Kevin Keegan hit the headlines last week with comments to the effect that he would rather not have to listen to “lady footballers” talking about men’s football on TV.
With all due respect to Keegan, it was more surprising to hear that these days he doesn’t even particularly like watching men play football. “I even find with Man City they are good but they can be quite boring to watch because of the pass, pass, pass ... I don’t think there is anything wrong with knocking a ball into the box. It’s not as exciting as it was.”
As the second half of Arsenal v City dragged on, you thought maybe Keegan had a point. City would finish the game with four shots — their lowest tally, according to Opta, in Pep Guardiola’s 274 Premier League matches as manager. No surprise, when the teams only seemed interested in keep-ball and shadowboxing.
Each of the game’s four goals was stupid in its own way. But there was something thrillingly contemporary about the particular forms of stupidity on display
Yet earlier on Sunday afternoon, Brighton and Liverpool had played out a game in a similar style which had been an absolute thriller. What was the difference? Mistakes. The X-factor that electrified Brighton v Liverpool — and was sadly absent at the Emirates — was mistakes.
Damien Duff’s unwavering belief in Irish football has elevated the whole league
Ken Early: Worst night of Mbappé’s club career as Barca steal the show
Ken Early: Liverpool and Chelsea showcase ‘S**t on a Stick: 2024 edition’
Ken Early: Unless execution improves, Ireland will not be qualifying for anything for a while
Each of the game’s four goals was stupid in its own way. But there was something thrillingly contemporary about the particular forms of stupidity on display.
Imagine watching Brighton 2-2 Liverpool with a Premier League coach who had travelled forward in time from the mid-2000s — the years when Carlos Queiroz, José Mourinho and Rafael Benitez were masterminding the muscular counterattacking game which, thanks to Jorge Valdano, is now fondly recalled as the era of “s**t on a stick”.
Imagine their bemusement at the first 20 minutes as they watched football that resembled fencing on a tightrope, with both teams cat-and-mousing each other, mostly in their own halves. What are they doing, our coach would have wondered. Why aren’t they trying to get it forward? Isn’t anybody going to knock one into the box?
Then imagine how they would have reacted to the manner in which Liverpool fell off the tightrope to concede the opening goal.
To recap: Liverpool’s left centre back Virgil van Dijk received a ball from their right centre back, Alisson Becker. The Liverpool keeper had stepped into the back four in order to give his team an extra option further forward in midfield.
Van Dijk passed the ball into the middle towards Alexis Mac Allister. The Argentine was surrounded by three opponents, but unfortunately for Liverpool, he was aware of only two.
As Mac Allister shaped to receive the ball, Simon Adingra stole in on his blind side and nicked it away. With Alisson not yet having recovered his position after his move out to centre back, Adingra had an easy task to pass it into the net from 30 yards.
Jurgen Klopp will not blame Alisson in the least. Why would he? The goalkeeper was doing exactly as he was told
Think about how utterly crazy this goal would look to our time-travelling coach friend. Van Dijk’s pass into midfield would have been absolutely forbidden as a first principle of play by Benitez or Mourinho. As for Alisson, his part in the goal would have seemed like Grobbelaar or Higuita-style madness — the stuff of Bob Mills-narrated supermarket blooper videos.
Yet Jurgen Klopp will not blame Alisson in the least. Why would he? The goalkeeper was doing exactly as he was told.
The next goal was the one that would have annoyed Roberto de Zerbi the most, and also the one that would have seemed the most normal to the s**t-on-a-stick vintage coach.
Lewis Dunk could have passed back to his goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, but instead turned and hit a hopeful ball up the middle of the pitch. It went straight to Mac Allister and a lightning combination involving Dominik Szoboszlai, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nuñez ended with Mohamed Salah scoring the equaliser.
Maybe the speed of that counterattack would have demonstrated to our friend why the teams didn’t just go at each other, blow for blow … so this is what happens to a team that is careless enough to lose the ball in an unstructured moment.
But by now he would surely have been screaming at Brighton to keep it tight, play it safe, get to half-time without conceding another. Imagine his consternation as they kept playing five-a-side around their own penalty area and within five minutes coughed up another fatal mistake.
Verbruggen, pressured by Nuñez, played a short pass to Pascal Gross, who was under too much pressure from Szoboszlai and Gross ended up pulling his opponent down for a penalty.
You would have to scour the mid-2000s archives for a long time in search of a goal like this because no goalkeeper ever would have considered passing short to a team-mate who was being closed down on the edge of his own box. Yet “goalkeeper passes to opponent just outside box” has now become one of the main types of goal, along with unintentional handball penalties.
Even by today’s standards, it was a mistake by Verbruggen, who should have cleared it long in the absence of another realistic option. But the mistake came from him sticking too closely to his instructions rather than ignoring them in some way (which is how you really annoy your coach).
In the North London derby two weeks ago, Christian Romero stretched a leg out towards a Bukayo Saka shot and ended up diverting it past his own keeper to give Arsenal the lead
Defending used to be about getting your body between the ball and the goal. Now coaches are telling defenders to stand a little bit to the side, so as not to block their goalkeeper’s view. The reasoning is that long shots are seldom dangerous — but deflections often are.
In the North London derby two weeks ago, Cristian Romero stretched a leg out towards a Bukayo Saka shot and ended up diverting it past his own keeper to give Arsenal the lead. He was chastised for this by Gary Neville on the Sky broadcast.
When Solly March flighted a free-kick towards Liverpool’s six-yard box, Andy Robertson seemed so keen to avoid doing a Romero that instead of trying to clear the ball he effectively dummied it, fooling his team-mates and allowing a tap-in for Lewis Dunk.
Again, this was a defensive error by Robertson — you can’t just leave it when opponents are queuing up behind you to score — but it was another very zeitgeisty error, one that showed he is au fait with the very latest trends in defending.
As our mid-2000s friend stepped back into the time machine after the game, he might have been more disturbed than impressed by what he had seen.
Back at the Emirates, Mateo Kovacic at least did his best to break the stalemate, presenting what looked like a watertight case to get himself sent off. First, he hit Martin Ødegaard with an ankle-breaker from behind, then, moments later, he studded Rice for what seemed a stonewall second yellow. Referee Michael Oliver was having none of it and obstinately refused to spoil the game by enforcing the rules and sending off Kovacic.
With five minutes to go it seemed as though another Premier League weekend would be dominated by discussion of the referee, who we all knew was one of the PGMOL officials who had travelled to the United Arab Emirates to referee a Pro League game last week.
Then Gabriel Martinelli’s speculative shot hit Nathan Ake in the face and flew past Ederson into the net. With apologies to the fans: football without mistakes is nothing.
