da brdice： The formula for success for any football club, from the early amateur days of the game to the multi-billion pound industry that it has become today, is strength in every area of the team. While the attackers may make the headlines and more often than not grab the awards, the old-fashioned centre backs, the anchor men and the sweeper keepers – though less glamorous and show-stopping than those who score the goals – are equally as important. For every Lionel Messi there needs to be a Gerard Pique, for every Andriy Shevchenko a Paolo Maldini, and if an equal degree of emphasis is not placed on defence, midfield and attack, then the chance of glory at the end of the season is slim.
da realbet： The crazy world of the Premier League likes to do things a bit differently, however. After five successive seasons in which more than 1,050 goals were scored – only the 1999/2000 campaign can match this in the league’s 38-game format – the Premier League’s lust for goals shows no sign of resting. The memo this year seems to be a wilful disregard of all notions of defence and protecting one’s own net in favour of simply scoring more goals than the opposition. With a current average of 2.86 goals per game, this season is on course to being the highest-scoring Premier League campaign ever.
José Mourinho’s league leaders Chelsea – who once prided themselves on their parsimonious defence, especially during the Portuguese’s first spell in charge – have already conceded seven goals in their opening five games, three more than 19th placed Burnley. Liverpool and Manchester United, two clubs with serious top four aspirations, have conceded eight apiece, while Everton – who impressed many last season with their record points total – top the charts, having let 13 goals slip past Tim Howard.
The fact that the teams who usually occupy the top positions of the league have come to mind first when talking about defensive incompetence is significant, as it suggests that the fight for the top four is going to be tighter than ever. Whilst it is usually the teams that possess the greatest firepower or world-class talent that manage to qualify for the Champions League, this season it seems to be a case of the teams who can actually be bothered with defending effectively.
Liverpool’s defensive shortcomings were evident last year despite finishing as runners-up, and the departure of Luis Suarez has exposed this to an even greater extent. Based on their performance in the League Cup victory over Middlesbrough, Kolo Toure and Mamadou Sakho are like the Laurel and Hardy of English football, with the constant potential for cringe-inducing calamity and slapstick blunders just around the corner. Fortunately, this is not Liverpool’s first-choice centre-back pairing, though Martin Skrtel is no stranger to gaffes either.
Meanwhile over at Manchester United, Louis van Gaal has adopted an extreme laissez-faire approach to his defence, pinning all his hopes instead on his star-studded attack to score enough goals to win the game. While this can work at times against toothless opposition such as Queen’s Park Rangers, it is a recipe for disaster against any team who shows the slightest amount of attacking intent. The sight of the hapless United backline – bearing no structure or shape whatsoever – being trounced by a rampant Leicester City attack was compelling and will surely encourage other teams to take the game to the Red Devils.
At Everton, Roberto Martinez seems to be engaging in some well-intentioned yet defensively costly act of philanthropy, giving the old timers of Phil Jagielka, Sylvain Distin and Tim Howard one last season to stretch their ageing legs on the turf of Goodison Park – with not a care in the world about the industrial quantities of goals that are shipped into the net – before they are handed their zimmer frames and nudged gently towards the exit door.
This unprecedented, almost comic disinterest in one of the most rudimentary and vital aspects of football means that the fight for the Champions League spaces may be more unpredictable than ever this season. If teams vying for the top four simply remember to close one door – the all-important defensive door – then a more lucrative door may very well open in May.
It could be worse Nando, you could be one of these guys…
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