Rules may have stayed the same since 1992 but modern football’s best teams tend to have 11 outfield players, one of whom can use his handsIn January 1912, two members of the Football Association’s Rules Review committee went to White Hart Lane to watch…
All Mourinho’s instincts will be to kill the game but going for broke represents his best chance of another famous winWhen people said they wanted José Mourinho to make Manchester United more like Alex Ferguson’s treble winners, this, presumably, isn’t…
Tottenham came unstuck when they pressed high at the Etihad last season but it was preferable to their timid performance against Manchester City at WembleyTottenham would press them, push high up the pitch, even from goal-kicks. They’d be aggressive an…
Jose Mourinho’s side were astonishingly passive against Juve but amid his post-match bluster there was the kernel of a pointThe problem with modern European football is how stratified it has become. With resources now divided so unequally, how, realist…
Manchester United seem incapable of doing the thing José Mourinho’s teams are renowned for so the manager must change his approachThere are times when you wonder whether the gods of football have almost too pronounced a sense of irony. Not content with…
Manchester United’s trip to face Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea offers a clash of styles on and off the pitch and starts a defining run of matches for Mourinho One reason put forward to explain why the great plague did not just keep on ravaging the human rac…
Pep Guardiola went back to the basics of Cruyffism at Anfield and in doing so showed new-found flexibility and pragmatismEighteen games into Pep Guardiola’s second season as manager of Bayern Munich, his side lost 4-1 at Wolfsburg. It was their first d…
Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola have both reined in their attacking instincts this season, aware of leaving gaps in defenceIt is all about the full-backs but these days it is always all about the full?backs. From a tactical point of view Sunday’s meetin…
Goalkeeper is an outstanding shot-stopper but does not excel at passing and this is reflected in how Manchester United playDavid de Gea has been named in the PFA team of the year in five of the past six seasons. He has been Manchester United’s player o…
Jorginho will be key in midfield but Gonzalo Higuaín and Sergej Milinkovi?-Savi? would really give the squad some heftBy Martin Laurence for WhoScoredHaving been in the pipeline for a few months, Maurizio Sarri’s arrival came as a relief for the majori…
The changing of the tactical guard at the World Cup was marked by early exits for Germany and Spain, and now the pace and aggression of France shows the way forwardWhen France won the 1998 World Cup, they brought cross-culturalism – which in football i…
The changing of the tactical guard at the World Cup was marked by early exits for Germany and Spain, and now the pace and aggression of France shows the way forwardWhen France won the 1998 World Cup, they brought cross-culturalism – which in football i…
Kylian Mbappé and Mario Mandzukic offer very individual forward threats but the clash of two midfields boasting energy in abundance could be mesmerisingGiven how Croatia struggled to deal with the pace of Raheem Sterling in the first half against Engla…
Five tactical posers for Gareth Southgate and Zlatko Dalic, from England’s set pieces to setting up around Mario MandzukicThe big decision Zlatko Dalic has to make lies in midfield. Does he play Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic deep with Andrej Kramaric in…
Mexico highlighted the vulnerability at right-back, where Danilo and Fagner have struggled to fill Dani Alves’s shoesThere was a spell, for the first 20 minutes or so, when it seemed Mexico might be able to trouble Brazil. Carlos Vela was getting the b…
Tactical postmortems must also factor in those things which cannot be planned for, as Spain and Germany can attestNo side, perhaps, is ever so much itself as when it is going out of the World Cup. When teams – or at least those with aspirations to the …
Still waters run deep for last-16 opponents whose Juan Quintero is a proven dead-ball specialistIt was a moment that Idrissa Gana Gueye would surely rather forget. The Everton midfielder’s casual application to defending Senegal’s near post from a corn…
These days we know someone ran 12.345km during a game. An admirable figure but did he run to help? To get in the way? As he ran, did he think? We need the context. If not, let’s leave the numbers for something elseLet’s not allow the uncertainty of res…
Low strike rate has its roots in the bunker mentality created by the growing gulf between rich and poor and the lack of time more talented teams have to develop attacking tacticsIt did not take long – it never does – for all the pre?tournament hype to …
The glut of goals from set pieces suggests that those coachable, controllable moments could be more important than a team’s style in open playHave you noticed that England are all the rage in Russia and I’m not talking about their clothes, their social…
