The half-yard, football’s most fabled of distances

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Sergio Aguero making himself half a yard for a shot

Like many other facets of British culture, football in this country belongs to a pre-metric era. Alcohol consumed pre-match is measured in pints and speculative efforts on the pitch are measured in yards. Even once you get your head around the pitch being split into yardages rather than metres, there are 0.9144 of the latter in the former, there is the uniquely football term, the half-yard to contend with. 

It should be no surprise that a sport in which the 6-yard line and the 18-yard box figure prominently needs a smaller yard-based way to distinguish things that occur. Unlike Fight Club, the main rule when discussing the half-yard would appear to be always talk about the half-yard, however spurious the reference. 

The highest space-based compliment one can pay a striker is to say they only need half a yard of space. Whether they are known for creating that half-yard by shifting the ball or finding it with some clever movement is really not important, it’s simply that giving them said half a yard is almost certainly disastrous for your goals against tally.

At the other end of the scale, one of the most common criticisms of struggling teams or individuals is that they look half a yard off the pace. This can frankly mean anything from their opponents beating them to second balls or that their closing down has been dreadful or that simply they’ve been a bit rubbish and are either losing, or ought to be.

The offside rule, and the dubious attempts of officials at enforcing it, are often the most controversial incidents in football matches, and the half-yard is key to analysing them. Strikers can go too early and end up half a yard offside or just lose concentration at which point they tend to drift half a yard beyond the last defender.

So deeply has the half-yard platitude become ingrained within football culture, when Niall Quinn spotted a player drift offside, he was so determined to suggest it might be an issue of half-yards, that he declared the player should’ve looked across the line and stayed a half-yard onside. 

Quinn can probably be forgiven for that mistake, you only need to be level rather than behind the last defender, because of the way half-yards are measured in football. Namely that they aren’t.

Any shots that fly just wide are half a yard away from glory, players whose legs have aged lose half a yard of pace and cheeky fullbacks tend to sneak half a yard up the touchline when taking throw-ins. 

For the avoidance of any doubt, if you find yourself chatting away about a football match and have nothing else to say, if you spot someone doing virtually anything, comment about the half-yard implications and you’ll fit right in.

The monotony of modern football

'I'm more than capable of looking after myself, don't worry about that...'

The first rule of football club is don’t say anything original about football club. Sam Allardyce’s ‘thump it forward and see’ description of Manchester United’s approach towards the end of Sunday’s game only serves to prove a theory I’ve been working on for some time; football has run out of ideas.

As pundits continue to trot out recycled thoughtless descriptions of what has gone before and what might follow and @footballcliches thrives on Twitter, I’m left believing that managers are destined to repeat accusations once thrown at them, as a cycle of nothingness continues to go nowhere.

Allardyce v Van Gaal: Long ball team…

Putting aside the negative connotations of long-ball football, the suggestion that this was United’s best chance of scoring a goal at the weekend was, from Allardyce, undeniably the pot calling the kettle black.

Recently United have gone noticeably direct in an attempt to utilise Marouane Fellaini’s attributes and avoid previous criticisms linked to ponderous build-up play, but let’s be honest, Allardyce was just frustrated about conceding a late goal.

Anything else would be hypocrisy, as during his tenure at West Ham he has repeatedly come under fire from his own fans for a style of play far removed from the passing game believed to be the ‘West Ham way’.

We're not keen on long-ball football either Sam...

Less than a year ago ‘Fat Sam out, killing WHU’ was displayed on a large banner as Allardyce watched his side lose to West Brom, and this followed a long period where results were poor, and the style of play was regularly criticised. Despite this harrowing experience, something he also dealt with in his ill-fated period as Newcastle boss too, Big Sam was happy to make the same accusation this weekend.

Allardyce v Mourinho: Parking the bus..?

Just over a year ago, as Allardyce was fighting against poor form and the abuse from sections of his own fans, West Ham won a hard fought point at Stamford Bridge against Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea.

‘It's very difficult to play a football match where only one team wants to play,’ declared Mourinho, as he described the West Ham playing style as being from the nineteenth century.

This particular assertion, that West Ham had wronged Chelsea by not attempting to take them on blow for blow is not a new one to Mourinho, as he has put teams out to (often successfully) stifle and suffocate all creativity from a game. Not more hypocrisy, surely?

His comments received a variety of responses, including a description of Victorian-era football, and reasonable suggestions that he has been equally guilty of this type of tactic.

Jose is disgusted by defensive football...

The best response though, comes from Mourinho’s own archive of witticisms. Following a 1-0 defeat at the Nou Camp that saw his Inter Milan side reach the Champions League final on aggregate, Mourinho triumphantly rejected allegations that his side had parked the bus.

‘People say we park[ed] the bus,’ he said. ‘That is not true, we park[ed] the plane!’

Van Gaal v Koeman: You came for one point…

The most blatant example of repetition involves colleagues turned nemeses, Louis Van Gaal and Ronald Koeman. When Koeman took his Southampton team to Old Trafford, and beat United 1-0, Van Gaal was exasperated by the result.

‘They came for a draw and they got away with a victory,’ he said, barely making sense.

Three weeks later, Koeman’s team were the hosts, and Swansea City were the visitors. After more than an hour of near-domination by the home side, Jonjo Shelvey scored the winner for the Welsh side, and it was Koeman left lamenting a smash and grab defeat at home.

As if reading off a script prepared for all managers faced with explaining a 1-0 home defeat, the Dutchman said: ‘I think the luckiest team won today. They came for one point and theygot three points.’

Maybe the bizarre touchline incident involving Nigel Pearson and James McArthur on Saturday was the Leicester manager's attempt to break the monotony and repetition of modern football, and we should be grateful if that is the case. Strangely, his comment after the incident that he is ‘more than capable of looking after himself’ was rhetoric more akin to Fight Club than a football club. Fortunately, the Leicester manager didn’t breach the first rule of this club any further by explaining or justifying his behaviour, a shrewd move indeed…

Archive: Shinji Kagawa's Rooney Conundrum

Kagawa in his first spell at Borussia Dortmund

Shinji Kagawa’s role at Manchester United remains unclear. The club’s retention of Wayne Rooney this summer has widely been described as the most important bit of business conducted in David Moyes’ short period in charge. However, the Japanese international may be the one figure at Old Trafford who would have seen a potential departure for Rooney in a different light.

Keeping the best players is always as important as investing in new talent; the Arsenal fan’s response to the sales of Fabregas, Nasri and Van Persie in the last few years prove this. Therefore keeping Wayne Rooney, and at the same time ensuring that Chelsea were unable to significantly improve their squad, is generally accepted as a victory for David Moyes in an otherwise turbulent first summer in charge at the Theatre of Dreams.

You only have to look back as far as October 2010 to see the potential unrest within a side that is seen to be stagnating or declining after the sale of a key player. On that occasion it was Rooney himself who stated a ‘lack of ambition’ when indicating that he would not sign a new contract, the season after United had sold Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid. On that occasion, whether Rooney finally received the assurances he requested or not, a new contract was eventually signed.

Fast forward to 2013, with Rooney in dispute with outgoing manager Sir Alex Ferguson and later incoming manager Moyes, Chelsea signalled their intent to sign the ‘angered and confused’ player. However, Moyes continued to rebuff suggestions that the Liverpudlian would be leaving, and as the window closed and Rooney remained in red, positive messages began to pour from the club with encouraging words regarding the retention of the player and his role within the team.

However, one man who may not be so enamoured with United keeping Rooney is Shinji Kagawa. The Japanese international has cut a frustrated figure for much of his first year in Manchester, and during a first season curtailed by form and fitness issues, Kagawa also found himself in unfamiliar roles when selected. His second season at Old Trafford, under a new manager, could be seen to be another opportunity to establish himself in the side, but with Rooney remaining a key player, Kagawa may find himself marginalised once more.

During the 2011/12 season, Kagawa’s performances for Borussia Dortmund caught the eye of an international audience, and saw him voted the inaugural Bundesliga Football Player of the Year, and he was included in the league’s team of the year. Dortmund manager Jurgen Klopp was at pains to attribute his considerable success to his central position, a key role he has not yet been afforded at United.

With 13 goals and 8 assists from his 31 Dortmund appearances in 2011/12, Kagawa’s importance to that team is clear, and the advanced role there saw him create 134 chances for teammates, whilst completing 55 key passes in the final third. Much of Kagawa’s frustration at United stems from the lack of responsibility afforded to him, and his selection on the left hand side. The statistics from his first season at Old Trafford show him taking a back seat to Rooney, the man denying him his preferred central position.

In his first season in Manchester, Kagawa was only able to complete an average of one key pass for each of his 20 matches, and only created 19 chances, making him a shadow of the creative force that terrorised Bundesliga defences the year before. Most revealingly though, Kagawa was only able to provide 3 assists during the 2012/13 season, a figure dwarfed by Wayne Rooney’s 10. The only statistical area of Kagawa’s game to see an improvement after his move to United is his percentage of completed passes, which rose from 83% to more than 89%, but this reflects his deeper role in the side and the back seat he has had to take to Rooney.

Having managed to retain Rooney’s services, David Moyes appears set to continue the trend of playing Rooney as the deeper of two forwards, in a ‘number 10’ role, and this means using Kagawa sparingly. During United’s recent Champions League fixture against Bayer Leverkusen the relative roles of Rooney and Kagawa were typified. Rooney shone in a central role, whilst Kagawa, selected on the left hand side, continued to drift inside as he struggled to impact the game from wide areas. It is this turn of events, and the impact on the Japanese international’s form and role, that may see him as the one man not to see Manchester United’s keeping of Rooney as a positive. 

This article was written for Sports Gazette in October 2013.

Panda-inspired England, out-dated predictions and a burning sense of injustice

A couple of black eyes and a broken nose won't stop Stuart

The revival of English cricket after a heroically poor winter, and a record-breaking defeat to Sri Lanka, has been nothing short of inspired.

I have my suspicions that the fact I am no longer live-blogging any of their matches is playing its part, as I have regularly proven myself a curse.

My own input aside, the senior players have stepped up, and with conditions in their favour, the bowlers in particular have shone.

Nobody embodies the spirit that has been at the heart of the turn around more than Stuart Broad. When England bowl badly he generally bowls particularly badly, he’s a tone setter, and a streaky player.

So when he’s bowling well and taking wickets, he tends to take a hatful.

This week he is playing at the Oval despite a long-standing knee injury, that will require surgery soon, and the two black eyes and broken nose that come from a ball making its way between helmet and visor.

He looks like a panda, but he has been anything but as cumbersome.

As well as the continuation of the cricket season, football has also returned this week, and as a Man Utd fan, I’ve already remembered why I hate it already.

In the week leading up to the Premier League season I was asked to write a short preview for each of the 20 teams, (10 of which can be found here, and the other 10 here) I wrote them and promptly watched the predictions become out of date before they even went live.

Having said that Shane Long would be key for Hull and that Crystal Palace would thrive under Tony Pulis, both men left their respective clubs and made my predictions look as relevant and on trend as the mullet.

The sport on my television at the moment has been transmitted from Switzerland as well as other parts of the UK.

The European Athletics Championship has been great watching for British fans, with our sprinters dominating and medals coming from everywhere.

Aside from British success, and the pole-vaulting Cooly theCow, one particular incident has caught the attention of many.

French steeple-chaser Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad won the gold medal with a dominant run on Thursday.

So dominant was his performance that he felt he had enough time to remove his vest and celebrate with it above his head and in his mouth as he ran down the home straight towards the finishing line.

Immediately after the race, officials issued him with a yellow card, a warning about this particular conduct, and he continued to celebrate his victory.

Shortly after this, unhappy about the decision not to disqualify him, the Spanish team, whose athlete finished fourth, protested and Mekhissi-Benabbad’s medal was taken away from him.

This really doesn’t sit right with me.

Firstly the officials decided on the spot to give him a yellow card, so a sanction was decided upon and handed out, before an appeal overturned this.

Why was this decision overturned?

The reality is that there was no new evidence to overturn this decision, just a Spanish team upset at coming fourth, and trying their luck.

Secondly the reason given for disqualification changed within hours of the decision, the officials weren’t even sure which rule they were accusing him of breaking which smacks of a poor decision.

Thirdly, and crucially, his actions didn’t affect the result of the race, or the ability of officials to deem the result of the race. Vest or no vest, he won.

I feel sorry for the disqualified athlete, the person wrongly awarded a gold, the Spaniard wrongly awarded a medal, and the Spanish team for feeling the need to deprive a man of a hard-earned gold medal.

Mekhissi-Benabbad already has a reputation for courting controversy, and it is fine to punish him for breaching rules or unbecoming sporting conduct, but the punishment should be proportionate to the crime.

He didn’t cheat. He just acted like a prat.

A good week for pandas, cows, Chris Waddle and fourth placed Spaniards, not so sure about the rest of us…

Number 10s and binary in modern football...

Kevin Phillips: A REAL number 10

Over the past couple of years a new phenomenon has been born; the Number 10 Role.

What used to be known as playing in the hole, or playing off or behind the striker, or even a free role, is now playing as a number 10, and it winds me up something chronic.

Football is a game that when played at its best is fluid and interchangeable, naming a position after a number doesn’t fit with that notion at all.

Even at the age of 22 my view on squad numbers appears to be a very traditional one, because nowadays nobody plays flat 4-4-2 formations.

A mere decade ago, your goalkeeper would wear 1, your fullbacks 2 and 3, and the central defenders 5 and 6. Midfielders would wear 7, 4, 8 and 11 from right to left, and your little striker would have 10 to your big guy’s 9. Simple.

When I envisage an archetypal number 10, I think Michael Owen alongside Emile Heskey, or Kevin Phillips partnered by Niall Quinn.  

Even though there was an accepted format, numbers never labelled the positions, and with squad numbers being issued in league football, teams rarely lined up with 1-11 on the field, let alone in these exact positions.

In 2014, 4-4-2 is all but dead, and there is an ever increasing reliance on the central play maker; the number 10.

Gary Neville has been quoted as saying that in the modern game everyone wants to be a number 10, and that is at the detriment of defending, but as far as I can tell it still doesn’t mean anything. Is football turning into rugby?

Rugby is a sport where the 15 selected players wear numbers 1-15 and the numbers refer to a specific position in the team. One of the positions is actually named after the number, and the number eight is a globally recognised term.

The difference that still exists in football, despite the death of 4-4-2, is that the manager is entitled to play a number of different formations, meaning that numbers cannot equate to positions.

Louis Van Gaal, the new Manchester United manager, is a fan of 3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2, and this means some of the positions I labelled with numbers above don’t even exist.

Despite the fact Van Gaal favours a formation that fans in English football are not used to watching, it hasn’t stopped him describing positions as numbers.

"Rooney can play at 10 and nine. He said to me he can also play 7 and 11. But I like him more at 9 or 10. Kagawa was a number 10 at Dortmund but I want to try him at number 6 and number 8."

What?

It would appear that Van Gaal is now conversing predominantly in numbers, and I have no idea what the future holds for Kagawa. Even if we have come to (begrudgingly) accept number 10 into the games vocabulary, I have genuinely no idea where a 6 plays, and god help all of us if he fancies the Spain-inspired false-9 formation any time soon.

In terms of insight, the Dutchman may as well be speaking in binary, and I’m pretty sure Seven-11 is a convenience store chain, so maybe he’s got Rooney doing the lunch run…

Mind games… The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - The Good (Jose Mourinho)

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Mourinho in his natural home, the press conference

All through this season, Jose Mourinho has been playing games. It’s simply what he does.

Whether that comes in the form of describing West Ham’s defending as being ‘nineteenth century football’, before doing the same thing, albeit more efficiently, against Atletico Madrid and Liverpool, or by describing his Chelsea team as the title race’s ‘little horse’.

The ‘little horse’ were in pole position for some time, and despite his assertions about building for the future, his young team really ought to have won the league this year.

However, Mourinho can sit back on his words at the end of the season, when Liverpool or Man City win the title, and say that they achieved all their aims. Nobody will believe him, except perhaps his squad, and to him, that’s job done.

Mourinho, therefore, despite employing some pretty ugly tactics, and having some decidedly bad habits, falls into the good in this particularly category.

His ability to create a siege mentality within a dressing room is simply second to none.

The determination of his players is forged in the belief that the world is against them, their tactics and skill are not appreciated, and that nobody wants them to win. This is the genius of Mourinho.

Before he arrived, Real Madrid were a sizeable margin behind Rijkaard’s and Guardiola’s Barcelona sides. By the time he left they may not have been equals, but he had created a machine that would do anything to try and beat Barcelona… and I do mean anything.

If you believe you have a point to prove, or people think you cannot achieve, then you are simply more inclined to go and achieve whatever it may be. Mourinho knows that, and it’s his first unwritten rule of management.

Other honourable mentions in the ‘good’ have to include Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.

Ferguson was the master at title race shenanigans, and he saw off a few managers during his time at Old Trafford. ‘Fergie Time’ embodies the strength of character he was able to impose.

Referees knew that they would not get away with short changing United’s godfather, and opposition teams knew United had a habit of scoring. If you expect to concede to Man United in stoppage time, it’s more likely you will.

Wenger is another that has built success around siege mentality, but to a much lesser degree.

The fact that he rarely saw any incident that occurred in a match during his first decade at Arsenal meant that his players knew he was on their side. They wanted to perform for him, and they largely did…

You’ll have to read the bad and the ugly follow ups to find out just who Sir Alex watched meltdown when squeaky bum time approached.