The Premier League has been a physically demanding league for a long time before it existed; it is, after all, a contact sport. The nature of this physicality has changed over the decades, and it is often suggested that England’s top division is at yet another turning point in physicality.
While it was a leaping point in terms of football tactics, the game has evolved significantly since Herbert Chapman’s ‘W-M’ formation of the early 20th century. The ‘W-M’ that encouraged a forward-thinking attack by properly deploying three forwards to attack, alongside two supporting attacking midfielders, while keeping two halfbacks to help defend.
While it was a pioneering thought at the time, the classic W-M, which resembled a 3-2-2-3 formation, has been discarded by many managers, evolving into other styles of play to counter other developing tactics. True halfbacks have become less popular, with similarly positioned but more forward-thinking defensive midfielders taking over the role.
English football has churned from one tactic to the next since the 1920s, and alongside it, the physical attributes of top-level players have also had to adjust. Don Revie’s “Dirty Leeds” of the 1960s and 1970s is one prime example of physicality, with players such as Norman Hunter and Jack Charlton not being afraid to launch into a tackle. While Revie’s team weren’t necessarily tall compared to the players of today, even “Big Jack” Charlton was just 6 feet 1 and a half inches tall; they certainly earned their reputation as aggressive, earning ten red cards under Don Revie, in an era where referees were far more lenient than they are now.
Was football ever less physical?
The times of “Dirty Leeds” have gone now, and the sport has changed for the better or for worse. We’ve seen European football take charge in Italy and Spain in the 1990s and 2000s, with Johan Cruyff’s tiki-taka being perfected by Pep Guardiola‘s Barcelona, while Ralf Rangnick established the gegenpress, an advanced form of counter-attacking football.
It can’t be said that the Barcelona squad under Pep Guardiola was not physical, as the likes of Iniesta and Xavi were some of the fittest players in the world at that point. Where fitness reigned, however, strength became less vital; even a player considered to be one of the fittest in the history of the sport, Zlatan Ibrahimović, was dropped for young superstar Lionel Messi, despite Ibrahimović being 6’5″ and Messi just 5’7″.
Pep Guardiola won’t have faced Ralf Rangnick often once he moved from Barcelona to Bayern Munich, as from 2011 to 2015 Rangnick took a position as a sporting director of the Red Bull group, overseeing RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg and only returning as a manager during Pep Guardiola‘s final season in Munich. He would still face Rangnick’s tactical product, though.
Jürgen Klopp was just establishing himself during the mid-2010s, but he undoubtedly mastered his form of gegenpressing during this time. Following the core principle of the gegenpress, Klopp’s teams would, as the name suggests, press their opponents upon losing the ball instead of dropping back into a defensive formation. The German has previously stated, “Gegenpressing lets you win back the ball nearer to the goal. It’s only one pass away from a really good opportunity. No playmaker in the world can be as good as a good gegenpressing situation, and that’s why it’s so important.”
With the mindset of not needing a strong playmaker to make an ideal gegenpress, Klopp managed to achieve extraordinary feats with a Borussia Dortmund team full of good, but not world-class players, not yet, at least. As his players were required to have great physical strength to press the opposition throughout the match, his teams were characteristically different to Guardiola’s.
The league-winning Dortmund side of 2010/11 had an average height of six feet, while Guardiola’s Barcelona were just 5’10 on average. Once moving to Bayern Munich, Pep Guardiola inherited taller players, including veteran centre-back Daniel Van Buyten (6’6″), striker Mario Mandžukić (6’3″), and Spanish defensive-midfielder Javi Martínez (6’2″), forcing him to adjust his tiki-taka tactics to the league.
Adjusting profiles to the Premier League
With Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp refining their styles in Germany, the Premier League seemed to have become a bit confused in its identity. As expected, the ‘big six’ teams dominated, but there wasn’t an outright leader as the best team in the league with four different clubs winning the league in four seasons from 2012 to 2016. However, once Klopp joined Liverpool in 2015 and Pep joined Manchester City in 2016, the two clubs started to establish themselves as the league’s best.
Ironically, it was in Klopp’s first season that Leicester City won the title, the first maiden title awarded since Nottingham Forest won the 1977/78 First Division; Liverpool finished eighth. In his second season, Klopp’s team improved, finishing fourth and earning a Champions League spot. It took Guardiola far less time to establish his presence, albeit Manchester City already had a better recent record than Liverpool, winning the league twice and being in second-place twice over the five years prior to Pep’s arrival.
The two managers brought two distinct styles to the league, and despite having a lower finish in his first season, Klopp arguably integrated his style faster than Guardiola did. During his debut season, the German manager increased Liverpool’s counter-attack possession regain rate from 30% to a minimum of 40% each match, and forced long-balls in situations where regaining possession was uncertain.
Despite being known for tiki-taka football, Pep had begun to become more rational in his play style out of possession with heavy presses becoming more common when out of possession; Klopp had also begun to rely less heavily on counter-attacking football and brought in players with more flair. The two managers had asserted themselves with more similar tactics than ever before, and their recruitment showed that with each team signing a mixture of physical players and creative players to their team.
For Liverpool, Joel Matip joined in Klopp’s second season, and Van Dijk in his third; both 6’5″ centre-backs would be integral to Liverpool’s defence under Klopp’s tenure alongside Joe Gomez, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Andrew Robertson. While Klopp didn’t completely shuffle the squad, height wasn’t the only characteristic that was recruited across the board, as Sadio Mané and Mohammed Salah were both brought in to bolster the attack.
Pep Guardiola brought in one of Klopp’s old favourites to help reinforce his midfield as İlkay Gündoğan joined the midfield directly from Borussia Dortmund. Many taller signings were made across the pitch, even in typically shorter positions such as on the wing, where 6’0″ Leroy Sane was signed. In most cases, the shorter players who were at Manchester City before Pep’s arrival were favoured by the manager until they moved on, when they were replaced by a taller alternative.
Taller players across the Premier League
Whether or not it was intentional, the rest of the Premier League has become more tactically similar to Manchester City and Liverpool. Heavy presses have become more common, the ball is being played out from the back more often, and the tempo of games feels much faster. Many teams without the money to keep up with signings of the elite players needed to cope with the styles have gone down, or have resorted to playing extremely reserved football to avoid relegation.
Sean Dyche is the name that often comes up when talking about a team resorting to a tougher style that the opposition struggles to break down. His final match in charge of Burnley included 6’6″ Wout Weghorst in a strike partnership with 6’1″ Jay Rodriguez, 5’10” Maxwell Cornet on the left wing, a defence consisting of left-back Charlie Taylor (6’0″), James Tarkowski (6’1″), Nathan Collins (6’4″), and Matthew Lowton (5’11”). 6’6″ Nick Pope was in net, while Aaron Lennon was made to look comically short, standing at 5’5″ as the right midfielder and dramatically bringing down the squad’s average height to six feet tall.
While Dyche is often mocked for his reserved yet tough style, the Premier League seems to have adjusted closer to it over the last year. Arsenal have become infamously good at corners, scoring nine corners in the first half of last season, and teams seem to be realising that they should be making more of set-piece opportunities.
To do this, teams need a good set-piece taker and a lot of tall heads to put the ball on. Leeds United seem to have started realising this with their signings so far, bringing in Jaka Bijol and Anton Stach, both 6’4″, Sebastiaan Bornauw, who is 6’3″, Lukas Nmecha, 6’1″, and goalkeeper Lucas Perri, 6’6″. It’s fairly obvious that the approach is to buy big and reliable players, but also players with the strength to carry the ball up the field, and win the ball back if dispossessed.
In contrast, Sunderland have signed relatively short players when compared to Leeds. Habib Diarra is 5’10”, but a significant amount has been spent on Noah Sadiki, who is just 5’5″, Chemsdine Talbi, 5’9″, Enzo Le Fee, 5’8″, and Simon Adingra, 5’9″. Granit Xhaka is also expected to join, however, who will be a taller player.
It remains to be seen whether either Leeds or Sunderland will stay up in the Premier League; however, with quite polarising transfer strategies, whoever stays up could define the approach that newly promoted teams take in the future. The ever-shifting game seems to be at another turning point and it may just be that it is returning to the slower and more physical tactics seen decades ago.