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 Saturday
1st October 2005 By Stephen Kelly Another night, another ninety minutes in which the notion that football, once referred to as the ‘Beautiful Game’, has become boring was reinforced at Anfield, as Premier League Champions Chelsea and Champions League winners Liverpool hoofed and defended long balls en route to an instantly forgettable 0-0 stalemate. Many people are becoming more and more frustrated with Mourinho and the way in which his Chelsea team approach their games, looking to fight and wear down their opposition and snatch a narrow victory and clean sheet. Wednesday night was further evidence of the Chelsea style in action, the richest and most expensively assembled team in the world playing for a 0-0 draw against a team whose only domestic success this season came against the might of Sunderland in a narrow 1-0 home win. To be fair, Liverpool didn’t exactly help. Their 4-5-1 formation and tactics consisting of long balls towards Peter Crouch in a style of play that would have made Wimbledon, or the MK Dons for you newer fans of the sport, proud didn’t put any pressure on Chelsea to come out of their defensive shell. They were playing for 0-0, and Liverpool’s hyper-cautious method of chasing the game meant they were always likely to get it. Chelsea fans, and indeed many others, will point with great relevance at Chelsea’s record this season. 1 goal conceded in the Premiership, 7 wins from 7 in the Premiership, 0 goals conceded in the Champions League, 4 points from 2 games in the Champions League. The Premiership looks like it is theirs already; they are one of the favourites for the Champions League. Sounds great, doesn’t it? So what’s the problem? It’s killing the game. Managers throughout the country have looked to emulate Mourinho, the previously very rare 4-5-1 formation experiencing a noticeable, and not likely coincidental, upsurge in popularity. Emphasis has been placed on not getting beaten, rather than winning games. Teams have gotten men behind the ball, sat in front of their own area and asked teams to break them down if they can. Often, this has resulted in somewhat comical matches with both teams appearing to be playing for a 0-0, while harbouring hopes they might actually nick a goal of their own and win. It is understandable. Success breeds imitation. As you all no doubt are aware, attendances are down throughout the country, and it is the poor style of football on display that is the primary reason for this. But you can’t blame Mourinho and Chelsea for this, right? They are getting results, winning games, winning trophies, right? People only hate the truly great teams, right? Like the Liverpool of the 70’s and 80’s, the Manchester United of the 90’s, Chelsea are simply the new enemy for the new millennium, and we should all learn to accept it, right? Wrong. The aforementioned Liverpool and Man United sides, while hated, were respected and begrudgingly admired by supporters of fellow teams. People admired Ferguson, Shankly and Paisley not only for the fact that they won, but the style in which they did so. Can the same be said of Mourinho? No, and he will not be remembered in the same breath as these great managers unless he changes his approach to the Chelsea team he is building. Why? Because he has been given resources that dwarf anything ever given to a football manager in the history of the sport and what has he done with it? He has built a team that are nigh on impossible to watch at times. A unit designed to succeed rather than be great, a machine that manufactures football rather than plays it. A disgrace to the resources he was given. George Graham deserves more credit for his successful Arsenal side of the 80’s/90’s because, while boring, he built a team that could win on limited resources. Mourinho has been given a blank chequebook, unprecedented in football, with which he could have built the “Dream Team”, the team that would be the best ever assembly of 11 players to grace a field, demolishing teams with flair and style. Instead he has stacked his team with powerful athletes, who as a team can bully anyone off the pitch, but as a group of footballers would, and I pray will be, put to shame by the likes of Barcelona and AC Milan. This is best evidenced when looking at Frank Lampard’s “delivery” from set-plays against Liverpool. The tactic of blasting the ball as hard as he physically can in the general direction of the goal, hoping that somehow the ball will ricochet off someone, anyone, please for the love of God go in, and find it’s way into the net. Depressing doesn’t even scratch the surface of what I feel upon seeing this. £263,700,000 spent on transfers in just over 2 years since Abramovich took over at Chelsea, £142,450,000 of that from Mourinho. This is more, and pretty comfortably, than all the other Premiership teams put together in the same period. Bear in mind that Chelsea qualified for the Champions League the season before the Russian arrived and you have a good idea of the resources that Mourinho has had. And Frank Lampard is the most suitable free-kick taker on the team? Tells a story, doesn’t it? Not to knock Lampard, one of the best midfielders in the country today without question, but can’t Chelsea, rhetorical and all as the question is, afford somebody with a bit more class on the ball? Lampard, while a great box-to-box midfielder, is no Beckham, Ronaldinho, Kaka or anyone even anywhere near that league when it comes to applying a bit of finesse to the game. The most technically gifted passer of a ball in the Chelsea squad? Geremi, by my reckoning, who will be a bit part player as long as he stays at Chelsea, and certainly no magician on the ball. The system they deploy means that 2 of the 11 positions give you any chance to be somewhat creative, namely the positions that Duff, Robben and Wright-Phillips are battling for. These 3 players are quality no doubt, but this is due mostly to their quickness. Joe Cole may produce something eye-catching at some point, if you’re following the League Cup of course. The other 9 positions are set jobs, roles to be played in the cancelling out of the opposition. Lampard’s role does actually allow some freedom to go forward, but he doesn’t get the freedom you might expect somebody partnering Makelele and Essien, two great defensive midfielders, to get. The 4 defenders are just that, defenders, except for set pieces when they come forward to put themselves in Frank Lampard’s firing line, which is fair, no complaints. Essien and Makelele are there to protect the defence, while Drogba/Crespo is used as a target for long balls that they can hopefully deflect towards Robben or Duff or fall about the place in the hopes of getting a free kick. Which leads to? You guessed it, Frank Lampard kicking the ball hard in the general direction of the goal. Fuck yeah! Of course it’s easy to complain, and I imagine Chelsea fans reading this will think that I am simply jealous of their success. Yes, I’m envious of Chelsea’s success. As a Newcastle fan, seeing any other team so convincingly dominate pains me, as I’m sure it does for any fan, be their team Arsenal, Spurs, Blackburn, Wigan, Wycombe, Hull or any side playing in the English leagues. We want our team to be on top. But we also want to have some pride in our team. Would I turn the blind eye if it were Newcastle winning and boring their way to success, playing a long ball system and generally providing a better way to get to sleep than counting sheep? With all the money they had been given to assemble a team that could have won, and done so in style? I would like to think no. If football is anything for sure, it’s cyclical in nature. Nothing lasts forever. Great teams fall eventually, and all we are left with is memories. Liverpool fans and Man United fans can look back and say, “We weren’t only great, we were entertaining”. Will Chelsea fans be able to do the same in 10 or 15 years time? Not on current form, and it’s a very bad sign for football in general. Great sides that we remember, the Brazil’s, Argentina’s, Liverpool’s, Man United’s, Real Madrid’s, Barcelona’s, AC Milan’s of years gone by dominated, but played great football at the same time. They were the top dogs and so were pointed to as an example to kids as to how the game should be played if you want to be the best. If Chelsea are to dominate as these sides once did and be the best, what does this spell for the future of the game? As kids we went into the playground and pretended to be Maradonna, Beardsley, Cantona, Henry, or whomever we idolised. Are children now going to run out and pretend to be Claude Makelele or Michael Essien, spending their lunch hour trying to stop their opponent’s from playing so they can win the game 1-0? If that’s the way to be great now, I’ll take mediocrity. Should Chelsea continue to succeed playing this way, football will lose the hearts of the public. Football is a business nowadays, but it depends on the public to make it one. Teams are cautious because there is so much money at stake for making an error. The good news is, that if they keep being so cautious, the money will lessen, so the pressure will be off. Maybe then we’ll get some decent football back. © Stephen Kelly
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Blue Murder: Are Chelsea Killing Football?
