viv_andersons_nana
Well-known member
I’m just watching Match of the Day from last night and Murphy is analysing the Merseyside derby. He’s doing a bit on how good Dominic Calvert-Lewin was - and he was absolutely majestic - and he said he was “brilliant at winning headers and holding the ball up… it allows Everton to get up the pitch… it’s not always great to watch, but…”
This just struck me as quite a snobbish outlook, the kind that infests the game and the discourse around it at the moment. I know Murphy will be bitter Liverpool lost and whatever you think of him as a pundit is up to you, but… is there any better sight than your No9 leaping like salmon to power home a header at the back stick? In a derby? Under the lights?
It got me thinking of Ian Baird and Wilko, how good they were in the air, how their aerial ability meant the Boro teams they were in could play it on the deck - they were both good footballers - or knock one long and watch them win their header or know that they’ll chest it down and bring a teammate into it. It means you can send Hendrie or Ripley down the line and let them sling one in safe in the knowledge that our No9 is ruffling a few feathers and is sniffing about for a goal or a flick on.
It was a throwaway comment from Murphy really but there’s so many teams all doing the same thing at the moment, playing out from the goal-line, recycling possession, refusing to play a long pass or shoot from outside the box, the search for absolute control that suffocates the life out of so many games these days. It’s refreshing to see a proper striker bullying two big centre backs and then scoring a Wilkinson-esque header from a corner.
I think you need that variety in your team. You need someone who can bully a defender, hold it up, head one in out of the blue. I would argue that watching Stuart Ripley tearing down the wing and sticking one on a plate for Wilko to head home is exactly what you want to see.
We’re not all slaves to football played as snooker or chess.
This just struck me as quite a snobbish outlook, the kind that infests the game and the discourse around it at the moment. I know Murphy will be bitter Liverpool lost and whatever you think of him as a pundit is up to you, but… is there any better sight than your No9 leaping like salmon to power home a header at the back stick? In a derby? Under the lights?
It got me thinking of Ian Baird and Wilko, how good they were in the air, how their aerial ability meant the Boro teams they were in could play it on the deck - they were both good footballers - or knock one long and watch them win their header or know that they’ll chest it down and bring a teammate into it. It means you can send Hendrie or Ripley down the line and let them sling one in safe in the knowledge that our No9 is ruffling a few feathers and is sniffing about for a goal or a flick on.
It was a throwaway comment from Murphy really but there’s so many teams all doing the same thing at the moment, playing out from the goal-line, recycling possession, refusing to play a long pass or shoot from outside the box, the search for absolute control that suffocates the life out of so many games these days. It’s refreshing to see a proper striker bullying two big centre backs and then scoring a Wilkinson-esque header from a corner.
I think you need that variety in your team. You need someone who can bully a defender, hold it up, head one in out of the blue. I would argue that watching Stuart Ripley tearing down the wing and sticking one on a plate for Wilko to head home is exactly what you want to see.
We’re not all slaves to football played as snooker or chess.