Where do we go from here...?

Yes, I've been having a fair old tactics binge on Youtube over the past few weeks. After last week's pair of recommendations of videos on recent tactical evolutions in the game, I find myself doing a rapid follow-up with a couple more.

Following up closely on the topic of the first of last week's videos, this one from Football Made Simple looks particularly at how the rapid collapse over the past season or so of the 'positional play' approach developed by Pep Guardiola (due to the mass adoption of man-marking rather than zonal systems) has led to both Pep and Mikel Arteta having to radically modify their approaches to the game. This has involved developing far more versatility in the players (so that they can feel comfortable and be effective in just about any area of the pitch) and far more fluidity of rotation (so that they're tiring and discombobulating their markers by dragging them all over the pitch, shifting them miles away from where they're used to being). Despite some success for this new approach, the increasing impenetrability of the dense low-blocks employed against them for long periods by almost all their opponents is still starving them of scoring chances. One answer to that issue has been to look for players with more mercurial improvisatory talents, players with the close control and the imagination to carve an opening where none seems possible (such as Cherki and Doku now at City). An alternate approach - apparently more favoured by Snr Arteta, who has been presciently basing his squad-building around it for some years already now - is to assemble a corps of brick shithouses who can, when called upon, use their superior physicality to just power their way past, or through, defending players. Not that these options are at all mutually exclusive: Arsenal, after all, have acquired Eze to potentially amp up the guile supplied by Odegaard and Saka, while Haaland and Gvardiol and Semenyo are built like tanks quite as much as Gabriel and Timber and Rice and Havertz and Gyokeres. However, it still seems doubtful if either of these astute coaches has yet found anything like a complete answer to the new set of challenges being posed.

By coincidence, the same day I first saw that video I also happened upon a new post from The Different Knock reviewing Arsenal's tactics this season. (I have, in fact, been avoiding Alex Moneypenny's channel for the past few months, because he's such a diehard Arsenal fan, I had feared he might be getting a bit triumphalistic about their title-leading performance this season. To be fair, though, he does try to be very moderate and even-handed in his assessments, and resists getting too carried away....) It seems he's actually feeling a bit glum and anxious at the moment, recognising that Arsenal have once again been suffering one of their notorious 'midwinter wobbles', and that there is some foundation to the common criticisms currently being made of them: their predictability in attack (always down the right...), their excessive risk-aversion, their over-dependence on set-piece routines, and their woeful lack of threat from open play. [I've been saying all season - and was still sticking to the view, despite the first dawning of some doubts, when I did my second set of final position predictions around the beginning of December - that I just didn't feel they were quite good enough all-round to deserve the title this year, and could only win it by default, if all of the main challengers turned out to have poor seasons (which has been the case so far).]

And then, of course, my favourite video analyst, Adam Clery, just added a video about Arsenal's problems - a useful practical footnote to the above more abstract dissertations.

More TACTICS!

 

The informative tactical analyst and football historian DK Falcon doesn't seem to have been posting that much on Youtube lately (not that I've noticed, anyway....), but this interesting piece popped up last weekend. 

In it he outlines the recent major evolutions in top-level football tactics, explaining how the aggressive high press (the 'Gegenpress' developed in Germany in the early 2010s, and brought to England by Jurgen Klopp) was in part a dialectic response to the refined style of controlled possession inspired by Barcelona's 'tiki-taka'; and then in turn the 'press-baiting' approach (being prepared to play the ball around across the back indefinitely, ostentatiously putting your foot on the ball to defy the opposition to try to take it off you, and keeping your back line ultra-deep, sometimes even playing to and fro practically on the goal-line itself - to try to draw the first line of pressure high into the penalty area and expose an inviting gap behind it) and new ways of playing through the high press pioneered by Roberto de Zerbi were a response to this; and now the rapid growth of 'hybrid pressing' (combining elements of zonal marking and man-marking to produce greater flexibility, and enabling rapid transition from high press to mid-block modes) is a reponse to that.

And what's next after that?? Well, maybe something radically different - not just another counter-measure to the prevailing norms, but a new tactical idea that truly breaks the mould. By coincidence, Conor McAinsh's Football Meta published this video at about the same time, breaking down the innovative style of José Alberto's Racing Santander - currently top of the heap in La Segunda in Spain.

Alberto's approach is a kind of extreme 'relationism', largely shunning conventional structures and demanding a great deal of flexibility from his players to constantly rotate positions with each other and improvise their way out of difficulties. The essence of it is to mob the opponent on the ball, closing off all his passing options as quickly as possible; this typically involves concentrating most of the outfield players in a fairly small area, and often putting the entire team in the same half of the pitch. The advantage of this is that it does put the opponent under enormous pressure, with a huge numerical advantage around the ball; and if a turnover is achieved, the wide open spaces left elsewhere on the pitch can be exploited for a swift counter-attack. However, it is necessarily a tactic of high reward/high risk: if the opponent manages to elude this press, he usually has one or more unmarked players in acres of space, especially on the opposite flank, and is even better placed to launch a devastating fast attack. [Fernando Diniz enjoyed some success for a while with a similar system at Fluminense in Brazil a few years ago. The Purist Football did a good video on this back then.]

Feeling overwhelmed...?

 

For no particularly good reason (only the TV companies' remorseless appetite for airtime-filler...), the opening match of the Gameweek 21 schedule, West Ham v Nottingham Forest, is kicking off tonight - Tuesday evening, 8pm, UK time.

These midweek gameweeks are a huge hassle for everyone in FPL, because almost everybody has less time to attend to these things during the working week: certainly less time during the day to check up on the latest team news, but also probably less opportunity to watch games live - or perhaps even to catch up on highlights (promptly, or at all...).

But it's even worse for folks like me living in Asia - well, anywhere east of the Arabian Gulf or the Caspian Sea, really. For us, evening games are starting at midnight or later, much too late for most of us to even think of watching them live; much too late, in fact, or most of us to even be staying up until the FPL deadline to try to catch late-breaking team news before finalizing our squads.

And when the games are staggered across multiple days, that hassle is greatly increased; especially when having an 'early' game or two, a day ahead of the majority of the gameweek fixtures, compresses the gap with the preceding gameweek such that we'll have no real opportunity to learn about new injury problems,... or, really, to ponder our FPL squads at all! It is a right pain-in-the-arse, frankly. 

At least, if the Gameweek started on Wednesday, we'd have a full two-day breather after GW20, and some chance for press conference updates to filter through to us on the far side of the world. Thanks to this bloody West Ham game, we're essentially flying blind into this one...

All of which is to say.... no, I don't really have time to do my usual detailed preview for Gameweek 21; sorry.

The main NEW INJURY PROBLEMS I'm aware of are:

Wesley Fofana (illness) and Robert Sanchez (muscle strain) missed the last game for Chelsea.

Jefferson Lerma (concussion) Nathaniel Clyne (groin strain) both had to come off with knocks in the weekend game against Newcastle at the weekend. That leaves Palace stretched very thin in defence.

Leeds right-back Jayden Bogle missed the weekend's game against Manchester United with a calf problem.

Hugo Ekitike was missing at the weekend with a slight hamstring strain.

The big news of the gameweek though, is that Josko Gvardiol had to come off early in the second-half against Chelsea with a leg injury, and has since needed surgery on a cracked tibia - so, he's likely to be out for several weeks at least (a major blow to the 10% or so of Fantasy managers who own him). Even worse for Pep, Ruben Dias also had to come off shortly before the end of the game with a leg-muscle problem. I wonder if they might have to recall Manuel Akanji from his loan to Inter.

Jacob Murphy had to come off before the end against Palace, complaining of a tight hamstring.

Callum Hudson-Odoi missed the Villa game with a sore Achilles tendon, and goalkeeper John Victor had to come off in the second-half with a pulled muscle behind his knee.

Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor was also missing at the weekend, apparently because of a training-ground knock.

Mo Kudus had to come off against Sunderland with a thigh strain.

Lucas Paqueta missed the Wolves game with a back problem.

Joao Gomes and Hwang Hee-Chan both had to come off in the West Ham game with muscle soreness, Gomes suffering in the groin and Hwang in the calf.

At least there ae no new suspensions to worry about for this game. And Xavi Simons, Moises Caicedo and Ethan Ampadu are available again after serving their bans.

Oh, and Ruben Amorim's been sacked at last (about 8 months too late, but better late than never...). Youth team coach Darren Fletcher is expected to take over as an interim manager, but I wonder if the ownership made the move now because they think they can land the suddenly available Maresca. A change like this is always disruptive, but Amorim has been such an embarrassment of flailing disaster (and a source of constant uncertainty for his players as he messes with the line-up every single week!) that I would expect the 'new manager bounce' at United could be huge - even if only short-lived.

The video clip at the top is of course from the seminal campus comedy National Lampoon's 'Animal House': the classic little scene where the boys go shopping at a local supermarket to get food for an upcoming toga party at their fraternity house, and geeky freshman Kent Dorfman (Fraternity name: 'Flounder'), played by the late Stephen Furst, for a while manifests unexpected dexterity in catching the avalanche of food items tossed his way by his mischievous frat brothers. It is, I think, one of the great bits of improvised physical comedy in cinema. (I saw this film during my first week at university; and I like to say that I have never looked forward since...)

Another holiday treat from ACFC

 

The always marvellous Adam Clery Football Channel has dropped another 'holiday special' video, this time on the remarkable Leicester City Premier League title win ten years ago. Is it really that long ago now? Seems like only yesterday....

This was a triumph so improbable that lifelong fan of the club, Gary Lineker, promised half-way through the season that he'd present the year's final 'Match of the Day' programme on the BBC in his underwear if his team achieved it.

A lot of people didn't think he'd go through with it - but he's a game lad. We're missing him this year, now that he's finally retired from the show.

Another little bit of Christmas fun

For anyone growing up in the UK in the '70s or early '80s, veteran comedy double-act Morecambe & Wise's 'Christmas Special' TV show on the BBC became more of a central institution of the family Christmas than the Queen's annual 'Message to the Commonwealth', a highlight of the year anticipated for weeks beforehand.

The secret of the duo's showbiz longevity was the remarkable chemistry they shared, along with Eric Morecambe's peerless deadpan delivery; but the Christmas shows were also often memorable for some fantastic bits of visual inventiveness - like this.....

Merry Christmas, again!

A Christmas treat from ACFC

The excellent Adam Clery Football Channel (the best analysis show on Youtube; only founded at the tail-end of last season, but immediately indispensable) yesterday posted a 'Christmas Special' - a great little breakdown on The Greatest Moment Ever In English Sport, our majestic defeat of West Germany in the 1966 World Cup Final at Wembley. [And he's promised another 'historical' anaysis for the holidays soon, an examination of Leicester's extraordinary title-winning season.]

If you feel like watching the full match (it is a hell of a game), here it is:

I could have sworn I'd once been able to watch a colour version of the full match (shot on film for FIFA, where I assume this must be videotape of the BBC black-and-white TV coverage), but it doesn't seem to be available on Youtube at the moment; there are highlights only in colour. 

The Wembley crowd's singing of the National Anthem after the presentation of the trophy is the only time I have ever heard it sounding happy.

Here it is.....!

 

For an Englishman like me, there is only one 'Best Christmas Song of All Time'; and it's certainly not the cringe-inducing Wham! or the saccharine Mariah Carey offerings that get so exasperatingly overplayed at this time of year. No, of course, it's 'Merry Xmas, Everybody!' by Slade - an actual celebration of the occasion, rather than just a routine love song cynically grafted into a seasonal setting, and just the right combination of simplistic structure but great melody and raucous rock energy to propel it into the stratosphere of ageless anthemic songs.  What would Christmas be without it?

Merry Christmas, Everybody!!!

A little bit of Zen (69)

"You should be self-confident enough to abandon your 'certainty' - and to explore and to allow contradictions."

Christoph Waltz

A couple of weeks ago, the great Austrian actor was the featured guest in Mythical Kitchen's 'Last Meal' series, chatting thoughtfully with erudite host, Josh Scherer, about a range of topics, while enjoying some of his favourite dishes and wines. It's a curious coincidence that I should stumble on this pithy warning against the vice of excessive 'certainty' so soon after coming across Derek Muller's video on the same topic, 

This is one of the best things I've seen on Youtube all year: Waltz is a wise and funny man, full of intriguing insights. He's nearly 70 now, but still exudes a boyish enthusiasm about everything, am effervescent joie de vivre. The line above comes at timestamp 29.17. There is a bit earlier in the conversattion, around about 13.35, where he touches on another idea that I often like to highlight on this blog - the importance of prioritizing process over result.

I highly recommend watching the whole thing. Waltz is a treasure; Scherer too.

The vice of OVER-CONFIDENCE

 

I've referrred to Derek Muller's consistently thought-provoking science channel, Verittasium, on the blog before - here and here.

His latest post last week was on the unfortunate human predilection towards being massively - and inappropriately - confident about our beliefs all the time. 

He starts by touching on the notorious Dunning-Kruger Effect (which identifies the tendency for less 'knowledgeable' or 'competent' people to most drastically over-estimate their abilities in self-evaluations), but goes on to discuss how EVERYONE tends to be massively over-confident - even when making a guess about a problem that we really don't know the answer to - and explains the concept of 'calibration', meaning the correlation between the confidence we have in our beliefs or predictions and their accuracy.

Playing FPL, of course, is a classic case of having to constantly make intelligent predictions of events in the football world that we can't actually know the outcomes of in advance; we are just making guesses about problems we don't know the answer to.

And such events in football all come with a high degree of uncertainty: even the great Erling Haaland, even when he's on such a great run of form as he has been so far this season, cannot be relied upon to always get a big haul against a 'weaker' opponent, nor indeed can he be relied upon to score at all in every single game.

'Calibration', in this sense, means that our confidence in a particular outcome should correlate exactly to its probability. 

Therefore, if our guessing was 'well calibrated', we wouldn't ever feel much more than 60% or 70% confident that Haaland, even in the form of his life, was going to score in any given game, and should never really be more than about 50% confident - or anywhere near that! - of him notching a brace; and confidence in him returning a hattrick cannot ever be more than a very, very low percentage - it is just too rare and unpredictable an event, even for a player like him (especially when Pep so often subs him off early!). 

And yet, somehow, we always seem to end up professing near-100% confidence in such predictions. That is a dangerous INSANITY.

It probably arises from our desire to feel good about ourselves all the time, and to look good in front of others. Anxiety about future outcomes, and doubt about the accuracy of our decisions are uncomfortable feelings, something we seek to suppress. And we imagine that other people will be more impressed by us, and be more likely to be swayed by our opinions if we express them with absolute assurance. Hence, once we've made a decision, we immediately reassure ourselves that it must - absolutely definitely - be correct, and that we can place near-100% confidence in it. But that just ain't so - EVER.

There are, I think, FOUR supplementary vices which follow on from this tendency to be over-confident in our choices.  1) It hurts harder, makes our disappointment and dissatisfaction all the sharper when we happen to be 'wrong'.  2) It makes us more stubborn: the disproof of an idea we had become so confident of, and so emotionally invested in, undermines our sense of self, and we struggle to accept that; the powerful impulse of denial drives us into thoughts such as, "I might have been wrong this week, but I'm bound to be right next time!" and into sticking by bad picks longer than we should.  3) It makes us less self-reflective, more resistant to the possibility of change in the short-term as well. (Many FPL decisions, such as the captaincy choice, playing a chip, the starting lineup and bench order, can be changed without cost within the gameweek, right up until the deadline. And late-breaking news might often give good cause to do so. But once we've made our choices for the week, we tend to be very reluctant to revisit them - for any reason.)  And 4) It makes us less grateful for our good fortune: when we get a great haul from a player, we always like to think, "I predicted that, I knew that was going to happen: I completely deserve every single point of that improbably huge return!"  Hmm, NO, you don't; you got LUCKY.

We would be much better off - certainly happier in our playing of the game, and probably more successful too (though these two things should not be inextricably correlated) - if we could break away from this habit of always wanting to be believe that we are absolutely correct in our decisions, that we know what the best FPL picks for the week are going to be. We don't; we're just guessing.

Some ('non-Zen') WISE WORDS on our Internet culture

 

"If you need every story in your feed to be 'My team wins' and 'Here's why my side is the good one', you're WEAK - and deliberately keeping yourself ignorant."

Bill Maher

Veteran comedian/satirist/social commentator Bill Maher's Friday night political discussion show on HBO, Real Time, is one of my most regular Youtube fixes - particularly his 'New Rule' segment, the more 'serious' monologue with which he regularly concludes the show. 

He's often now decried by elements of 'The Left' in America as a 'sell-out' - because he's willing to engage with right-wing figureheads and talking-points on the show, and to crticise some of the grosser excesses of 'woke-ism' & co. But humour is essentially apolitical: it makes fun of whatever is most ripe to be made fun of. In essence, he is still very obviously the same anarchic hippie pot-lover he's always been. (So, yes, very largely a man after my own heart....)

His most recent 'New Rule' featured the devastating comment above on the 'bubble' mentality that online life now seems to create and perpetuate (and went on to suggest some ways in which we might seek to confound The Almighty Algorithm and break out of our 'bubbles' a little; the link embedded above should take you to the mid-point of his homily, where the key quotation I've copied here occurs; the whole piece is worth a watch).

I feel this is a point which has particular relevance to the realm of Fantasy Premier League. I am  widely reviled on most of the online forums about our Fantasy game that I contribute to - purely because I insist on repeatedly making points that many people find uncomfortable. - relentlessly questioning usually unquestioned 'truths'.  You know, things like: bonus chips do not automatically work better in Double Gameweeks;... a midfielder is usually a better captain/Triple Captain pick than a forward....; and 'effective ownership' has nothing to do with differential points advantage. That kind of thing.

Try to get used to this, people: DISCOMFORT is good for you, DISCOMFORT is an evolutionary stimulus.

You might disagree with me; you might not understand me; I might be wrong - but being willing to engage with ideas that you find challenging helps to grow your brain!

[I know my weekly 'A Little Bit of Zen' bon mots are often not very Buddhist in nature at all (mostly more Stoic or Daoist, or just sad-truth-wrapped-in-a-joke...); but I felt these observations really fell rather outside even the very loose parameters of that series.]

To dream the impossible dream...?

Every four years (well, every two years...), Englishmen have to try very hard not to get their hopes up about our chances in the next big international tournament.

But this time, not only do we have a really exceptional crop of young players to choose from, we also seem to have a manager who may know what he's doing....

Top Youtube football analyst Adam Clery puts forward this bold thesis that, quite apart from tactical insight and astute man management, Thomas Tuchel might be unique among recent England managers in having the cojones to leave out some of our starriest players in order to achieve a better balance in the side.

I find it difficult to disagree too much with any of Adam's ideas - because he's a very shrewd observer of the game, and also an irresistibly likeable, down-to-earth chap. I'm kind of 50/50 on this one, though. I approve of the general point (it's exactly what I said when Tuchel first took over, about having the courage to regard no player as a sacred cow); and I'm very excited about the stability Elliot Anderson suddenly seems to be giving our central midfield. But you have to be a little bit wary of getting over-excited about our smooth progression through a particularly puny qualifying group (even teams that have looked vaguely threatening in recent years - Serbia, Albania - suddenly weren't again!!).

And I am not completely convinced about the current personnel - or the the notion of omitting major talents for this to become our regular starting lineup. I'd probably prefer to build for the next 10 years around Palmer and Bellingham (and Saka and Eze...), rather than go with a bunch of slightly less stellar options who 'fit better with Harry Kane' (for this one tournament!). But it's certainly something to think about.

Takin' it easy.....

These international breaks may seem irritating to some, interrupting what soon become cosy, familar routines in our FPL life. But we should rather be luxuriating in the rare joy of TIME OFF.

Here's one of my favourite-ever celebrations of goofing off, Louis Armstrong and Gary Crosby (a son of the great Bing, with a very similar vocal style) in a 1950s recording of the Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael song Lazy Bones.

Yes, HISTORY can be fun!

 

The excellent DK Falcon doesn't post all that often (about once a month, at best) and tends to cover broader football topics rather than just recent matches or current shifts in tactics. But I always find his videos a good watch, and this latest one is particularly entertaining: a rundown of the more obscure labels for particular player styles/positions - many of which derive from countries other than England, and/or from more distant football eras, but are nevertheless still occasionally part of the current lexicon.

If you ever have nightmares about the possibility of being stumped at your next pub trivia quiz when challenged to explain the meaning of enganche, trequartista, ramdeuter, carillero, volante - then this is a must-watch for you!

The rise of THE IDIOCRACY

 

I came upon this fascinating audio-essay the other week, from a Youtube channel called Philosophical Effect. (The narration sounds worryingly as though it might be AI-generated - just rather flat and generic in tone, although at least missing the worst of the usual giveaways like clunking pauses, misplaced emphases, and bizarre mispronunciations.  And I think the text is too sophisticated for even the latest LLM's best effort. Also,.... I don't think AI would want to be warning us about this....!) [Unfortunately, this video seems to have been pulled after a few months. I can't see that there were any likely copyright claims against it; but I fear it might have been a bit too confrontational, and its author might have become disheartened at often vitriolic responses to it - I hope not. Then again, maybe it was just an AI experiment....  I am keeping an eye out for it to reappear one day.]

Like most of the world these days, I spend far too much of my time online (though at least I refuse to succumb to the supposed allure of the 'smartphone'). And that is an increasingly depressing environment. In particular, the FPL forums where I loaf about in many of my off hours are often aggressively narrow-minded, positively belligerent and spiteful towards anyone who dares to challenge any of the generally accepted unwisdoms surrounding the game (yes, that would be me: I found Socrates's gadfly metaphor dangerously inspiring in my childhood).

The above examination of why people naturally find critical thinking so difficult and unpleasant reminded me of this video I found some years ago on the excellent science education channel, Veritasium, about the concept of 'cognitive ease' - how we quickly come to feel such comfort in the familiar that we fiercely resent anything that threatens to disturb this comfort, anything that challenges our preconceived notions, our habitual channels of thought.

As presenter Derek Muller observes at the end here (and isn't this the problem with the FPL forums, and with the online world in general?!): "The more often you hear something, the more it feels like it's true."

That is certainly a prevalent phenomenon in the world of the FPL forums. We see on these webpages so many examples of precepts that are passionately and unquestioningly adopted by FPL managers in their masses, treated as items of Holy Writ: that you always get a better return for your Triple Captain chip in a Double Gameweek, that certain super-premium players like Haaland or Salah are inescapable 'must-have' picks, and that it is impossible to have a successful team without the highest-scoring individual players, that you don't need to spend any money on your Bench, that forwards always make the best captaincy choice, and that it's usually better to play a third forward than a fifth midfielder, or that playing your Bench Boost chip in the opening Gameweek is a worthwhile strategy. All of these propositions are, of course, utterly preposterous, if you give them a moment's thought. But people just refuse to do that; and are furiously resentful of anyone who does.

Which leads me, finally, to this, from the channel Philosophy Coded (yes, I do listen to and read a lot of philosophy; it was an area of study of mine in my younger life, and I have maintained an interest in it ever since), The celebrated German writer and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred at the end of WWII for his resistance to the Nazis, elaborated a devastating thesis on the power and the danger of wilful mass ignorance, noting despondently that: "Against stupidity, we are defenceless."

As this video says: "When someone shares misinformation that supports their worldview, they are participating in a system that rewards intellectual shortcuts over careful analysis. The algorithm feeds them more of the same, creating 'echo chambers' that act like intellectual quicksand."

And:  "In a world that rewards confident ignorance over humble uncertainty, admitting gaps in your knowledge becomes a radical act."

Maybe I should stay away from those forums....  You can't open a closed mind. But hanging out too long among closed minds may tend to close your own as well....

How the transfer window became such A CESSPOOL

My mate Adam Clery - taking a rare break from his usual output of insightful tactical breakdowns on players and teams - just put out this rather fascinating video about how the transfer market operates in the modern game: not so much about the Isak saga in particular, though that, of course, provides the main illustrative example, but rather about how the evolving media landscape of the last few years has led to this toxic soup of disinformation in which we now find ourselves drowning.

Two of the key takeaways I found in this (which, if I'd been previously 'aware' of them, I'd not fully taken onboard and appreciated their significance) are that this toxic soup has got very much worse just in the last few years since Elon started to monetize Twitter/X; even 'respectable' journalists can't now resist the allure of easy dosh for circulating inflammatory transfer gossip that may garner millions of 'views' and 'shares', while a few ludicrous vultures like the notorious Fabrizio Romano can now manage to make a fat income from peddling this kind of crap 24/7. The second vital point is that whereas players in the past would generally utilize the 'legitimate' means of putting in a formal 'transfer request' if they were really desperate for a move, in recent years that has become almost unheard-of, as modern contracts heavily disincentivize this 'nuclear option' with a range of financial penalties (Isak and Wissa - and others who are known to 'want away' but haven't made such big waves about it - haven't dared to pursue this option, despite their alleged determination to leave their present clubs).

With the effective removal of this key piece of leverage players formerly used to be able to employ to lobby aggressively for a transfer, they - or rather, in the great majority of cases, their management teams - have felt obliged to resort to flame wars via social media instead. We see almost daily dribbles of news about how a player doesn't want to join in pre-season training, feels that his relationship with his present club has irrevocably broken down, that 'trust has been broken', that he couldn't possibly play for them ever again, etc., etc..... just to affirm his eagerness about a possible move and to try to keep some pressure on interested clubs to keep plugging away at the negotiation.

Much of the time, this stuff is at best grossly overstated, at worst entirely bogus. Isak - although he's done terrible damage to his relationship with the Newcastle fans, and possibly with some of his teammates too - would surely continue to play for his present club, and do so quite 'happily', if the mooted transfer to Liverpool were not to be completed in the next 11 days. And if the club are potentially open to such a lucrative transfer going ahead, they probably won't want to jeopardize it by having the player take part in competitive matches, or even in the often intense team training that precedes them; if negotations are ongoing, the prospective buyer typically imposes such a stipulation on keeping the player out of harm's way. So, I'm not convinced that Isak has really 'refused' to join the squad; I doubt if Newcastle would want him taking part while transfer discussions are happening.

A question remains, though, HOW, WHY does any of this nonsense work?? Surely the clubs aren't fooled, football insiders know that this is all smoke-and-mirrors, PR tomfoolery. I suspect that, if it does have any impact (perhaps it doesn't), it operates indirectly through fan pressure. Fans tend to feast on this regular diet of tweet and counter-tweet rather undiscriminatingly, and can become very emotionally invested in their perceptions of an unfolding narrative around a particular player. Perhaps it feels a little harder for the Liverpool leadership to back away from signing Isak now that their fanbase has got so excited about the idea? Just a thought. Perhaps Newcastle are going to be more open to letting him go, now that so many of their fans have turned against him as a Judas? That is perhaps even more likely.

It is very sad that things have come to this. It is yet another instance of the corrupting influence of the social media, an untrammelled, unfiltered torrent of titillation and provocation gushing into people's brains every hour (if you own a smartphone; I never have!). The blame rests ultimately on the great reading public; if they didn't gobble up this diet of shite so gleefully every day, there wouldn't be the incentives to produce it.

I would also venture that perhaps the game's authorities - either the Premier League or the Football Association, or perhaps, for once, both of them working in concert - should intervene to try to stop this sort of unseemly behaviour before it gets any worse (can it get any worse??). Players who refuse to honour their contracts - or even publicly threaten to do so (and if statements are put out in a player's name, they should be challenged immediately to personally confirm or deny their contents) - should be heavily sanctioned under the rules of the game. It is probably already within the power of the clubs to suspend wages and/or impose fines for such behaviour, but they'll be reluctant to take such extreme action if it might jeopardise their relationship with a player who might yet stay with them. But the game's authorities could surely take action under the umbrella of the 'bringing the game into disrepute' offence - imposing fines, banning someone from playing, perhaps even suspending their registration to effectively block any possible transfer.

That sounds extreme, I know. But if such measures were to be announnced, I'm quite sure they would never need to be used. Players and clubs would simply find a new - and hopefully, more civilized, and perhaps more private - means of working through their disagreements. Well, a man can dream.

[I wonder if the frequent mention of interest from other clubs - 'interest' which often evaporates suspiciously quickly, and is sometimes never corroborated by the club in question - is perhaps one of the most overused and most hollow of these Twitter-wars ploys. Does it really seem plausible that Ebere Eze was on the brink of signing for Spurs today,.... and then only an hour or two later would sign for Arsenal instead??  Hinting at interest from such a hated rival would be a guaranteed means to amplify the emotional temperature of the Arsenal fans, and thus perhaps intensify the pressure on the negotiating team to close the deal quickly....  And Spurs might not feel inclined to deny the story, even if completely unfounded. If there were in fact a chance of Eze being available, they wouldn't want to write themselves out of contention for him, would they? And even if they weren't interested, they wouldn't want to rouse their fans' ire by stating as much publicly - that might suggest poor judgement on their part, or a lack of ambition, or a shortage of funds. If Eze's agents say he nearly signed for Spurs, that's quite flattering and exciting for Spurs - even if it came to nothing. And it adds that little bit more fuel to the fire of their implacable enmity towards their North London rivals. All good.  I really don't think Spurs were ever in talks with him; though they might have wished they had been...] 

So nice to have it back...

Sometimes - even with a summer tournament to fill part of the gap - the break between football seasons can seem to drag on an awfully long time.

There is something reassuringly familiar and nostalgically warming about having football to look forward to on our Saturdays.

That feeling is beautifully encapsulated in this wistful monologue by 'Ron Manager', an elegiac reverie on Saturday afternoon football that is almost poetic in its evocation of nostalgia for England, the BBC, my long-lost 1970s childhood. (It was indeed my weekly ritual to huddle in front of the TV at 4.40 on a Saturday, ready to record the day's results in a newspaper so that my dad could check his Football Pools - when he got back from watching our local team.)

Ron, one of many wonderful characters created by legendary comic actor Paul Whitehouse for the '90s BBC skit comedy The Fast Show, was a kind of quintessential 'old school' English football manager, scratching a living in his dotage from TV punditry; although borderline senile and rarely at all coherent in his meandering pronouncements, his patent love of the game was nevertheless powerfully endearing. Here's another great little snippet of his, expressing his appreciation of Ryan Giggs.

Saturday afternoon is football. Isn't it? Mmmm?

Back home, we'd be just getting ready to watch a game about now. But where I live, we still have three-and-a-half hours until the lunchtime kick-off.  (Must try to resist temptation and not start drinking beers just yet....)

The Community Shield 2025 - What did we learn?

Well, as usual, not that much. It's the first 'competitive' match of the year, but it's still only pre-season. The Premier League competition is a whole different beast.

Both teams put out what looked like a 'full-strength' side, a fair indication of how they're likely to line up next weekend (unless Liverpool have poached any more top players from other clubs before then....). The Liverpool new boys all looked quite sharp. And it seemed to be quite an entertaining game, open and often end-to-end, with several good chances for both sides.

Some of The Sheep are already bleating nervously about Salah having scuffed his only decent chance on goal straight at the keeper, and then skying the opening penalty in the climactic shootout. But that's nonsense; he had a pretty decent game. 

If anyone were giving slight cause for concern, I'd say it might be Wirtz, who, apart from feeding Ekitike on the edge of the box for the opening goal, appeared fairly anonymous in the match - at least on the fairly brief highlights I've been able to find so far. I don't have too many concerns about his long-term impact, but I've always feared it might take him a while to settle in and find his feet in the new team - and he might thus not be a great pick for the initial squad.

In fact, it was ultimately the 'smaller' side who looked more hungry for it, and provided the most eye-catching performances. Mateta, Sarr, Wharton, and, of course, Henderson in goal, were all absolutely outstanding.

That might be the major takeaway from the game for early FPL contemplation. Folks who were feeling pretty set on the idea of trebling up on Liverpool, with picks like Alisson, Frimpong (don't get too excited about his goal: it was a complete fluke!), Van Dijk, Macallister, Wirtz, Gakpo, and even Ekitike heading up many people's shopping lists,... might now be thinking about Henderson, Munoz, Guehi, Wharton, Eze, Sarr, and Mateta instead.

EDIT: My man Adam Clery was very quick to put out an excellent video dissecting why Palace were ultimately so much better in this game than Liverpool. This is the kind of thing that I think is essential preparation before beginning to make any decisions about this season's FPL squad.

But it's still really too early to be thinking about any of that. (New injury news is emerging daily. And there are still a few big transfer stories unfolding....)

Just find some highlights of the game to enjoy - and then chill out a bit longer. DEADLINE DAY is Friday: that's when you should pick your opening squad.

The shape of things to come...?

The Athletic's breezy young Scots tactics guru (one of my favourites!), J. J. Bull, put out this video a couple of weeks back, discussing five major shifts in tactics he expects to see becoming important during the coming season. Well worth a look.

As if we didn't have enough to ponder with the protracted transfer sagas over the likes of Gyokeres, Sesko, Isak, Watkins, and Jackson, and the early injuries to Maddison, Colwill, Kelleher, Rogers et al, the colossal spending on squad rebuilds by a few clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United, the decimation in this transfer window of some poorer clubs like Bournemouth and Brentford and Wolves, and the cautiously whispered possibility that perhaps not all of the promoted clubs will be completely hopeless this year,... we also have major tactical evolutions to take into consideration.

Also, it seems, there are to be a number of other - mostly peripheral/cosmetic - changes being introduced this season, a couple that are actually tweaks to the rules of the game.  So much to take on board!!!

Damn, being an FPL manager is almost harder than the real thing....!

A little bit of Zen (51)

 

"I know I ain't doin' much. But doin' nothing means a lot to me."

Bon Scott  (from the AC/DC song 'Downpayment Blues')

We have barely a month to enjoy our leisure before the new Premier League season kicks off. We should make the least of it!

One of my favourite AC/DC tracks, a rare dive into pure blues....

Always fun to see Angus live, but... unfortunately, this isn't a great video or recording. And this is a 1980s performance with Brian Johnson on vocals; for the original album version by Bon, you'll have to go here. Enjoy!

Rediscovering the 'Beautiful Game'

I came across this fantastic Youtube post (about the place of tactical systems in modern football, and their limitations) from The Football Purist a few days ago, and felt I had to share it. (I don't think I'd come across him before; he hasn't been posting much recently - but a piece like this obviously takes a long time to prepare. I note that much of his previous output has been on a similar theme - celebrating the primacy of individual creativity over rigidly structured tactical systems.)

This video essay promotes the idea that individual flair can still trump tactical structures, and should be prioritised over them. Taking an analogy from complex adaptive systems found in Nature, like ant colonies, it suggests that a 'collective intelligence' between players can be an emergent phenomenon within the team performance - if they are given the freedom to 'self-organise' and improvise their own solutions to challenges on the pitch, rather than following 'rules' conditioned into them as part of their coach's game model. Further, it demonstrates that the swift and fluid passing patterns that grow out of such an approach - lightning-quick intuitive interactions between players that theorists have dubbed synergies - can still be cultivated through structured training drills (slightly paradoxical though that may seem!).

Some coaches, like Ancelotti and Scaloni, seem to be achieving a lot of success with this kind of philosophy. 

Let us hope that this is the 'future' of our game - a game that can once again be less like a chess match and more like a piece of art.