was about improving his physical qualities. Often mocked for being chubby in his younger days, Lampard spent hours sprinting the length of his back garden in running spikes, and stayed behind at West Ham’s training ground for solo shuttle runs, charging repeatedly from box to box. At one point a teammate caught him performing a drill on a wet pitch that involved running a short distance between two cones, then sliding across the ground at the end, simulating a slide tackle, then getting up and doing the same in the opposite direction. There was no ball, no opponent; Lampard was purely concerned with the physical aspect of the skill. He unexpectedly made his first start for West Ham in late 1996, for a League Cup game against Stockport when John Moncur came down with flu. Typically, when he received the call from his dad informing him of the selection, Lampard was at the park doing sprint exercises.

  Lampard faced constant accusations of nepotism from West Ham supporters during his early years, and retains genuine antipathy towards their fan base. At a 1996 fans’ forum, which featured a panel including Harry Redknapp, Lampard Jnr and other members of the coaching and playing staff, a supporter implied that Redknapp had given special treatment to his nephew, releasing ‘better’ midfielders like Matt Holland, who enjoyed a fine Premier League career, and Scott Canham, who spent his career in the lower leagues. ‘He will go right to the very top,’ Redknapp hit back. ‘He’s got everything that’s needed to become a top-class midfield player; his attitude is first-class, he’s got strength, he can play, he can pass it and he can score goals.’

  Lampard was always a box-to-box midfielder who prided himself on making constant runs and getting into goalscoring positions, hitting a hat-trick in a League Cup tie against Walsall in 1997/98, his first season as a regular. He was annoyed when England U21 manager Peter Taylor took him aside and suggested his long-term future was as a holding player, but also rejected the idea that he was a mere goalscorer. ‘I didn’t want to be a goalscoring midfielder in the mould of Robert Pirès or Gus Poyet,’ he said. ‘I wanted to be a midfielder who scored goals – someone who was involved in all aspects of the play, from defending to making the final pass, as well as hitting the back of the net regularly.’

  Lampard’s England debut in late 1999 – when he started alongside his cousin, Jamie Redknapp – probably came a little early. His second appearance was in Sven-Göran Eriksson’s first game in charge, 18 months later, his next start was two and a half years later, and his first international goal nearly four years later, in August 2003. He wasn’t involved at Euro 2000 or the 2002 World Cup, by which time he’d moved to Chelsea. In the meantime someone else had established himself as Scholes’s midfield partner in Eriksson’s 4–4–2 system: Steven Gerrard.

  Born and raised in Liverpool, Gerrard joined the club’s academy when he was nine and played in youth teams alongside Michael Owen from the age of 11. There was, however, something unique about Gerrard’s young football experience. His cousin Jon-Paul Gilhooley – a couple of years older and a huge Liverpool fan – was the youngest person killed at the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. They regularly played football together in the street outside Gerrard’s house in Huyton, and Gerrard spoke about the impact Jon-Paul’s death had on his football career. ‘Whenever I saw his parents during my trainee days, it gave me an extra determination to succeed.’

  Gerrard was an excellent passer from a young age, although his football career was nearly over at the age of ten because of a freak accident. When playing football near his house the ball bounced into a patch of nettles. In an attempt to retrieve it Gerrard launched a big kick at the undergrowth, only to plough his foot straight into an upturned garden fork, which became embedded in his big toe. At the hospital there was serious talk of having to amputate the toe, which prompted Gerrard’s father to phone Steve Heighway, Liverpool’s academy director, who rushed to the hospital to convince the doctors not to. Whether his impact made any difference is questionable, but the toe survived.

  Like Lampard, Gerrard was rejected by the FA’s Centre of Excellence in his teenage years and therefore continued at Liverpool, and like Scholes, there was concern about his lack of physicality. In 1998 he made his first-team debut at the age of 18 as a substitute right-back, while his first start was as a right-wing-back against Tottenham, marking David Ginola. But Gerrard was clearly a central midfielder, and his first game in that position, against a Celta Vigo team featuring Claude Makélélé, saw him named man of the match.

  Opportunities were limited for the next couple of years and Gerrard was often forced to play on the right, but he became a regular in early 2000 alongside the defensive-minded Didi Hamann. Gerrard played a role comparable to Patrick Vieira at that time; although he had licence to storm forward into attack and scored some fine long-range goals, he was essentially a defensive midfielder charged with breaking up the opposition’s play. During his early years the most distinctive feature of Gerrard’s game was his aggressive tackling, something that prompted concerns. At one stage Heighway called Gerrard’s father to ask if his home life was alright because he showed such aggression in training, and at 16 Gerrard was sent to a sports psychologist, Bill Beswick, in an attempt to stop him lunging into tackles. He was twice dismissed in Merseyside derbies for awful tackles on Kevin Campbell and Gary Naysmith, once left Arsène Wenger fuming after a challenge on Vieira in a Community Shield game, and was dismissed for a tackle on Aston Villa’s George Boateng that was so bad he felt compelled to phone the Dutchman and apologise. ‘The physical nature of the Premiership suits my style,’ he said. ‘Tackle and be tackled, get up and get on with it.’

  Gerrard was fast-tracked into the England squad, where he was blown away by Scholes’s ability in training. ‘He was just so sharp, so clever,’ he remembered. ‘He was banging goals in from everywhere – crossing, finishing, volleys, the power on his shots, the dip and the movement.’ His debut came in May 2000, a 2–0 victory over Ukraine playing holding midfield in a 3–5–2 behind Scholes and Steve McManaman, and was so impressive that he was included in the squad for Euro 2000 as an understudy for Paul Ince, playing half an hour in England’s 1–0 win over Germany. That performance was notable for a trademark crunching tackle on Hamann, his club teammate. ‘I don’t think he deserved that tackle,’ said Gerrard, ahead of another meeting between the countries later that year. ‘But he shouldn’t have squealed like a girl, should he?’

  Ince retired from internationals after Euro 2000, and with limited competition for the defensive-minded midfield slot – centre-backs Gareth Southgate and Jamie Carragher occasionally being used there – Gerrard became a regular under Eriksson. He was outstanding on his sixth appearance, scoring the goal that put England ahead in the famous 5–1 victory away at Germany.

  However, this is where England’s compromise in the centre of midfield started. ‘My job was to break everything up, smash the Germans before they got going. I’d prefer to be more attack-minded, but this was still good, banging into Germans,’ recalled Gerrard, who generally wore the number 4 shirt for England but took 8 at Liverpool, underlining the difference in roles. It was notable, too, that he remembers Scholes ‘playing more defensive than normal’ against Germany, partly because of the tactical performance required, but also because Gerrard was less disciplined than Scholes’s usual midfield partners, the likes of Ince, Nicky Butt and David Batty.

  So while England recorded a significant victory, generally by counter-attacking through Michael Owen and Emile Heskey rather than outpassing Germany, they’d subtly started deploying neither central midfielder in their optimum position. Both
were playing more defensively than they liked. There was little sign of Eriksson ditching the 4–4–2 system for an alternative shape – indeed, for all the controversy about England appointing their first-ever foreign boss, Eriksson was much more of an ‘English’ 4–4–2 man than Terry Venables, Hoddle or Keegan, in part because two Englishmen, Bob Houghton and Roy Hodgson, had introduced the 4–4–2 system to Eriksson’s native Sweden in the 1970s.

  Around this point, Scholes’s performances for England dipped. His goalscoring rate slowed dramatically, partly because of this change in role; from seven goals in his first 16 internationals, he only managed seven more in his subsequent 50. He wasn’t offering particularly authoritative passing displays, either; he was particularly poor in the famous 2–2 draw against Greece, when David Beckham’s last-gasp free-kick sealed qualification to the 2002 World Cup, then was outperformed by Manchester United colleague Butt at the tournament itself, with Gerrard absent through injury.

  Gerrard and Scholes became England’s first-choice midfield partnership throughout qualification for Euro 2004, although Scholes’s lack of goals had become a major talking point. At club level he’d been pushed forward to an attacking midfield position in a 4–4–1–1 formation behind Ruud van Nistelrooy, scoring a career-high 14 league goals in 2002/03. But going into Euro 2004 Scholes hadn’t scored for England in three years. ‘I’m in the team to score goals, and if I’m not doing that, I know there’s a chance I won’t be picked,’ he admitted. ‘I am expected to score. If that’s not happening, I’m not contributing as much as I should be to the team. It’s not just about me, either. When there are players like Frank Lampard having a great season, they probably deserve to be given a place in the starting line-up. If the manager were to pick him instead of me, I’d wish him all the best because I know I haven’t done what I should have been doing.’