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

6

Speed

‘Owen was doing things that made me think, “Hang on, if so-and-so was in that position, would he have done that?” And the answer was, “No, he wouldn’t have had the pace.”’

Glenn Hoddle

Number 9s during the Premier League’s formative years were stereotypically tall, strong target men who stationed themselves inside the penalty box and thrived on crosses. Dion Dublin, Duncan Ferguson and Chris Sutton were the classic examples; they could out-muscle and out-jump opposition centre-backs, but rarely threatened to outrun them.

The Premier League’s newfound love of technical football, and its new breed of deep-lying, creative forwards, necessitated a different mould of striker. Increasingly, managers wanted strikers who could sprint in behind the opposition defence to reach clever through-balls between opponents. Gradually, speed replaced aerial power as the most revered attribute up front.

Two of the most memorable Premier League goals in 1997 were solo runs by quick strikers dribbling through the Manchester United defence: Derby County’s Paulo Wanchope in April and Coventry’s Darren Huckerby in December, both in surprise 3–2 wins for the underdogs over the Premier League champions. These goals epitomised the change in the nature of centre-forwards, but the most revolutionary individuals were two teenage prodigies: Arsenal’s Nicolas Anelka and Liverpool’s Michael Owen.

The similarities between Anelka and Owen are striking. Both were born in 1979, made their debuts in the second half of 1996/97, before making a serious impact in 1997/98. That season Anelka lifted the title with Arsenal, while Owen won the Premier League Golden Boot and the PFA Young Player of the Year. The following season Owen retained the Golden Boot, while Anelka finished just one goal behind and succeeded Owen as the Young Player winner – although he courted controversy by going nightclubbing rather than attending the awards ceremony.

When both strikers left the Premier League it was for Real Madrid; Anelka in 1999, Owen five years later, although both lasted just a season in the Spanish capital and played the majority of their career in England. Anelka eventually hit 125 Premier League goals, Owen 150. Both were rather distant, aloof characters, and despite all their achievements, neither are remembered as a legend at any one particular club. The main similarity, though, is simple: they were astonishingly quick. Pace had always been a dangerous weapon in a striker’s armoury. The likes of Andy Cole and Ian Wright – 187 and 113 Premier League goals respectively – were prolific in the Premier League’s first half-decade, and clearly weren’t traditional target men. However, they were primarily finishers who happened to boast a turn of speed. Anelka and Owen were essentially sprinters also capable of scoring, and in an era where centre-backs were built for battles in the air, scored easy goals by exploiting their sluggishness on the ground.

Anelka was a wonderful talent, boasting a sensational mix of speed, trickery and coolness when one-on-one with the goalkeeper. In Premier League terms the Frenchman was a forerunner of compatriot Thierry Henry, a more celebrated player who became an inspiration for the likes of Theo Walcott, Daniel Sturridge, Danny Welbeck and Anthony Martial. That mould of athletic, lightning-quick striker can essentially be traced back to Anelka’s initial impact for Arsenal.

Anelka started his first full season, 1997/98, behind Wright in Arsène Wenger’s pecking order, but had a crucial impact in Arsenal’s double-winning campaign. His first Arsenal goal was the opener against title rivals Manchester United in November 1997, a crucial 3–2 victory, and he ended the season by scoring the second in the 2–0 FA Cup Final triumph over Newcastle. His most typical goal came in a 4–1 victory away at Blackburn Rovers on Easter Monday, when he collected a long chip from Nigel Winterburn, streaked away from the opposition defence, then dummied a shot to put goalkeeper Alan Fettis on the ground, took the ball around him and lifted it past the despairing lunge of a defender into the net. That made it 4–0 before half-time, a typical example of Arsenal’s ability to blitz opponents through speed in the opening stages, and produced a round of applause from mesmerised Blackburn supporters.

Signed for just £500,000 from Paris Saint-Germain when Wenger exploited a loophole in France’s system of contracting youngsters, Anelka impressed on the pitch but struggled to make friends. Despite his sensational speed he possessed a curious running style in his early years: head down, shoulders slumped awkwardly, barely aware of anything around him. It reflected his introverted nature and his inability to communicate with teammates, who struggled to understand him. He wasn’t an entertainer and suggested he’d happily play matches in deserted stadiums. ‘I’m bored in London – I don’t know anyone here and I don’t want to,’ he once said. Anelka never smiled, even after scoring or when lifting a trophy, and lasted just two complete seasons with Arsenal before leaving for £23m, a sensational return on Wenger’s investment two years earlier.

Arsenal effectively spent the proceeds of Anelka’s sale on Henry – and a new training ground. Anelka’s transfer was the culmination of a summer-long story that arguably set the tone for long-running transfer sagas of later years, with Anelka pledging allegiance to Lazio, Juventus and Real Madrid at various points. Some aspects were ludicrous; one of his brothers, also acting as his agent, once claimed that Anelka had settled on Lazio because their shirt colour was a perfect blend of the white of Real Madrid, his ideal destination, and the blue of France. He eventually ended up at Real anyway, with Sven-Göran Eriksson’s Lazio unsuccessfully switching their attentions to Owen, showing how the two teenage sensations were viewed almost interchangeably.

Meanwhile, Anelka’s brothers became pantomime villains for their determination to move him around Europe regularly, collecting signing-on fees in the process. Anelka eventually made 12 transfers, his globetrotting career taking in France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, China and India. Despite his initial dislike of England, however, Anelka always returned, subsequently representing Liverpool, Manchester City, Bolton, Chelsea and West Bromwich Albion. His final Premier League goal was scored 16 years after his first, and was his most infamous – he celebrated with the ‘quenelle’ gesture, described by experts as an ‘inverted Nazi salute’. The FA banned him for five games, Anelka promptly declaring that he was leaving West Brom, who announced they were sacking him anyway. It was a fitting end to an incredibly strange Premier League career.

In his early days, one of Anelka’s most impressive displays came for France in a 2–0 victory over England at Wembley in February 1999. He scored both goals, and had another shot hit the bar and cross the goal line, not spotted by the linesman. Bizarrely, Anelka wore goalkeeper gloves throughout that game on a bitterly cold February evening in London, and thrived on playing ahead of World Player of the Year Zinedine Zidane, running in behind to reach his through-balls. It was also significant that Anelka outplayed an England defence featuring Lee Dixon, Tony Adams and Martin Keown ahead of David Seaman, with Chelsea’s Graeme Le Saux the only man breaking up the Arsenal connection at the back. Even when his opponents knew his game perfectly, they simply couldn’t stop him. ‘We’ve found our Ronaldo,’ said France captain Didier Deschamps – a significant remark. France had won the World Cup the previous year despite their lack of a clinical striker, while the rest of the world despaired at Ronaldo’s pre-final breakdown, which evidently affected his Brazilian teammates. Anelka was so good that he had improved the world champions.

At club level, Anelka proved the ideal partner for Dennis Bergkamp. Although the Dutchman formed fine relationships with both Wright and Henry either side of Anelka, he considered the young Frenchman ideal for his style. ‘As a strike partner, Nicolas was probably the best I’ve had at Highbury in terms of understanding,’ Bergkamp once said, even when playing up front alongside Henry. ‘The way Nicolas played suited me perfectly because he was always looking to run forward on goal. That made it easy for me to predict what he wanted and to know instinctively where he would be on the pitch. That directness was just right. Thierry tends to want the ball to come to him or to drift towards the flanks more. Nicolas was focused on heading for goal and scoring. He loved having the ball played for him to run on to and going one-on-one with the keeper.’

The best example of their combination play came in a 5–0 victory over Leicester City in February 1999, which featured an Anelka hat-trick before half-time. Leicester’s defence, and in particular towering, old-school centre-back Matt Elliott, were completely unable to cope with his speed. Martin O’Neill’s changes at the interval involved switching Elliott to a centre-forward role, underlining both his struggles at the back and the fact that many Premier League sides still based attacking play around a tall, strong aerial threat. Bergkamp collected four assists at Highbury that day: two for Anelka, and two for the onrushing Ray Parlour. Anelka’s opener demonstrated how easily Bergkamp and Anelka linked by stretching the defence in different directions. Bergkamp collected a bouncing ball 15 yards inside his own half, glanced over his shoulder to check Anelka was making a run into the inside-right channel before casually lobbing a 40-yard pass in the Frenchman’s general direction. Anelka roared past the Leicester defence, chested the ball onto his right foot and finished into the far corner.

It looked so simple. At this stage many defences still concentrated on pushing up the pitch to keep strikers away from goal, a logical approach when dealing with aerial threats. In later years they would learn to defend deeper against quick strikers, while goalkeepers would sweep up proactively to intercept passes in behind when the defence took a more aggressive starting position. On that day, however, Arsenal simply had so much behind Leicester’s back line, which was ideal for Anelka. His second was similar, albeit from a neater, toe-poked Bergkamp through-ball. Anelka instinctively celebrated by throwing his arm out to point at Bergkamp, acknowledging the assist, although there would be no such celebration when Marc Overmars teed him up for his hat-trick goal. There was little acknowledgement between them, and only a half-hearted group hug between the two and Bergkamp, who was fittingly playing the link role in the celebration. Overmars and Anelka weren’t on good terms.

Earlier in the season, Anelka had complained his teammates weren’t passing to him, believing Overmars exclusively looked for his fellow Dutchman Bergkamp. ‘I’m not getting enough of the ball,’ he muttered to the French press. ‘I’m going to see the manager soon because Overmars is too selfish.’ Wenger resolved the dispute in a fantastically cunning manner, calling both players into his office for showdown talks. The complication, however, was that Anelka barely spoke English and Overmars didn’t understand French, so Wenger was not only moderator but also interpreter, and played the situation beautifully. He asked the two players to spell out their issues; Anelka repeated his complaint to Wenger in their native tongue, while in English, Overmars claimed he always looked out for Anelka’s runs and didn’t understand his problem. Rather than translating their comments accurately, Wenger simply told Overmars that Anelka had said he no longer had a problem, then told Anelka that Overmars was promising to pass more. Both were lies, but it temporarily resolved the situation.

But Anelka had another major issue with Arsenal’s system, which wasn’t apparent at the time – he didn’t actually like playing up front. ‘I played as a centre-forward at Arsenal and scored lots of goals, so people think that’s my best position, but I don’t,’ he complained later in his career. ‘I feel more comfortable playing a deeper role, like Bergkamp.’ He described France manager Raymond Domenech’s decision to play him as an out-and-out striker ‘a casting mistake’, while on another occasion he outlined his thoughts in blunter terms – ‘My main aim is to play well, which is where I differ from real strikers.’ Anelka’s understanding of a ‘real striker’, presumably, was a player who concentrated solely upon scoring goals – the likes of Cole and Wright.

Just as Anelka didn’t consider himself a ‘real striker’, Owen was once described by then-England manager Hoddle as ‘not a natural goalscorer’, a remark that was greeted with astonishment across the country. Hoddle, in typically clumsy fashion, had actually been attempting to compliment Owen. He phoned Owen and clarified his comment, explaining that to him, a ‘natural goalscorer’ was someone who simply stands in the box and waits for the ball. Owen, however, could pounce from deeper positions, usually by running in behind the opposition defence onto through-balls. It was true. He was a sprinter first, a finisher second.

There was an air of revolution around Britain in early May 1997, as Tony Blair entered Number 10 for the first time. Three days later, English football supporters watched their future number 10 for the first time, as Owen made his professional debut, netting the consolation in Liverpool’s 2–1 defeat at Wimbledon.

The goal was typical Owen. Stig Inge Bjørnebye played a through-ball into the inside-left channel, Owen raced onto it, opened up his body then finished into the far corner. It was a run – and a finish – we would witness repeatedly over coming seasons. ‘He started making decent runs off people, getting in behind them,’ said Liverpool manager Roy Evans, who had begun the match using Patrik Berger behind Stan Collymore, with Fowler suspended. Astonishingly, just 18 months after his professional debut, Owen would finish fourth in the World Player of the Year vote, behind Zinedine Zidane, Davor Šuker and Ronaldo, largely because of his famous goal against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup, when he sprinted past two flat-footed defenders before lifting the ball into the far corner. At this stage, with TV coverage of foreign football relatively rare across the world, one massive moment at a major tournament could elevate your reputation significantly.

There was a youthful exuberance about Owen’s early Liverpool performances because he essentially played Premier League matches like they were U11s games. He recalled that, during his schoolboy days, ‘all my goals at that time were virtually identical: a ball over the top, followed by a sprint and a finish. I was quicker than everyone else at that time, so it was always a one-on-one with a finish to the side. You don’t get many crosses or diving headers in Under-11 football, you’re always running onto through-balls.’ Little had changed by the time Owen reached Liverpool’s first team. The best example of his terrifying pace was the equaliser in a 1–1 draw away at Old Trafford in 1997/98, when he latched onto a hopeful flick-on to poke the ball past Peter Schmeichel. At one stage he appeared third favourite to reach the loose ball, behind Schmeichel and centre-back Gary Pallister (whom Alex Ferguson once surprisingly named the quickest player he’d ever worked with at Manchester United), but Owen’s pace was electric. Shortly afterwards, however, he was dismissed for a terrible tackle on Ronny Johnsen, and it’s often forgotten that Owen’s ill-discipline was considered a serious problem in his early days. He’d already been sent off for England U18s after headbutting a Yugoslavian defender.

In that first complete season, 1997/98, Owen converted a penalty on the opening day and eventually won the Premier League’s Golden Boot jointly with Dion Dublin and Chris Sutton, on 18 goals. Owen couldn’t have been a more different player; Dublin and Sutton started their careers as centre-backs – both with Norwich, coincidentally – before becoming centre-forwards, and they could play either role because of their aerial power. But Owen was all about speed, and 50 per cent of his 1997/98 non-penalty goals came from him darting in behind the opposition defence. At this point Owen was, understandably for a 17-year-old, somewhat simple in a technical sense. In his autobiography, in a passage about Manchester United’s rivalry with Liverpool, Sir Alex Ferguson observes that being forced to play so many matches so early didn’t simply harm Owen’s physical condition but also his technical development. ‘There was no opportunity to take him aside and work on him from a technical point of view,’ Ferguson claims.

In 1997/98 Owen scored only once with his left foot, sliding in at the far post to convert into an empty net against Coventry, and only once with his head, a rebound from two yards out against Southampton. 16 of the 18 were scored with his right. Noticeably, Owen generally attempted to work the ball onto his favoured side, even if it meant making the goalscoring opportunity more difficult, and when forced to go left, would still shoot with his right. His first hat-trick, on Valentine’s Day 1998 away at Sheffield Wednesday, featured two goals stabbed unconventionally with the outside of his right foot. Gradually, defenders deduced his limitations – Manchester United’s Jaap Stam openly admitted his primary approach was to force him onto his left – so Owen was forced to improve his all-round game.

Over the next couple of years, Owen spent hours concentrating on improving his finishing with his left foot and his head. The improvement was drastic. By 2000/01, Owen was an all-round finisher and determined to let everyone know it when celebrating goals. He scored two left-footed goals in a 3–3 draw at Southampton in August, and following the second, ran away with two fingers showing on one hand, the other pointing at his left foot. A month later against Sunderland, Owen beat six-foot-four Niall Quinn to Christian Ziege’s whipped left-footed free-kick and powered home a bullet header. This time, he slapped his head in celebration. He almost single-handedly won the FA Cup with two late goals after Liverpool had been outplayed by Arsenal, the winner a fantastic demonstration of his astonishing pace, before yet another left-footed finish into the far corner.

Liverpool also won the League Cup and UEFA Cup that season, then lifted the Charity Shield and European Super Cup at the start of 2001/02. These successes, and Owen’s hat-trick in England’s famous 5–1 victory over Germany that autumn, helped him win the Ballon d’Or in 2001, one of only two Premier League-based recipients of the award, alongside Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008. Owen, however, says he had played better in the couple of years before 2001.

It’s peculiar that Owen wore the number 10 shirt throughout his Liverpool and England career when he was really a number 9, although it’s obvious why when one considers who his strike partners were. He broke into the Liverpool side when Fowler dominated; when Owen was rising through the ranks Fowler had been his idol, but they were too similar to function together properly. Owen later offered an Anelka-esque complaint that Steve McManaman, Liverpool’s chief creator, always looked to pass to his best mate Fowler. At international level, Alan Shearer was the captain, the main man and the number 9. As Sutton had discovered at Blackburn Rovers, Shearer didn’t like playing alongside a fellow goalscorer, and preferred working ahead of a link man. Shearer’s relationship with Teddy Sheringham was excellent, which is partly why Hoddle initially ignored Owen in favour of a tried-and-tested combination at the 1998 World Cup.

Hoddle’s successor, Kevin Keegan, was also a huge Shearer fan, having broken the world transfer record to take him to Newcastle, and asked Owen to play a deeper role while Shearer remained on the shoulder of the last defender. It didn’t suit him, and Owen later said that the Keegan era ‘made me question my footballing ability for the first time’. Owen became more consistent for England after 2000, when Shearer retired from international football and Keegan resigned, replaced by Sven-Göran Eriksson.

That year Liverpool signed Emile Heskey, who became Owen’s most famous strike partner, a classic little-and-large relationship. ‘When he’s firing, he’s special, and when we fired together it was a really powerful partnership,’ Owen once said. ‘But Emile’s form tended to be in peaks and troughs, and I had the odd injury, so I wouldn’t call ours a massively successful or consistent combination.’ Intriguingly, though, Owen says he preferred playing alongside a proper striker, rather than with a withdrawn, deep-lying forward. That’s a surprising revelation, because what Owen surely lacked at Liverpool, compared with Anelka at Arsenal, was the luxury of playing ahead of a genius deep-lying forward in the mould of Bergkamp. Indeed, his Liverpool teammates found the absence of a number 10 a source of frustration.