How tactics impact transfers: Left-footed centre-backs, inverted wingers and ball-playing goalkeepers
“There are trends in football. It is like fashion. If someone wears a certain shoe, it becomes popular.”
That was Joao Nuno Fonseca, a former assistant manager at Reims, Benfica B and Nantes who spent time as Manchester City’s head of methodology at the start of Pep Guardiola’s spell in summer 2016.
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Guardiola is often held up as not only a tactical pioneer but also — to borrow a contemporary term — an influencer. But he is not the first and will not be the last: Herbert Chapman’s counter-attacking Arsenal side in the 1930s, Hungary’s ‘WM’ formation in the 1950s and Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff’s total football Barcelona and Netherlands sides are all examples from the previous century.
Ironically, one of the biggest critiques of late 20th- and early 21st-century football was tactical homogeneity. Early Premier League tactics were predicated around a 4-4-2 with two strikers and crossing wingers. Then came the 4-3-3, the defensive midfielder, the false nine and inverted wingers.
As these tactics have changed — evolved — football has become quicker. A 2020 paper by the University of Southern Denmark found that between the 1966 and 2010 World Cups, game speed (metres per second, measured using ball tracking) increased by 15 per cent and passes per minute rose by 35 per cent. Assuming similar trends, game speed will rise by a further 12 per cent and passes by eight per cent by 2030.
John Muller’s analysis of World Cups for The Athletic shows some stark findings when comparing tournaments:
- During the 1966 World Cup, teams kicked the ball forward seven yards for every yard they passed backwards. By 2018, that ratio was less than three to one
- In 1970, 62 per cent of shots came from outside the penalty area. By 2006, that was down to 54 per cent
- Fifty years ago, it took around 15 non-penalty shots to score a goal — nowadays it’s closer to one in 10
- Between 1966 and 2018, the time between receiving and playing a pass dropped by half a second
“Quick football will continue to be the future,” said Fonseca, adding that “it is one of the biggest evolutions that has happened in football over the years and it is happening not only in England but around the world”.
Football may be innately tactically homogenous. What we call a 3-4-3/3-2-2-3/3-box-3 that City, Chelsea, Brighton & Hove Albion, Liverpool and Arsenal played last season is effectively the ‘WM’ that Chapman and Hungary played decades ago.
“There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.” Maybe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was right.
Look at the similarity between City and Arsenal in the examples below.
And because the top teams are still all largely trying to play in the same ways, they are all still trying to sign the same players. It has also made specific profiles of players valuable.
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Left-footed centre-backs are the most recent example, especially because they facilitate playing a back three as well as a back four. Chelsea paid £60million ($76.6m) for Marc Cucurella and £35million for Benoit Badiashile last season, and Brighton chief executive Paul Barber said Cucurella’s profile — a left-footed defender who could play full-back and centre-back — made him more valuable.
Manchester United recruited Lisandro Martinez from Erik ten Hag’s former club Ajax for £48.5million upfront, with Ten Hag saying left-footed centre-backs have “an advantage in possession… because the left-footed are better orientated on the left side, in possession, you then have better angles for playing out”. Mikel Arteta said left-footed centre-backs give him “more options, more solutions”.
Other examples include Newcastle spending £35million on Sven Botman and West Ham parting with £26.6m for Nayef Aguerd. Josko Gvardiol, the 21-year-old Croatia international and RB Leipzig defender, is likely to be more expensive than all of those when he moves.
Inverted wingers became popular in the 2010s because of the movement away from No 9s. Examples include Ousmane Dembele, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar (twice), Gareth Bale, Eden Hazard, Nicolas Pepe, Angel Di Maria, Raheem Sterling and Riyad Mahrez, who all rank in the top 50 most expensive transfers of all time. Jack Grealish, Mykhailo Mudryk, Antony and Jadon Sancho are other examples inside the top 50 that have moved since 2020.
The peak of this role was probably when Mohamed Salah and Son Heung-min shared the Premier League golden boot (23 goals) in 2021-22. (Only non-penalty shots are shown below).
No 9s have become key assets in recent windows, too. Erling Haaland, Alexander Isak, Gianluca Scamacca, Richarlison and Dusan Vlahovic were all under the age of 25 when they moved last summer. The No 9 has become more fashionable again as a response to centre-backs becoming smaller with improved ball-playing attributes.
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There is a greater demand on physical, athletic players as well as those with technical skill, which has contributed to an increased rate of top teams purchasing young(er) players. A CIES report identified that 54 per cent of transfer fees were spent on players under the age of 24 in 2021 — the highest proportion on record and seven per cent above the average.
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Eight of the top 10 transfers in 2022-23 were players under the age of 23, and in the four seasons before that, at least 12 of the top 25 were 22 or younger. Worldwide, players under the age of 25 accounted for 72.7 per cent of total transfer fees between 2018-19 and 2022-23. That was a seven per cent increase compared to between 2013-14 and 2017-18, and comparing those same time periods, there was almost a nine per cent reduction in investment on 26-29 year-olds.
Modern coaches seem increasingly prepared to pay for potential and develop talent rather than acquire older, more refined players. This is a reflection of the evolution from manager to head coach, too. And there are players such as Jack Grealish, where a superior performance in their second season after a transfer shows how long it can take for a coach to fit someone into their system.
But even though most clubs now want to play a possession style, it is not the build-up players — centre-backs, full-backs and central midfielders — who are commanding the biggest fees.
Despite marginal increases in the proportion of transfer fees spent on goalkeepers, centre-backs, full-backs and midfielders, forwards still account for almost 50 per cent of transfer fees between 2013-14 and 2022-23.
Defensive midfielders and all-round central midfielders have become a more lucrative profile in recent seasons, though. Arsenal and Manchester City’s bidding war for Declan Rice attests to that, as does the sizeable fees paid for Enzo Fernandez (£113.2m; €121m; $143.2m), Jude Bellingham (£89m; €103m; $112.6m), Aurelien Tchouameni (£69.1m; €80m; $87.4m), Frenkie de Jong (£64.8m; €75m; $82m) and Casemiro (£61.3m; €71m; $77.6m). All have moved since 2019, and all rank in the top 50 most expensive transfers, with Casemiro the only aged over 25 at the time of his move from Real Madrid to Manchester United.
More top sides are operating with box midfields — a double pivot plus two No 10s in front — and playing with game models built around controlling the centre of the pitch. Pep Guardiola’s statement in 2016 that he “would like to have a thousand midfield players” was because “you can win the games with good defenders and good strikers, but to play good, you need midfield players”.
Having a ball-winning central midfielder, who can also break lines and play deeper to make rotations with full-backs or play between the centre-backs, has never been more valuable. It has not quite yet shifted the distribution of fees completely away from forwards, but teams recognise the need for high-quality central midfielders.
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Considering the importance of a quality goalkeeper, not just from a shot-stopping perspective but also with distribution, there seems to be so much value for money in this area, but it’s a position clubs look reluctant to recruit in as frequently.
Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United sticking with Hugo Lloris and David De Gea for as long as they have are examples of that. Spurs considering Brentford’s £40million price tag for David Raya as too much is a prime example of attitudes towards goalkeepers; Richarlison, Tanguy Ndombele, Cristian Romero and Davinson Sanchez all cost the club more than that.
There are just two goalkeepers in the top 50 most expensive transfers ever — Kepa Arrizabalaga to Chelsea and Alisson to Liverpool, both in the summer of 2018. Since then, Milan failed to agree contract terms with Gianluigi Donnarumma, who joined Paris Saint-Germain after being named the best goalkeeper in Serie A and was player of the tournament at Euro 2020, saving two penalties in the shootout against England in the final to win it for Italy.
Yet, as more teams press high, goalkeepers who can distribute become game-deciding players, particularly if they are capable of long passes in behind the defence. “The best teams play with 11; they do not play only with 10,” said Fonseca. “Teams forgot they had the goalkeeper. I really believe in their involvement in the offensive process.”
“Then there will be a day when a fashionista can come in and we’ll have a beautiful product,” said Sean Dyche after he kept Everton up on the final day of last season.
The acknowledgement that the endgame for a struggling Premier League side — who themselves have made questionable decisions in recent windows — is to play in a way comparable to Europe’s elite is telling of how homogenous football still is.
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Even as tactics evolve, elite clubs are generally approaching transfers in the same way.
People pay for goals more than anything else.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
