Matty Lawrence on the State of Football: 2016

06.12.2025 00:17

First Touch

What was the state of football in 2016? Matty Lawrence puts you straight.

How Leicester City upset the Football Snobs

The eminent football snobs have been out in force recently, and it’s starting to stick in my craw a little. Football Snobs grew in stature and self-righteousness with the dominance of Barcelona last decade, and they have refused to abate any with the slow decline of the aforementioned team.

‘If it ain’t “tiki-taka,” then it just ain’t football.’

These people may not come out and say it quite this blatantly, but they sure as hell allude to it with just about every word that tumbles out of their mouths. How blinkered do you have to be?

Leicester City have just won the English Premier League (sorry to patronize you, but at least one of you must be inhabiting Mars) playing a style of football so far removed from “tiki-taka” that these snobs probably deem it unfair.

“They run around too much and don’t allow the other team any time on the ball.”

“Surely it’s against the laws of the game to win that many matches with so little possession?”

“Why do they rely on counter-attacking and/or a quick ball over the top of the defence so much?”

“They even appear to lack any superstars or egos and genuinely seem to like each other.”

Now, I may be paraphrasing slightly, but more than one of the above quotes has already been leveled at Leicester City. Look, I’m not one of these foolish bandwagon jumpers. I appreciate the media-centric world in which we live and understand that every next achievement has to be the BIGGEST and the BEST.

The media is making out that LCFC winning the Premier League was akin to Jesse Owens, Mark Spitz, Clough-era Notts Forest, the original Wimbledon FC, and Kaiserslautern’s achievements all rolled into one.

The real fact is that Leicester won the league against all the odds (about 5,000 of them), and it is a feat that will be talked about for decades to come. And guess what? The title was won without one semblance of “tiki-taka” football.

Why? Because if they had tried to play like that, they would have had their behinds tanned at every turn. Barring when they went to Villa Park, of course. My point is thus: football is a sport with many facets and many styles, so please hand in your snobbery at the door.

Arsenal have tried a style of “tiki-taka” football for the last decade or so. Wenger and his players have turned it into a losing masterclass. To win any sport, you need heart, desire, endeavour, and a helluva lot of skill. Just make sure that the style of play you choose suits your players and your team. Let’s stick with the English game for a little while.

MK Dons rise and fall

Take a look at MK Dons of the Championship. Karl Robinson, their manager, is a highly-talented up-and-coming coach that will move onto bigger and brighter things. I’m just a little worried that Robinson can’t see the forest for the trees. I’ve watched a great number of MK Dons games in the last couple of seasons. I have seen the team rise up through League One and reach the Championship.

This season, they fell woefully short of the mark and have, subsequently, been relegated. MK Dons have only scored 38 goals in 45 Championship games this season. MK Dons have only won two games away from home in 23 all season. What I can guarantee is that they have played a “lovely brand of football.”

I saw it in League One, and I saw it again in the Championship this season. My position is that at some point, you may have to change your “brand” of football, or footballing ethos, to actually prevail and win games. As a fan, firstly, I want to win games, and then we can worry about entertainment: the trees keep getting in the way of the damn forest!!

Proving the football snobs wrong

I believe that 2015-16 was an excellent year for disproving the football snobbery theories. Take a look at Sean Dyche and Burnley Football Club, for instance. Maybe they haven’t quite been vilified, but their style of play and ability to eke out results in tight games, led to Dyche and his team being questioned. They went the last half of the season unbeaten for goodness sake: what more do people want?

“We went 22 unbeaten. How many of them did we not play well in? You can’t play badly in all of them, can you? We’ve done it with the old-fashioned 4-4-2 that Leicester have won the Premier League with. That’s ironic, because it is so old-fashioned, apparently.”

I love the above quote from Dyche. Therein lies part of the problem of the football snob. They sometimes struggle with things that are deemed a little old-fashioned. Where do the four revolving No.10s fit into a 4-4-2? Burnley, like Leicester, had an immensely successful campaign built on the back of hard work, desire, endeavour, great management, and swathes of skill.

Take nothing away from “tiki-taka” football. Boy, did it suit the Barcelona side that came to the fore a few seasons ago. Iniesta, Xavi, Messi, and friends were a joy to behold. That Barcelona side was a joy to watch playing that style of football because it suited them to a tee. Others, it does not.

Look at Atletico Madrid. They reached the Champions League final by sweeping aside the two favourites in Barcelona and Bayern Munich. They did it with a mixture of high intensity, dogged, defensive, and resilient football with a touch of world-class finishing thrown in.

5 Things to Learn from Leicester City in 2016

4-4-2 is a legitimate modern-day formation.

When did football suddenly become rocket science? Did I miss a meeting?

4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2, 5-3-2 – No! Forget adding to our poor, naive little English footballers’ minds. Just tell them simply, “Play 4-4-2”.

Wide-men can get wide and cross the ball; full-backs defend doggedly and overlap energetically; centre-halves bite, bark, bully, and predominantly bloody defend for their lives. As for you two fellas up front? Just stick the ball in the onion bag.

Honestly, the game is that simple. Leicester City showed us, the gullible football fan, that it can prevail – we don’t need to listen to any other nonsense. Oh, and Leicester aren’t the only team having success with 4-4-2. Champions League finalists Atletico Madrid and Championship Champions Burnley are also flying the flag.

Don’t be embarrassed by ‘English Style’ football

We all saw how Leicester City managed to smash those 5,000-1 odds to win the Premier League. It was by pure teamwork – they didn’t get ideas above their station. Claudio Ranieri’s men couldn’t outplay “the big four,” but they were able to outrun them, out-fight them, and scare the living daylights out of them.

England cannot compete with Spain, France, Germany, et al on their playing field. However, if they can instill Leicester’s pride, passion, and work ethic into their play, then maybe, just maybe, they can prove victorious.

An old, ridiculed manager may actually know what he’s doing

From Gary Lineker to John Motson, nobody had faith in Claudio Ranieri. So let’s leave Roy Hodgson alone. Let’s get behind his team selections and, ultimately, his England team. Ranieri has given Leicester belief through their cast-iron team spirit, thanks to the fact that he treats his players like adults.

He takes them out for pizza. Let’s them have a beer. Footballers shouldn’t be locked in their hotel rooms at dusk and brought out at sunrise for training like automatons. Let them have fun together and win together. Claudio calls his players his “sons”. Maybe it’s time to believe in Nice Uncle Roy.

You don’t always need the ball to win

Before any of you pedants jump down my throat, I do realize that you need the ball at times, but please, hear me out.

Leicester City won the Premier League with the lowest possession percentage stats of any title winners. In fact, out of the 20 Premier League teams, Leicester ranked 18th in possession stats this season. The Foxes even ranked lowest in pass success rate stats.

Only two teams played more long balls than Leicester over the season. Instead of having the ball, they made sure they were well-drilled and knew how to soak up pressure and hit teams on the counter-attack. This is how they predominantly scored their goals and why they were such an exciting team to watch.

Wags = family = a good idea

For too long now we have been denigrating “WAGs”.

At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the players’ wives and girlfriends were blamed by the press as a distraction. Even though it was the press who was distracted by them, and not the players themselves.

Claudio Ranieri believes that football teams can be all encompassing “family” units. His feeling that solid home life breeds stable footballers and aids performances on the pitch is an old-fashioned view, but it also seems to be a modern trend.

Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool took all his players, partners and children away on their mid-season training break to Tenerife. Maybe Roy should take note.

Premier League fans protest the cost of tickets

Guess what? Owners of football clubs are predominantly greedy businessmen. Very, very few (and becoming fewer by the season) have bought into their clubs for the love of the game, or, seemingly, any understanding of the beautiful game we love. Owners are not fans, and it is becoming blatantly apparent that they don’t really care about the fans either.

This isn’t a particularly new phenomenon; it has been creeping into the game since the English Premier League formed in 1992. It began with the 1992/93 season. A large number of people seem blissfully unaware, or have tried to erase from their memories, the decades of football that pre-dated that inaugural EPL season. That, though, is a history lesson for another time and place.

Football, like any other business, is simply a medium to grow the brand, exploit the customer (yes, that’s you and I, the ‘fans’) and maximise profits. Ta dah!!

C’mon, it’s a tale as old as time..dating back centuries to the Kings and Queens and landowners taxing their minions, their underlings, their people. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. This time, the customer, sorry fan, has to explain to these football owners that they have bitten off more than they can chew. This explanation that I speak of has to be swift, well-managed, and relentless.

The football fan must refuse to be unfairly ‘taxed.’

Fans/customers voices will not be heard: the removal of his feet from the stands, stadia, and merchandise outlets around the country will be. The silence must not only be deafening, but also threatening.

This phenomenon began in the 77th minute of Liverpool FC’s home game against Sunderland. With the redevelopment of Anfield in full-swing, the owners, Fenway Sports Group, released the new raft of prices for the new stand in the 2016/17 season.

The top price was a whopping £77. Hence, the a mass walkout of thousands of fans in the 77th minute. Liverpool were 2-0 up at that juncture. That game finished 2-2!! This was partially due to Simon Mignolet forgetting to put his hands in his gloves, and a large part due to the mass withdrawal of that support.

Anfield’s 12th Man revolts

The Anfield crowd, as with many crowds around the country (sorry, around the world), has been seen as the 12th man. The 12th man withdrew, and Liverpool conceded two. Coincidence? Methinks not. Fortunately for Liverpool fans, the owners saw sense and backtracked on their plan.

The relatively minimal protest of Liverpool fans sent shockwaves through the Liverpool hierarchy. Fenway Sports Group immediately sat up and took notice and felt it imperative to address this issue.

Even Jurgen Klopp, the Liverpool manager, felt the necessity to take his eyes off the playing staff, training ground, and tactics, to speak about the matter. Klopp stated the club’s owners were ‘working on a solution that would ensure there were no more demonstrations.’

While the owners of EPL clubs were revelling in their £8.3 billion TV deal windfall, they were still willing to fleece the fans who are the lifeblood of the game. In every facet of his beloved league, the fan is being treated as a customer and getting ripped off. Royally, bloody ripped off!

From ticket prices, to travel costs for away games, to inflated drink and food prices in the stadium – and don’t even get me started on the club’s merchandise.

Okay, do get me started on club merchandise

The price of replica jerseys alone is a scandal. Cobbled together in some far-flung country for approximately 10 cents a jersey (possibly, legal ed) and rolled out in the club shop for anything north of £50. And heaven forbid you want a name and number on the back. Best hit the bank to get your house remortgaged!

I’m going to digress slightly, but recently I had the privilege of looking around the Bernabeu Stadium, bought a hot dog and beer in the middle of the tour, and got directed through the club shop before we were allowed to exit. I bought my little lad a scarf and just grabbed a passing glimpse at a pre-printed No. 7 Ronaldo home shirt.

Holy shit, it was 101 Euros! I want Ronaldo in the shirt for that exorbitant amount. And, yet, they were selling these shirts by the barrow load. This on a non-match day, on a cold Sunday in February.

Money, money, money

The profits from the Real Madrid club shop alone must be the GDP of a small developing nation. I know it is life. I know it is the capitalist society we live in. Yes, I know, I know, I know. And I can just about handle getting bent over and firmly buggered by our Government at every turn, but leave our beloved game of football alone.

Enough is enough, and it is time football fans united and told these capitalist, scum-bag, football club owners that they won’t be taken for granted any longer.

Big Sam Falls for the Filthy Lucre

Let’s take a break from the pitch for once and concentrate on the ‘beautiful game’ off it. Just recently, we had the self-proclaimed Big Sam (just check out the signage on his villa in Spain) trying to earn an extra shekel, while raking in £3m annually from the FA as newly-appointed England manager.

The fact that Allardyce managed to last a whole 90 minutes in the job tells me that the rest of the candidates must have been dire at best, or deceased at worst. To think that a few old duffers from the FA sat around a table and came to the conclusion that Big Sam was the way forward is utterly laughable.

The last two jobs where BS has performed satisfactorily were at Sunderland (keeping a bunch of average players in an average league) and back when my kids weren’t even a twinkle at the bottom of a pint of Stella’s eye at Bolton. That was some time at the turn of the last century.

I know, I know, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it didn’t take 20/20 vision to realise that with Big Sam at the helm, the job wasn’t exactly in a safe pair of hands. Indeed, his hands were too busy grabbing, as the spy camera embedded in a Telegraph journalist’s bag showed.

Of course, the incestuous old boys brigade of ex-players, pundits, and journalists supported the appointment as readily as football managers employ their own sons as agents. Did I just type that? I would never insinuate that our beloved game has been corrupt for decades – or indeed ever.

So what’s the fallout from all this? Obviously Big Sam lost his dream job, but I’d happily lose my job after 90-something minutes if you stick a million quid in my bank account and send me packing to my Spanish villa. Of course, we are speaking hypothetically here, and hypothetically speaking, my palatial pile would not be called ‘Big Matt’s.’ The wife will tell you as much, to be honest.

Big Sam, on the other hand, does have some HUGE cojones. I thought you’d need half of BAE Systems to bring down a set of balls and ego that large, but in the end, his downfall was procured by one investigative journalist’s tiny piece of equipment in a hotel room.

My only concern now, apart from my receding hairline and my expanding follicles in other places, is that we’re going to have to listen to Harry Redknapp gloating from high up on his pedestal. But does anyone really think HE was the answer? Even the hapless FA didn’t appoint him when they had the chance, thinking Big Sam a safer bet. I reckon that tells you all you need to know.

Joey Barton’s Latest Controversy

In other news away from the field of play, Joey Barton’s latest controversy has brought footballer gambling back to the fore. Every single footballer knows they are not allowed to bet on football matches. It should be a no-brainer, but does that stop all footballers from gambling on football? Does it bollocks.

An extreme gambler will bet on anything, just as an extreme alcoholic will drink ethanol. A footballer with a penchant for gambling will not just stick to the horse racing and stay away from football, no matter what the rules are. Add to this the nature of the beast that is gambling, and you have bigger problems. Especially when you can bet on such asinine things as yellow cards, corners, or free kicks. Don’t you think that players may try and play the system?

Don’t Bet On It

Football betting isn’t restricted to just the Premier League. You can bet on football games much further down the ladder, where money is so scarce that players are practically paying to play. I witnessed it first hand at the end of my career when I was playing non-league football. A group of just three or four teammates can collude to influence the outcome of their game.

I guess the crux of this article is that football has been of an incredibly spurious nature for many a decade. I have no interest in getting sued of course, so I’m not naming names, but I’m pretty familiar with some of the managers, agents, and players who like to push the boundaries and bend the rules. Do I have the proof? Of course not!

Rumours of dodgy dealings were rife throughout my career, and by rumours I don’t mean some bizarre game of dressing room Chinese whispers. I’m talking about first-hand information that would implicate specific people. Will I elaborate on any of this? Not until the book tour.

Could the FA bring down a number of high-profile members of the football fraternity?

I’m 99% certain they could do.

Will they?

I’m 99% certain they won’t.

At best, a few bystanders may get thrown under the proverbial bus, as the chauffeur-driven big-hitters idle by.

One final rant on a similar topic. Unless you absolutely need the money to pay the rent or feed your kids, can all you whoring ex-footballers who feel the need to associate themselves with, and take money from bookies, please f**k off. You are a stain on society and have no self-respect. Try using those pea-sized little brains of yours to reflect on the people you are influencing and the lives you are damaging.

Matty Lawrence on the State of Football: 2016

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