The most important people in the world ever....
according to themselves.
Regular viewers of the in-your-face hyperbole that is 'Super Sunday' are used to having formerly Messrs Gray and Keys and latterly Jamie 'Top Top Top Top' Redknapp enforce on us that English football is the best in the world.
The core to this suggestion is that in addition to the qualities of the best players, everything is played fast and physically. Foreign leagues are brushed off in these tightly suited summarisers worlds as 'too slow' and 'lightweight.'
When the latest foreign wonderkid is picked up by a billionaire backed Premier League team, you'll no doubt hear an 'expert' (normally an ex-pro they've pulled in from the local boozer) questioning how this guy will adapt to the Premiership.
'Sure, he's got the step overs and the quick feet but Stoke on a cold Tuesday night? He'll disappear..'
The fact is, strength and power continue to be the essential requirements for selection. Whilst commentators rightly wax lyrical about the attacking virtues of Silva, Nani, Suarez and co, when do you hear them at their most excited?
When one of them puts in a tackle in their own half. Fancy that, the skinny foreign kid put in an 'English Bulldog Spirit Tackle.' (Unless of course they miss and it turns into a 'Forwards Tackle.')
Foreigners: Don't like it up'em.
So how do we accommodate these players in England.... (And indeed how am I loosely swinging this back round to being a Forest piece) ...... we do what we've always done since schoolboy football and stick them on the wing.
There's a permanent paranoia in this country as a whole to trust these players in the middle, especially as part of a four man midfield. Got to be hard to beat. Can't be flimsy. Get stuck in.
As a result, both McGugan and Majewski have spent time out by the touchlines in recent weeks, idling forlornly, gazing dreamily at the centre spots inhabited by the more defensive Greening and Moussi.
Now a lot of this is brought on by the lack of natural wide players in the squad (or indeed our wide players remaining a little too wide in Reids case.) Yet the English standard of setting up to be hard to beat rather than to maintain possession and attack is so entrenched in our tradition that it's hard to shake. In an excellent recent interview with the The Guardian, Xabi Alonso cited this explicitly.
"I don't think tackling is a quality," he says. "It is a recurso, something you have to resort to, not a characteristic of your game. At Liverpool I used to read the matchday programme and you'd read an interview with a lad from the youth team. They'd ask: age, heroes, strong points, etc. He'd reply: 'Shooting and tackling'. I can't get into my head that football development would educate tackling as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play. How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don't understand football in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort, and you will need it, but it isn't a quality to aspire to, a definition. It's hard to change because it's so rooted in the English football culture, but I don't understand it."
Our recent turnaround against Ipswich from 2-1, came as the handbrake was released and Lewis was moved to the centre with Reidy and Ando brought on in the wings. All of a sudden, his anonymous contribution on the left came to life.
Optimists among us point out we're only 7 points off the play offs, pessimists that we're 1 point off relegation. Realistically, I think we'll fall somewhere midtable this term - wouldn't it be nice if we did so playing with a bit more flair and McGugan or Raddy entrusted with a playmaker role? A run of games there to cement a place.
It took a season before Redknapp entrusted Modric with the role, Charlie Adam was largely played on the wing at Rangers before Mad Turkey Keeper Ian gave him the focal point at Blackpool. Joe Cole never found anyone to trust him.
U REDS!
The Panoptic Forest
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