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For an hour or so I've been showing my 10 year old son a couple of first division games that were live at the time on ITV. Two games chosen - Liverpool vs Arsenal, the title decider from May 1989 and a game from the following November when Villa stuffed Everton 6-2. He's seen me post on here and we thought we'd do a little project where he could write his own post looking at the differences as he sees it between then and now.
To start, Liverpool and Arsenal was that big title decider, one of the biggest games in the history of the league. The Villa - Everton game was of interest as well - Everton would go top if they'd won but Villa finished 2nd that season only 2 seasons after promotion. We're talking about 2 massive games at the time. It's perhaps interesting that I say massive - Sky would certainly have billed the Villa vs Everton game as such for weeks.
My boy thought it was strange that ITV allowed just a couple of minutes with a pundit before going straight to the commentary box for the team line ups and kick off. The Liverpool vs Arsenal fixture included some highlights of their previous meetings that season as the kick off was delayed by 10 minutes and no doubt was hastily shoved in as nothing else was prepared.
His first thought was that passing the ball back to the goalkeeper was boring. It seemed to be the way to kick off each half - 3-4 passes going back to the keeper, who picks it up and leathers the ball as far downfield as he can. In fact, Liverpool apart, it seemed the norm for keepers to launch it long whenever they had the ball. That seemed to be the main tactic - get it forward as quickly as possible, hope your forward can get on the end of it, control it and bring others into the game. Villa played with a left winger called Ian Ormondroyd, something like 6'6, and everything from the Villa keeper went straight to him to nod infield.
He thought referees were too relaxed with some of the tackling back then, but preferred it that players just got on with it without surrounding and gesturing to the referee. He doesn't like players diving and thought the game was more honest then. At the end of the Liverpool vs Arsenal game, Barnes has the ball on the right and cuts into the box to put in a cross. Lukic catches it and 3 touches later, Arsenal score. He couldn't believe that Barnes didn't take the ball into the corner.
He was disappointed with the skill levels back then, even with John Barnes. Top players have far more tricks and show off more skills nowadays he reckons. He also prefers that players can pass the ball a lot better now than they did back then and can control it better as well. That might be down to better balls and better pitches.
He liked that football back then was more direct when teams passed the ball inside the opposition half - it had a purpose rather than keeping the ball just for the sake of it, but it often led to the ball being given away. There seemed to be a tendency to put the ball in the box when that wasn't the best option.
He wondered why players back then didn't celebrate wildly when they scored. Quite often a goal was met with a mere handshake. He also thinks crowds were louder back then.
I remember that Liverpool/Arsenal game. It was on a Friday night which was very unusual back then. It was also after the FA Cup final, which was even more unusual. I also vaguely remember the commentator saying that Liverpool hadn't lost by two goals at Anfield all season. It's got be one of the most exciting ends to a season ever. Literally going to the last few minutes of the season knowing that one team or the other would end the night as champions.
Direct football was dominant in the eighties, but Liverpool, who had been very direct and quite defensive under Shankley for most of the previous decade began to transform into more of a footballing side with the arrival of Dalglish and I’d rate them as the most attractive team in the country in the late eighties before their defence fell apart and Rush started to go over the top.
Arsenal were a very organised and functional team under George Graham, but their, largely young midfield was energetic and could play when required - Alan Smith was an under rated target man as well. A side with Arsenal’s defence and Liverpool’s attack would have dominated completely in 1989.
For me, the game is better now. At first it was foreign players who were responsible for the greater skill on show, but I think what you’d call a typical British game now is different to what you would have expected thirty.four years ago - British players are encouraged to express themselves more these days.
Yet, the club side that are probably the best in the world can be good at direct football when they want to be - opponents don’t really expect Man City to go from front to back quickly and are often caught on the hop because of that. So, in a way, the modern game does still embraces the long ball even if it’s nowhere near as prevalent as it once was.
I wonder if John Barnes was being told to take the ball to the corner by the Liverpool bench? I bet he was because it’s not something that has just crept into the game in the last thirty years or so. Ian Gibson used to do it all the time in the early seventies for City, but only when we were a goal up- any more than that and we’d be looking to score again. That’s one of the aspects of the modern game I hate - I can remember Robert Page bellowing out “take it the corner” to his players when he was in charge of Wales under 21s who had played brilliantly to lead 3-0 in Switzerland - why?
There's another reason for the game changing and becoming more attractive, and that is rule changes.
The obvious one is the back pass rule, which is mentioned in the OP. But also the offside rule changes have improved the game. As recently as 15-20 years ago there was the dreadful Milan v Juventus 0-0 CL final, Greece winning euro 2004, Mourinho parking the bus and winning the treble at Inter Milan. Defensive football was powerful if organised well.
The offside rule changes made this style difficult to play, as you couldn't play a high line and condense the pitch. Defences had to be wary and drop deeper, so there was more space to pass. Of course that also led to Spanish tiki taka which was just as dull to watch after their third consecutive trophy but those days also seem to have passed now.
The Greedy League ruined football
The unusual timing of the match was because of Hillsborough. I think the Arsenal players gave flowers to some Liverpool supporters before the kickoff.Originally Posted by NYCBlue
Interesting observations. Some things better now, some not.
Far too much punditry these days.
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