Football is and can be a very simply game to play and win. It’s about getting the ball into the net more times than your opponent does, that’s it.
The modern day has overly complicated it. Tactics have become science. Players have become robots. Coaches need PhDs in data. Everyone is always just trying to do too much and the basics have been taken out of the game. You know, the dribble, shoot, and score a goal. It’s gone. On and off the ball, as Jamie Carragher says, players are being coached within an inch of their lives these days.
Anthony Gordon’s goal against Chelsea at the weekend was one of the most bizarre goals I’ve ever seen. It was such an easy goal for Newcastle to score. And it’s all because Chelsea’s robots stuck to their programming and didn’t know how to over ride said programming. I mean, in simple terms, if Wesley Fofana sprinted rather than jogged back, the goal would have been stopped – it’s literally that simple. And that’s what I mean about over-coaching and over-complicating everything in the modern game. Football can be so simple if you want it to be, in can literally be a case of running faster to stop a goal.
But in this instance, Thierry Henry and Carragher are spot on. As always with Sky clips I cannot embed them on here, but you can watch it first in full here.
The two pundits said it was a total systemic failure from the front to the back, and a lack of any responsibility from defenders.
“[Alejandro Garnacho] allowed that ball to go inside, that’s exactly what you don’t want. He allowed that to happen,” said Henry.
“That goes back to one thing me and Thierry have been talking about,” Carragher added.
“Players are now coached to within an inch of their life, both with and without the ball… but you have to adapt on the pitch. You’ve now got Wesley Fofana at the top, he’s telling someone to do something, but he’s got to go across and do something himself… deal with it, adapt… they don’t know how to. They know something’s gone wrong, but they don’t adapt in a situation that like.
“We’re talking about players playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world, costing huge fees, Reece James been described as the best player in his position in the world, and rightly so because he’s a fantastic player but how they allow that to happen because it wasn’t ‘the plan’ before the game.”
Further to this, Liam Rosenior was not even watching as this build up happened!
Henry: “He [Liam Rosenior] is not even looking at what’s happening… goal.”
Indeed Carra, indeed….
Once again, I am being forced to agree with Jamie Carragher. Someone make it stop!
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