The Premier League is obsessed with goals but defence is the key to survival - Danny Higginbotham
INSIDE FOOTBALL: All clubs seem to concern themselves with when it comes to buying and developing players these days is their offensive prowess. Why is defending unfashionable?
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Your support makes all the difference.It’s an unfashionable thing to say but that is one of the reasons why I want to say it. All the hype about the 100mph excitement of the Premier League – the goals, the skills, the overlapping runs – has obscured the most important element of football – the one which defines champions and, when absent, sends teams down. Defending. It has become an afterthought and that’s a scandal.
We will be hearing a lot about the goalscorers Kevin De Bruyne and Anthony Martial heading into this weekend’s Manchester derby, while the central defenders – Chris Smalling and Vincent Kompany – will command far less attention. But, for specific tactical reasons which we can examine, the rearguard men are the ones to watch tomorrow and they are far more likely to define the outcome of another fascinating clash at Old Trafford.
Why are such assets as this ignored? Why is defending unfashionable? Because all that clubs seem to concern themselves with when it comes to buying and developing players these days is their offensive prowess. Can a central defender bring the ball out? How is that right-back on the overlap?
It’s got to the point where defending seems to be the last thing on the list of Premier League qualities. The low point of lows had to be that 6-2 game between Newcastle United and Norwich City last Sunday, with defenders all over the place and the defensive midfielder Moussa Sissoko strolling off upfield, leaving the home defence unprotected and not getting back.
Well, when it comes to winning or staying in the Premier League, all the statistics demonstrate that it is keeping the ball out of the net, rather than putting it in, which is the more decisive quality. Chelsea scored 10 goals fewer than City last season but won the league at a canter by eight points. Arsenal’s brilliant post-Christmas 2014-15 performance was down to them having the best defensive record in the division across those 20 games.
In Smalling and Kompany you have two defenders who defy the modern philosophy which prizes quality on the ball above defensive ability. The biggest compliment I can pay Smalling is that you don’t know how quick he is. For a long time – right up until the final quarter of last season, I would say – you did see what pace he had. But it is deceptive when a defender shows a burst of speed. Why was it needed in the first place? You will often have had to race back to make goal-saving tackles because the failure of your positional play, spatial and tactical awareness put you up against it in the first place.
The best defenders have time on their side. If you have to sprint your positioning is wrong
The best defenders really don’t have to throw themselves around at all, to make those tackles. Think about some of the best down all the years: Rio Ferdinand, Alan Hansen, back to Bobby Moore. They always seemed to have time on their side. I always remember at the end of a season at Derby County, the coach Steve Round pulling me to one side and saying: “Do you think you made lots of last-ditch tackles this season?” I was delighted to say I had. It was Steve who pointed out that I should be doing far less of that. “If you have to sprint, your positioning is wrong,” he told me. Smalling is doing far less of those desperate sprints. It’s taken time but he’s learnt to read the pace and movement of the game. Experience is such a valuable commodity. It’s everything.
Kompany has the same assets, despite what the doubters say. Manuel Pellegrini has said he has kept him on the Manchester City bench to get him back to full fitness. One of the problems Kompany has encountered is the ever-changing roster of defenders playing alongside him. As we often say in this column, constant partnerships are everything.
Bizarre as it sounds, if we see Wayne Rooney or Wilfried Bony as the frontmen tomorrow, Smalling and Kompany may not be the ones tracking them. I would expect to find it is the runners from deeper – Raheem Sterling, De Bruyne, Martial or Memphis Depay – who the centre-backs will have their eyes on. If they get too obsessed with tracking into the Rooney/Bony space, they will create the chance for one of that quartet to get behind them, potentially to deadly effect. It’s the runners the central defenders will want to watch. That positioning I’m talking about will be vital as they seek to control them.
While it’s unbelievable that some of the top sides in the table don’t obsess about the importance of defending and clean sheets, it’s football suicide that those fighting relegation ignore it. Don’t just take my word for it. Consider what the numbers from the past five seasons tell us about a failure to defend. Of the 15 teams relegated during that period, no fewer than 11 conceded the first, second or third most goals in the Premier League. “But goals are the lifeblood of football,” I guess you’ll tell me. Well, only seven of the 15 teams that scored the first, second or third fewest goals in the last five seasons have been relegated.
Some of the relegation zone numbers are incredible. In 2010-11, second-bottom Blackpool scored more goals than 10 other teams. They even scored the same number as fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur. But they still went down because they could not defend. In 2011-12, second-bottom Blackburn Rovers scored more than 10 other teams. They even scored more than eighth-placed Liverpool. But they went down because they couldn’t defend. In 2014-15, six teams scored fewer goals than relegated Queen’s Park Rangers, but again, what good did that do the west London club? Down you go! See you later!
The same pattern applies this season when you look at Newcastle United and Watford. Only eight teams in the Premier League have scored more goals than Newcastle, yet they still find themselves third bottom, because only Norwich have conceded more goals than them. Watford are the lowest scorers in the division, with a mere six to their name as we head towards November. Yet they are four points clear of the relegation zone.
It staggers me that the clubs who are looking to stay up and preserve their Premier League bonanza do not get this point and make defensive rigour the key platform on which to build. Everyone talks about the goals but when it comes to early May – and derby weekends like this – it’s the back end of the pitch which will decide things.
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