From makeshift back fours to false nines galore, the Premier League is being pinched, and it’s showing on the pitch.
Once upon a time, the Premier League was overrun with authoritative centre backs and lethal No.9s. Picture John Terry bellowing instructions as Didier Drogba battered defences one week, Nemanja Vidić thudding into challenges as Wayne Rooney battered screamers the next. Fast forward to the current and half the league are suddenly scrambling defensive gaps with midfielders and turning wide men into reluctant centre forwards. Down the demented path of modern football somewhere, the English Premier League has crept quietly into a crisis of individuals, namely a lack of first-rate centre backs andgenuine strikers.
Yes, there are still stars on both sides, but look closely and the cupboards are extraordinarily bare. So, how did we get to this place, and what does it reveal about the health of the league that preens about being the most competitive beast in Europe?
Rolling the dice: Desperation in the transfer market
Drive by any Premier League training ground in August and you’ll find scouts feverishly dialling agents, trying to unearth the next hidden gem from Italy’s Serie B or Portugal’s Liga NOS. The fact is that the market for centre backs and strikers has become so competitive that clubs now gamble big money on players with shaky CVs.
This is where football mirrors another booming industry: Online gaming. Equally desperate punters scouring the best casino offers, clubs are scouring scouting registers hoping for that magic bullet. Speaking of casinos, it’s fascinating how sports fanatics are transferring into the online gaming community. Today, sites laden with guides and reviews like 1 dollar deposit casino NZ seem so naturally when searching for full-fledged sites that provide information about free slots, real-money games, casino bonuses and quality reviews. These are specialist playgrounds for slot enthusiasts, and more proof football is not the only game in town subject to a supply-and-demand madness, as punters demand an environment in which a modest bet could produce a life-altering outcome. Clubs seem to be doing likewise, but with players of football.
The vanishing centre back
Walk into any fan forum and you’ll hear the same moan: “We need a proper centre half.” Managers seem to agree. Central defenders have become hot property, fetching absurd fees the moment they show a bit of positional discipline and composure under pressure.
Injuries and overload
Part of the shortage is simply down to the extreme physical demands of the game today. Most clubs are playing 50–60 games a season. So, rather than your usual full back trotting up and down the pitch, nowadays they’re a substitute winger. When the going gets tough, crock lists get longer and clubs are scraping the barrel, resorting to teenagers from the academy or converting holding midfielders into centre halves just to make it through.
Tactical revolution… Or devolution?
Pep Guardiola and others have encouraged sides to play out from the back, so that defenders are required to be part-time quarter-backs now. Trainers are thus prioritising ball-players over old-fashioned tacklers. All of this sounds wonderful, until your fashionable “ball-progressor” is ripped to shreds by a set-piece thug from Luton.
There only exist so many of those kinds of players with the brutishness of a brick wall and the pass range of a deep-lying playmaker. Virgil van Dijk and Rúben Dias are Rolls-Royce vehicles, but they’re exceptions, not the norm.
The death of the classic striker
As the backlines struggle precariously, at the other end of the field there’s another problem bubbling over, no one else can find the net on a regular basis unless their name’s Erling Haaland or Harry Kane (and Kane’s propping up a bar in Bavaria drinking beer and braces).
False nines and false hopes
Tactics have played their part too. The arrival of the false nine and inverted forwards have resulted in fewer clubs playing an out-and-out striker. In place of that, we have wingers posing as No.9s (I’m staring at you, Kai Havertz) and midfielders coming in late into the box in the hopes of following in the footsteps of Frank Lampard.
It looks good on a tactics board, but fans know the truth: There’s nothing quite as good as a fearsome target man intimidating centre backs and scoring opportunities with ease. Without them, too many Premier League sides are bite-sized at the front. Everyone’s playing nice stuff, but nobody is eating their dinner.
Young guns misfiring
And to insult and injury, the conveyor belt of English strikers in their formative years has slowed dramatically. There is one Bukayo Saka or one Phil Foden per generation of centre forwards coming through. Instead, clubs panic-buy foreigners at extortionate fees. How many clubs brought in a £50 million striker last summer only to bench him, frustrated by “issues with adapting”? Too many to count.
The financial arms race
Now you can only just buy a decent defender at Burnley or Southampton for £20 million and rely on them to see it through. You have to pay closer to £60 million these days to just sign somebody capable of reading where the ball is going and not panicking under pressure. Strikers? Forget it, any leading forward who has scored more than 15 in an European league will cost you an absolute fortune.
Tactical crisis looming?
Ultimately, this shortage is warping the look of football. If you can’t pay for a great defender, you may as well bunk the bus and defend the area. If you’re not going to have a forward, you may as well stock midfield with technicians and hope one materialises out of thin air with a goal. That creates a type of play that’s nervous, slow-burning and a little dull sometimes.