Читать книгу The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines онлайн

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This became a familiar pattern among bottom-half clubs – brilliant individuals who weren’t necessarily conducive to Premier League success. Bolton spent a club record £1.5m on Yugoslav playmaker Saša Ćurčić, who scored one of the goals of 1995/96 against Chelsea, ghosting past five challenges and playing a one-two with Alan Thompson before firing home. Bolton finished bottom that season. ‘I was a crowd pleaser, everywhere the fans loved me,’ Ćurčić recalled. ‘But I wasn’t very good for the team because I wasn’t a team player.’

Another inventive playmaker who scored a memorable solo goal that season was Manchester City’s Georgi Kinkladze – the epitome of a frustrating genius – who demonstrated the dangers of building your side around a number 10. Like Juninho, Kinkladze was recruited after a sensational performance against British opposition, at a time when Premier League scouts rarely looked abroad for new players. Kinkladze was inspirational in Georgia’s 5–0 thrashing of Wales in November 1994, a seismic result; just three years after Georgia had gained independence, it was their first-ever competitive victory. Deployed behind Temuri Ketsbaia and Shota Arveladze in a 4–3–1–2, Kinkladze ran the game and grabbed his first international goal. ‘They murdered us,’ Wales goalkeeper Neville Southall later recalled. ‘Kinkladze was different class and the best player on the pitch by a mile.’ In the return fixture the following summer – four days before Juninho’s performance at Wembley captured Middlesbrough’s attention – Kinkladze again dominated. This time he scored the game’s only goal, an incredible 25-yard, left-footed chip over Southall.