“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football,” wrote Eduardo Galeano, at the age of 55. “And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
But the great Uruguayan historian, novelist, and sportswriter had more to add.
“The history of football is a sad voyage from beauty to duty,” he went on. “The technocracy of professional sport has managed to impose a football of lightning speed and brute strength, a football that negates joy, kills fantasy and outlaws daring.”
This May marked 10 years since Galeano died, and 30 years since he wrote those words. They still stand as remarkably prescient.
Over the season’s first quarter, the Premier League has appeared to regress, stylistically, from a peak of some five years ago. The table is closer than ever; promoted teams jumping from their seats and bloodying the big boys. But that is the only way in which football has been wide open.
On the pitch — and across the breadth of the league — matches have been defined by long throws, set pieces and gamesmanship. Games are increasingly like a FIFA or UEFA draw — lots of talk, manufactured drama, and a long wait to see any balls in play.
“So many games, especially currently in football, are not, in my opinion, a joy to watch anymore,” Liverpool head coach Arne Slot told Sky Sports before this weekend’s matches. “It’s become more and more time-wasting, more and more things I don’t like about the game, which are very good tools to use to make it difficult for other teams they play against.”
Supporters are making their displeasure known. In several cases, managers whose sides are in the table’s top half are under pressure. There is a sense the sport’s traditional logic is inverting. Are teams’ styles, not their results, making us miserable?
And would travelling to three Premier League games across the weekend provide any answers?
Saturday, 12:30pm: Tottenham Hotspur 2-2 Manchester United
“If you don’t take risks, you also take risks,” one-lined Thomas Frank in his Tottenham Hotspur introduction this summer. Through these eyes, Frank is less risk-averse than it might appear.
Spurs finished 17th last season but were sixth entering the Saturday lunchtime kick-off against Manchester United. Their new head coach nevertheless found himself facing down a vast stadium bowl of anxieties.
The previous weekend’s 1-0 defeat by Chelsea had been meek and lifeless; a performance with the ambition of an artist painting a river without reflections. Their xG tally, a paltry 0.05, was their lowest since the data was first collected.
Frank does have excuses. He is not an inherently defensive manager, rather an arch-pragmatist who might blame the team’s style, or lack of it, on the absence of key attackers Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison and Dominic Solanke. If his team need to play the piano to get a result, great. If they need to push it, also great. Just keep your back straight.
But here, in this situation, that adaptability is thrown in stark relief by his managerial counterparts. Frank succeeded Ange Postecoglou in the role, possibly the most stylistically idealistic coach the modern Premier League has seen. Another contender, Manchester United’s Ruben Amorim, would be in the neighbouring dugout.
It is also fair to observe that, just this May, Postecoglou and Amorim’s teams met in the Europa League final. This was one of the ugliest matches in recent memory; a game that, in isolation, only those fond of trench warfare could love. But of course, that night in Bilbao, for many fans here, was the greatest night of their lives.
Saturday’s match begins with two errors. Manchester United concede a needless corner, Tottenham overhit the subsequent set piece for a goal kick. Already, Amorim is haunched in his technical area like a squirrel holding a nut.
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium brings some of these questions into sharper focus. In its sounds, its smoothed edges and its vantage points, this was inescapably built as a cathedral to entertainment, and in many ways, in all but the central one — the lilywhite shirts on the pitch — it has delivered that.
Xavi Simons beats his man with a shuffle and a step before slipping. There is polite applause as Cristian Romero cushions a ball from the sky. Micky van de Ven drives forward, anticipation swelling after Tuesday’s wondergoal, before quickly losing it. At one point, United’s Patrick Dorgu is tasked with following through with the trend and delivering a long throw. It barely reaches the penalty area.
After half an hour, Bryan Mbeumo scores. The Cameroonian runs to a Manchester United away end that has contended with its own promises of ‘style’, shrugging in celebration. Frank is motionless on the sideline, but only for a second, before turning and clapping his team into action.
But the stadium is restless now. There are more boos at half-time as Spurs traipse off with an xG of just 0.07. Results are ultimately what get a football manager sacked. But having a style undoubtedly buys more time; Tottenham are lacking theirs.
There is more urgency at the start of the second half — Manchester United goalkeeper Senne Lammens makes two smart saves, Brennan Johnson has a goal ruled out for offside — but for many fans, it is not enough. They walk out after 75 minutes to the sound of more jeers, this time for Frank’s oncoming substitute Mathys Tel, heading for the trains, their homes and beyond.
Needing to travel across London for the 3pm kick-off, I join them.
Leaving early is rarely the answer, but they have been driven here by exasperation. To this point, the match had been defined by spurious shouts for handball rather than any Tottenham attacking play. They are 19th in the Premier League for shots per match. Does a lack of style make supporters miserable? Really, this had been a lack of anything.
There is a fine line between misery and gallows humour, but it can be found on the 2.15pm overground service from White Hart Lane, where fans shuffle onto the train, over the gap, while glued to phone streams from inside the stadium.
“I never usually leave early, but I just said to my Dad: “It’s just the same s**t again, isn’t it?” said one. He sits, stewing, slumped in his chair, chin tucked into his coat.
Then a call comes down the carriage. Tel has scored. His stream catches up. Up comes the chin, up goes the fist. 1-1.
In stoppage time, moments after the train leaves Seven Sisters, another shout.
“Richarlison!”
“What a finish.”
“He’s crying, he’s crying!”
And still, as they are borne further away from the ground, there is displeasure.
“He should be crying, with how s**t he’s been.”
“The last thing I said as I left that stadium was Spurs aren’t having another shot on target,” laughs another supporter. “I can’t believe we’re ahead.”
Then the kicker.
“They’ve equalised? They’ve equalised?”
Matthijs de Ligt in the final minute, so the message goes.
Saturday, 3pm: West Ham United 3-2 Burnley
One week earlier, after their sparsely-attended win over Newcastle United, West Ham United fans staged a sit-in protest against the club’s leadership.
This time, the final fans scurrying in were met by queues.
“Win one game and you can’t get into the place,” remarks one.
Others are less sanguine.
“Nearly there,” says one supporter to his group, before checking his watch. “Quarter to three. We’ll be leaving in an hour’s time.”
Under former coach Graham Potter, West Ham had attempted to pursue good-looking football. It rarely was.
His replacement, Nuno Espirito Santo, is another pragmatist, but West Ham’s performances had been so muddled as to eradicate hope, the nadir being a 2-0 home defeat by Brentford in which the hosts, despite the cost of their squad, already resembled a Championship team.
It is not accurate to call West Ham rebuilt, but they have appeared remodelled in recent weeks, with the most noticeable change being the establishment of youth academy product Freddie Potts — the third of his family to play for the club — at the base of midfield.
Emerging from the tunnel, the West Ham squad walked across the six-foot-tall writing emblazoned pitchside. “Academy of Football.”
There are results, there is style, but there are other aspects of football that fans derive joy from. Academy players are the optimism of the future, and even if the team provides nothing else, a prospect in themselves brings hope, a reminder that the fabric of the club itself still exists.
Earlier that day, Manchester United recognised the same — shoehorning 18-year-old midfielder Jack Fletcher into the squad to keep alive a record 4,332 successive games which featured an academy graduate in their first-team squad.
“It doesn’t matter about the result,” Amorim explained pre-game. “We will continue with these small details, which are the foundation of our club.”
Here, with Potts dictating West Ham’s tempo, the home team were aggressive and on the front foot early. In a stadium whose design creates issues with atmosphere, the early exchanges were far louder than usual.
West Ham captain Jarrod Bowen beats a defender, loses it, regains it, loses it again. His endeavour is applauded. Burnley fans clap their own commitment. This match is unlikely to trouble the UEFA technical analysts, but for entertainment? Both teams are broadly happy.
Burnley are a side on their own stylistic journey. In their recent Premier League spells, they have been competitive but unadventurous under Sean Dyche, before becoming adventurous but uncompetitive under Vincent Kompany. Despite playing out 12 goalless draws en route to promotion last season — “we bored our way to the Premier League,” said midfielder Josh Brownhill — current manager Scott Parker is somewhere in between.
As Zian Flemming wheels away after heading Burnley into the lead on 34 minutes, onside by the hem of a shirt sleeve, it is clear which version of themselves their fans would prefer to be.
But West Ham, for their part, do not fall apart, just as they came from behind against Newcastle the previous week. A team’s backbone is not reflected in their style, but it is reflected in an identity.
The notion of the West Ham Way is contested amongst the fanbase — and frankly, virtually every team in the Premier League professes to have their own — but is sufficiently established to be the name of the club’s largest fan-based podcast, and mentioned in Mark Noble’s autobiography. There, he defines it through three characteristics: “Work hard, be honest, be aggressive.”
Does effort count as style in the Arne Slot sense? Probably not. Burnley held 56 per cent of possession. But as West Ham claw their way to a win, scoring three of the scrappiest goals that could be seen — a bobbled set piece, a parry into Tomas Soucek’s chest, a rebound — does any of that matter?
Ask the man in his fifties jumping in the air, glasses askew, bobble hat almost falling off, puffer jacket making his joy that of a great, overgrown child. His club are almost out of the relegation zone, and the details of exactly how, like the bubbles above, will fade and die.
Sunday, 2pm: Nottingham Forest 3-1 Leeds United
Entertainment comes in many forms. Outside the City Ground, an armed police officer dances to the Four Tops, his gun swaying as “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” blares from the speakers. Dozens of Nottingham Forest fans entering the City Ground join in.
The previous evening, Brian Brobbey scored a stoppage-time equaliser against Arsenal. Fourth-place Sunderland are living a dream they only half-remembered.
But Arsenal, even in dropping two points, are still four points clear of second. Under Mikel Arteta, they have been held up as the archetypes of this anti-style; the best set-piece team in the league, with its stingiest defence. They are no Harlem Globetrotters, but should they ride their best attributes to a first league title for two decades, will supporters dwell for a single moment on whether they could have won better after years of falling short?
Some of the same details apply to Forest, who reached Europe last season, predominantly on the strength of Nuno’s defensive organisation. When he was sacked amidst boardroom disputes in September, owner Evangelos Marinakis lurched in another direction. Postecoglou threw out an identity forged under both Nuno and his predecessor Steve Cooper, forcing a squad which had given supporters the days of their lives to play a system unsuited to their capabilities. Progress? Forest supporters actively railed against it.
As American essayist Gore Vidal once wrote: “Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.” Postecoglou was sacked after 39 days.
Under Dyche, a former youth player and lifelong supporter of the club, there is a sense amongst Forest fans that a form of that style, at least, is back.
Leeds take the lead after winning a succession of 50-50 challenges, Lukas Nmecha finishing well. Forest respond two minutes later after the hosts fail to deal with Dan Ndoye’s cross, Ibrahim Sangare rifling home.
The game, for its first hour, is a scrap. Ethan Ampadu stays down for five minutes before resuming. Morgan Gibbs-White kicks the ball into his own face. Sean Longstaff takes two minutes over a set piece, then passes it straight to a defender before tackling both the Forest player and the ball over the touchline.
But then a moment of quality. Murillo’s diagonal ball elicits audible purrs from the Peter Taylor Stand. Omari Hutchinson checks inside and arcs a hanging, tantalising cross towards the far post. The faintest of touches from Gibbs-White diverts it in. Forest lead 2-1. Elliot Anderson’s late penalty adds gloss to the score.
This is another distinction which needs to be drawn. Style refers to a performance in the collective, a method of playing which is consistent and pursued throughout a match. But is that the sum total of our football-watching experience?
As a neutral, or watching on television, maybe. In that world, football is objective. But in person, between the rows of seats, it is anything but. Moments, and the feelings they give us, are what matter and linger. Style is not a synonym for entertainment here.
It is difficult to say that, to a fan, a 3-0 win featuring three dour goals is somehow worse than one featuring waves of free-flowing intricate football. And perhaps this view is blinkered. Perhaps it was influenced by seeing 13 goals across just three games. (Ten if you discount the ones on the train).
But neither can fan experience be distilled into the result, above everything. Tottenham demonstrated that. Style and substance are not a dichotomy; other factors count, effort and identity matter. The Premier League has been a frustrating product this season. Is its style alone making us miserable? More often than not, it has been lacking some of those other attributes as well.
“Out of all the unimportant things, football is the most important,” Pope John Paul II memorably said. And well, if that is the case, the weekend provided answers; style is just that, a tiny piece of the sport’s glorious, maddening, all-important unimportance.
