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Premier League best & worst of 2019: Alex Keble picks out his best and worst football tactics of the year
Alex Keble picks out his best and worst football tactics of the season as we reach the halfway stage during the Christmas period.
On Boxing Day we will reach the halfway stage of the 2019/20 Premier League season and it’s safe to say it has been an eventful four months.
When football historians look back on this campaign there is little doubt that its defining feature will have been the chaotic implementation of VAR and the way in which it has overshadowed, perhaps even ruined, our sport.
We could spend the next 1500 words poring over why we should bin it: the frame-rate isn’t good enough for those marginal offside calls to have any actual validity; we are losing the ability to celebrate goals with reckless abandon; the game is being badly slowed down; attacking football is suffering; and the laws of the game, such as handball, are being changed to fit the technology. VAR has been the biggest negative of the season.
But for everyone’s sake let’s put that to one side, and instead focus on the football itself.
Here’s our pick of the four best and four worst storylines of the 2019/20 Premier League season so far.
Best
- Liverpool’s glorious season
Had Liverpool just grabbed a deserved winner in a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford we would be approaching Christmas with Jurgen Klopp’s side boasting a 100% record.
Their points tally is astonishing, and made even better by the fact they had to recover from the exhausting disappointment of coming second last season despite winning their final nine games and earning 97 points. Many would have struggled to 'go again', to borrow a phrase from a former Liverpool skipper.
But Klopp’s charisma, relentless positivity, and belief in the experience of the moment – in the journey, not the destination – has imbued this club with extraordinary resolve.
The reason Liverpool could recover from losing the 2018 Champions League final to win the competition in 2019 isn’t just tactical; it has everything to do with Klopp singing with fans into the early hours of the morning on the night of defeat, celebrating the joy of the adventure instead of wallowing in the result.
It’s why Liverpool play with such joy, and seemingly without feeling the pressure. They will win the title this year – and then be looked back on as perhaps the greatest side in the history of English football.
- Blades' brilliant start to Premier League life
Most of us predicted Sheffield United would go straight back down this year, but instead Chris Wilder has taken them as high as fifth in the table with a set of players who have travelled with the manager all the way from League One.
Their success is an advert for detailed coaching and for the togetherness that comes from a long-term vision.
Wilder’s 3-5-2 hasn’t been sussed out yet. There is perhaps too much positional switching for anyone to catch up.
The Blades use their overlapping centre-backs to overload one flank at a time, and by switching the play are able to ensure the opposition cannot get a grip on what exactly is going on. It is a system that won’t get old, then, meaning their fans can look forward to a serious challenge for the European spots.
- Leicester move into the elite
How long before we start referring to the Premier League elite as a ‘Big Seven’?
Leicester will only get better over the next couple of years as their squad matures under Brendan Rodgers, especially given that Champions League qualification this season means they won’t need to sell any of their best players. Harry Maguire must surely be regretting his move to Old Trafford in the summer.
Leicester are one of the best teams to watch at the moment, mixing fluid possession football with sudden vertical attacks channelled through James Maddison and Jamie Vardy, who is playing even better than in the club’s title-winning campaign.
Rodgers has got everyone on the same page, maximising Vardy’s talents by streamlining his role while giving more prominence to the under-rated full-backs.
The biggest threat to Leicester is Rodgers being poached by a bigger club, but he recently signed a new long-term deal and for now they can relax and enjoy a second half of the season that will be just as successful as the first.
- Lampard makes Chelsea entertaining with rise and fall
Four defeats in the last five has threatened to derail Chelsea’s season, and indeed there is reason to believe things will get worse before they get better.
But in making Chelsea likeable with furious attacking football, and then providing us with the drama of this mini-collapse, Frank Lampard has given neutrals something to enjoy.
His tactics are wild and chaotic, hence the lurch from brilliance to disappointment. Their young players have revelled in the genuine freedom given by their manager, but now it’s starting to look like the lack of detailed attacking coaching is taking its toll.
As opponents drop deeper to squeeze out the number ten space in which Mason Mount and the inverted wingers like to operate, Chelsea have been neutered.
They need to find new solutions, because with such a young squad Chelsea might not have the character to recover without more instruction on the training ground.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t forget just how exhilarating it has been to see Mount and Tammy Abraham score freely at Stamford Bridge.
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Worst
- City’s meek title defence
One of the biggest negatives of this season is the lack of a title battle, and that’s largely because Manchester City have shocked everyone by stumbling badly in the league.
Pep Guardiola’s era might even be coming to a premature end; there is a growing sense his emotional intensity has left him and his players exhausted, ready for the next cycle.
Certainly there are big cracks emerging. Age is catching up with David Silva and Fernandinho, City desperately need new full-backs and a new centre-back, the dressing room lacks leadership without Vincent Kompany, and Guardiola’s tactics seem oddly disconnected compared to the last two years.
Kevin De Bruyne’s move out to the right wing this season has broken apart City’s midfield fluidity, while Leroy Sane’s injury means they are without those piercing runs in behind a deep defence – leading to the disappearance of that classic City goal, a tap-in at the far post.
The speed of their collapse is one of the biggest disappointments of the season.
- Pochettino’s demise and ruthless dismissal
There was something deeply anxiety-inducing about the way Mauricio Pochettino, one of the most universally popular managers in the game, completely vanished in the space of 12 hours on November 21.
Such was the speed of Daniel Levy’s decision and subsequent appointment of Jose Mourinho we didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye; the gushing eulogies lined up overnight ended up on the cutting room floor, replaced by hot takes when the most famous manager in football arrived at Tottenham.
The dismissal had been coming, of course, with Spurs’ run to the Champions League final papering over the cracks as Pochettino won 25 points from his final 24 league games in charge.
The players had stopped pressing with intensity and had stopped listening to the manager’s instructions, a situation made worse by Levy’s inability to refresh the squad. The team grew stale and so did Poch.
Even so, the way he left was heartless and cruel. He deserved much better.
- The complete mess at Arsenal
There might be some light at the end of the tunnel as Mikel Arteta, a highly rated young manager with new tactical ideas, returns to the Emirates as manager.
But the first half of the 2019/20 season has been an unmitigated disaster, the split in the boardroom over what direction to take the club next symbolic of the divisions and lack of leadership.
This has translated into odd signings that don’t fit in, a poisonous dressing room, and a toxic relationship with the fans.
Arsenal supporters cannot wait for this season to end, but they will have to be patient for now – and patient with Arteta. There are no quick fixes here.
The squad lacks focus and leadership and their matches reflect the confusion; sometimes they press and sometimes they drop, sometimes they counter-attack and sometimes they pass aimlessly in midfield. None of it makes sense. Unai Emery is only partly to blame.
- Watford board’s dreadful decision making
It wasn’t long ago Watford were held up as a model club, making astute signings and quietly building into a solid Premier League side.
That feeling peaked when they offered Javi Gracia a new contact in November 2018, seemingly ending the cycle of short-term managerial stints under the Pozzo family. How wrong we were.
Having failed to properly update the squad over the last 18 months (their defence, in particular, has been totally ignored), the board made the foolish decision to sack Gracia at the beginning of this season despite the underlying numbers suggesting Watford had been unlucky to win one point from their opening four games.
Re-hiring Quique Sanchez Flores felt like a mistake and so it proved, while Nigel Pearson arrives too late to save Watford from relegation.
Terrible management has created a stagnant club suddenly set for Championship football. How quickly things can change.