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

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‘It is not a gamble [to play Le Tissier] when you feel the game is going to be tight and the door might need to be unlocked,’ said Hoddle afterwards. ‘Le Tissier, with his talent, could do that.’ Nevertheless, he lost faith in his most creative talent – presumably his faith-healer Eileen Drewery hadn’t been able to help – and failed to include Le Tissier in his 30-man provisional 1998 World Cup squad, a blow Le Tissier admits he never recovered from. The ultimate 1990s Premier League player discovered the devastating news in a brilliantly 1990s way: by reading Teletext.

English football had learned to appreciate the quality provided by number 10s, but was still largely fixated on variations on 4–4–2. Therefore, while the entire definition of a number 10 is that he’s neither a forward nor a midfielder and instead is somewhere in between, realistically almost every number 10 is one or the other. And while withdrawn forwards like Cantona, Bergkamp and Zola thrived by dropping deep and turning their side into a 4–4–1–1, attacking midfielders like Juninho, Kinkladze and Le Tissier caused problems, because they generally needed more unusual formations that their English teammates simply weren’t accustomed to. The Premier League was evolving in terms of personnel, but not yet in terms of tactics.