The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines. Michael Cox
entered the game in disastrous form, having collected just seven points from their previous six matches. Keegan made one change, with Watson replacing Barton at right-back, probably linked to the fact Watson had already scored two winners that season against Liverpool, in the reverse league fixture and the League Cup.
The ludicrously open nature of the contest was summarised by the positioning of Ginola. Newcastle played a 4–4–2 system while Roy Evans’ Liverpool played 3–5–2, which meant an inevitable question about whether or not Ginola would track Liverpool’s right-wingback Jason McAteer. The answer was simple – he didn’t. This had both positive and negative consequences; after Robbie Fowler had opened the scoring and Les Ferdinand equalised, Ginola’s advanced positioning behind McAteer meant he streaked away on a counter-attack. Liverpool’s centre-backs played very narrow, and Ginola had the entire left flank to himself, finishing coolly.
In the second half, however, Liverpool exploited the space behind Ginola, in particular with Steve McManaman’s constant drifts to that flank. He crossed for Fowler to equalise and had another dangerous cross sliced just wide of the far post by Steve Howey. Newcastle raced down the other end and scored again through Asprilla, in part because Liverpool centre-back John Scales had dropped very deep to cope with Ginola’s advanced positioning, playing the Colombian onside. Liverpool soon equalised again with a right-wing cross – this time a beautiful curled ball by McAteer, with Ginola nowhere to be seen. 3–3, and arguably two goals at either end came from Ginola’s positioning. The final five minutes were even more open, after Evans boldly introduced veteran striker Ian Rush for left-wing-back Rob Jones, with Collymore moving left. After interplay between Rush and John Barnes in the centre, the ball was switched wide to Collymore, who smashed home the winner. Liverpool had won the game with the type of attacking gamble that Keegan greatly admired. Keegan loved contributing to such a legendary, attack-minded game. ‘After the match I turned to Terry Mac and said, “I know I should be disappointed, but I’m elated,”’ he later recalled.
Newcastle’s players gave various tactical explanations for their decline. Ferdinand was frustrated the attack was now built around Asprilla. Gillespie believed his omission meant Newcastle weren’t stretching the play properly, something Lee agreed with, as Beardsley wasn’t at home on the right. Goalkeeper Pavel Srníček suggested Batty upset the rhythm of the side, and also accepted that Newcastle were simply found out by better sides in the second half of the campaign. The experiment with Albert as a sweeper in a rough 3–5–2, meanwhile, lasted two games, cost Newcastle five points and was immediately abandoned. Ginola’s decline in the second half of the season was also significant; his defensive sluggishness was criticised, but it wouldn’t have been problematic had he contributed the attacking efficiency of earlier in the season.
More than anything else, however, Newcastle’s problem was their overall lack of cohesion, surely due to omitting any collective work on the training ground. Keegan’s threw together talented individuals and let them run free, which largely worked with a simple, old-fashioned 4–4–2 that everyone knew how to play. But this laissez-faire style proved problematic when Keegan suddenly switched shape, when he signed a different type of centre-forward and a different type of deep midfielder. Newcastle simply didn’t have any tactics; their approach was a consequence of the 11 players Keegan assembled on any particular day.
But while Newcastle ultimately fell short of winning the Premier League, it was unquestionably a glorious failure; the players remain heroes in the city, the team still admired across the country. Keegan’s achievement in taking Newcastle from the second tier to the brink of the title shouldn’t be underestimated, and while naivety may have cost Newcastle the title, the most pertinent story is that they came so close with such basic tactics, highlighting the primitive approach of most Premier League sides at this point.
The title was presented in the north-east – but at Middlesbrough, where Manchester United ended the season with a 3–0 victory. Keegan was magnanimous in defeat, immediately congratulating Manchester United and predicting they would be ‘fantastic representatives of the Premier League in the Champions League’ the following season. It recalled the way he’d referred to Asprilla, upon the Colombian’s arrival, as ‘a real asset to the Premier League – and Newcastle United, I hope’. Perhaps it was just semantics, but it’s difficult to imagine Ferguson, who cultivated an ‘us against the world’ approach, caring about the benefits to the league as a whole.
Newcastle responded to their failure in dramatic fashion, breaking the world transfer record to sign hometown boy Shearer from Blackburn. Keegan lasted just half of the following campaign before suddenly resigning, to be replaced by, inevitably, Dalglish. With Batty, Shearer and Dalglish, it was clear Newcastle were trying to be Blackburn – but tactically, the Premier League was already moving in a different direction.
Part Two
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‘Cantona’s supporters loved him, and so did the media. He was this foreign fella, different. Everyone wanted one like him, but it didn’t mean players like that grew on trees.’
Roy Evans
As Eric Cantona’s influence ensured Manchester United became the Premier League’s dominant force, other clubs desperately searched for their Cantona equivalent. A wave of talented, mercurial but often inconsistent number 10s joined the Premier League during the mid-1990s, with mixed success. England wasn’t producing players in that mould, so clubs looked abroad – often to relatively obscure footballing nations. Supporters of unglamorous, mid-table Premier League sides could now get excited by exotic, mysterious foreign deep-lying forwards whose presence was meant to inspire more aesthetically pleasing football.
Ipswich Town, for example, had Bulgarian Boncho Genchev, who opened his goalscoring account with a wonderful bicycle kick against Blackburn. He positioned himself between the lines to encourage passing football, but struggled to exert a consistent impact upon Premier League games. After a brief spell back home, he ended his career with a couple of spells at non-league Hendon, taking a break in between to run a short-lived Bulgarian café in Kensington called ‘Strikers’. Genchev himself wasn’t actually a striker, of course, although he was presumably comfortable in the serving role.
Southampton found the diminutive, extraordinarily gifted Israeli Eyal Berkovic, who featured decisively in the Saints’ famous 6–3 victory over Manchester United in 1996, his second league start. Berkovic enjoyed a successful Premier League career, although he is probably most famous for being booted in the head during a West Ham training session by teammate John Hartson.
Derby County signed Aljoša Asanović, a wonderful left-footed creator who played a significant part in Croatia’s journey to the Euro 96 quarter-finals and the 1998 World Cup semi-finals, and who is quite possibly the most underrated Premier League player. Unsurprisingly, he insisted on taking the number 10 shirt. Coventry City signed Moroccan Mustapha Hadji, a direct dribbler with a fine passing range, and he also took number 10. At West Ham, Harry Redknapp signed the Premier League’s first two Portuguese players – first Dani, then Paulo Futre. To Futre’s disgust, he wasn’t handed the number 10 shirt.
Ahead of his first game against Arsenal, West Ham’s kitman Eddie Gillam handed Futre the number 16 shirt, and promptly had it thrown back in his face. Not understanding that the Premier League had switched to permanent squad numbers that were consistent throughout the season and that number 10 had already been allocated to John Moncur, Futre shouted at Redknapp, ‘Futre 10, not 16! Eusebio 10! Maradona 10! Pelé 10! Futre 10! Not fucking 16!’ Redknapp told Futre to either wear the number 16 shirt or go home. So Futre went home. He later insisted the number 10 shirt was written into his contract, and when Redknapp pretended West Ham’s club shop had shifted so many shirts with Futre’s name and ‘16’ on the back that they couldn’t