It was Jurgen Klopp who foresaw football\u2019s shift towards defensive solidity back in 2018.<\/p>\n
Possibly wishing for his head to reside somewhere other than his hands, Klopp brought in Alisson and Virgil van Dijk to rectify Liverpool\u2019s frequent lapses at the back.<\/p>\n
With hindsight, he had spotted an opportunity. Football in the mid-2010s frequently resembled high-scoring basketball matches, reckless to the point of cheapening goals.<\/p>\n
Big games often resembled cavalry charges. Klopp calculated that tightening Liverpool\u2019s defence would lead to massive gains.<\/p>\n
Winning both the Premier League and Champions League proved this to be an astute decision, typical of somebody who is both European and (formerly) bespectacled.<\/p>\n
Eight years later, Arsenal have taken Klopp\u2019s logic to the nth degree and the moral panic is almost universal<\/a>.<\/p>\n It wouldn\u2019t be a surprise to see The Simpsons\u2019 Helen Lovejoy replacing Gary Neville in the Sky commentary box, or the ghost of Mary Whitehouse appear on Match of the Day.<\/p>\n The Gunners are seven points clear at the Premier League summit<\/a>, playing a style of football that is defensively sound but hard on the eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mikel Arteta tried to win the Premier League playing Pepball, falling just short in 2023 and 2024. A switch towards physicality and set-pieces was an attempt to gain an edge on their rivals.<\/p>\n Seeing corners celebrated like the birth of a first child remains unsettling. And some of Arsenal\u2019s gamesmanship is being rightly lambasted.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the scrum of fans, pundits and managers trying to one-up each other with doomsday declarations for The Beautiful Game is becoming tedious.<\/p>\n Ruud Gullit doesn\u2019t watch football anymore<\/a>. Yaya Toure is \u2018disappointed\u2019. Paul Scholes thinks the Premier League trophy should remain in storage until David Raya channels his inner Rene Higuita.<\/p>\n It was the same when Greece won Euro 2004, with nobody capable of understanding how man-marking and set-pieces were enough to beat France, the Czechs and Portugal.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was the same during Euro 2012, when the debate over whether Spain\u2019s Tiki Taka was tremendous or tedious reached unprecedented levels of pretension.<\/p>\n And, whisper it quietly, it was the same in 1966. Several observers claimed England\u2019s no-frills success set the domestic game back 20 years.<\/p>\n In all these cases, as well as Arteta\u2019s Arsenal, the fault lies less with the victors than with the inability of their opponents to stop them.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one thing for fans, partisan and impotent in equal measure, to cry foul. Which, of course, leads Arsenal supporters to defend their club in an unpaid 24\/7 ambassadorial role.<\/p>\n