Alright, we do, but still. Kevin McCarra in the Guardian says:
The competition, on the whole, was sterile territory for strikers. It now seems midfielders, in one guise or another, are expected to excel.
Jonathan Wilson says something similar in this piece.
Five years ago, at the coaching conference he hosts in Rio de Janeiro, Carlos Alberto Parreira made a prediction that left the room stunned. Discussing how tactics might evolve, the coach who had led Brazil to victory in the 1994 World Cup, suggested that the formation of the future might be 4-6-0.
True, wingers had once seemed sacrosanct, only to be refined out of existence and then reinvented. Yes, playmakers were undergoing a similar process of redevelopment. But centre-forwards? Could football really function with no centre-forward – without a recognised forward line at all? The answer came in this season’s Champions League final: yes, it could. Manchester United won the world’s premier football tournament with a team that featured no out-and-out striker.
Wilson’s book, “Inverting the pyramid: A history of football tactics” is very, very good. Amazon says it’s not available, but I got mine through The Book Depository so… not sure. Anyway, have a read. Interesting stuff.
So anyway, this all kind of gels with what we were seeing from Fulham at the end of last year. Yes, we had forwards, but the Telegraph Heat Maps showed that in reality Jimmy Bullard was right up there with McBride and Healy/Kamara, that Dempsey and Davies were very attacking, and that Murphy was hardly an anchor man. I’d still like a good forward, but with Zoltan Gera, Dempsey, Bullard, Davies, Murphy, and probably others I can’t remember, we’re well set to move with the times, if this is indeed where the times are moving.
Other things: Spain top the latest ELO Ratings.
Football Shirt Culture has some belters at the moment. Ajax, Lens, Saint Etienne, crackers all.
