You could have knocked me down with a feather

Today I shall be venturing a little beyond my remit for my first post of the New Year. Perhaps due to the blizzard of family activities, the McDonnell household has been full of chaos in recent times and – with not least my own catering duties to the fore – I have necessarily been distracted from following too much rugby union on the television.

To be honest, I didn’t really miss it too much: the break was probably a blessing in disguise.

Aside from the inevitable inherent shock of Richard Cockerill’s sacking as Leicester Tigers’ head coach – a move that had been on the cards for several weeks – and the moans of some about Danny Cipriani’s exclusion from the latest England training squad, there didn’t seem too much happening in the Aviva Premiership to comment upon, that is if you leave aside Bristol’s season suddenly lighting up with their first two victories of the season after what had previously seemed like a nailed-on instant trip straight back down into the Championship. On that there remains a long way to go and probably a few twists and turns yet.

Instead in this post I want to address and entirely different subject – that of Premier League football.

By genetics and history my family group is a committed oval – rather than round – ball follower, but with two soccer-mad sons on the roster (and seemingly in control of the television zapper) this festive period I have found myself watching both BBC highlight programmes and several Premier League matches live, or as near as makes no difference, whilst I was moving back and forth between the sitting room and the kitchen during main meal preparations.

Liverpool v Manchester City: Watford v Spurs: West Ham United v Manchester United – quite by chance and without any pre-planning at all I watched these three games live and unedited as they unfolded.

As you might expect of someone whose youth coincided with some of the great stars and teams of the 1980s and 1990s, my natural state of mind when coming to football is somewhat rose-tinted and nostalgic.

All this modern Premier League money, stella managers, WAG gossip, blanket back-page news coverage and on-field play-acting and injury-feigning designed to obtain ‘soft’ free kicks (whereupon the player leaps up, job done, and carries on as if nothing has happened) is a source of inner derision and frustration for the average onlooking rugby fanatic – not least because one fears that, given the way rugby has been developing recently, it could be standing at the top of a similar downward slope.

Having said that, today I want to register a genuine reaction of pleasant surprise at what I beheld.

As I watched all this football, it gradually dawned upon me that the fare on display was not at all as bad as I had anticipated.

The players seemed immeasurably fitter than in yester-year and possessed of much greater all-round technical skill than their forebears.

Time and again I marvelled at the low key and understated way in players anywhere on the park – receiving a ball flying at high speed towards them even at an angle almost beyond physical human range – were able to trap, bring down and control it, or simply volley it smartly and accurately on to another team-mate.

My previous impression that what they (who are ‘they’ anyway?) call tikki-taki – or is it ‘tippy-tappy’? – football, by which I mean to refer to continued swift, short-distance passing in ‘triangles’ or systems in which, as soon as a player has given a ball, he immediately moves into a position that allows a team-mate in possession an option of passing it back was invented in Spain and/or by the great Barcelona club.

It seems to me, upon my re-acquaintance with elite soccer, that even the most humble of Premier League clubs have become quite adept at playing in this style. It’s effective, pleasant to watch and easy to admire.

Another thing that struck me forcibly was the gulf in tactics between my brief and semi-detached heyday of previously watching football and today’s version.

I may be exaggerating here to make my point, but in the good old days whenever the ball went off the park, it took an age for the game to re-start. The players all walked slowly into position (perhaps trying to catch their breath being so less fit then) or as the chosen man went to take the throw-in. Then there was – or to these eyes seemed to be – half a minute of flaffing about as the thrower-in sought someone to throw the ball safely to.

These days the ball goes off and – unless tactically either team is deliberately ‘killing time’ – it’s pretty much a case of a jog and an immediate throw-in … and play resumes.

Ditto happens when a defender intervenes to make a tackle or clear the ball off the pitch and into row Z.

In my day, as I recall it, the defender would try to tackle his opponent and if successful would then attempt to dribble or pass the ball away. In the modern era, again, there’s much less mucking about. It’s almost a case of – if in doubt – aim for row Z. And if you’re not in doubt, aim for row Z anyway. All that happened is that the ball is retrieved pronto and the attacking team throws it in – and away we go. The ten or so seconds that this might take gives the defending team the time to get a couple of extra men back in place … and thus both teams simply get on with it.

Lastly – and positively – the increased skill-level of modern players means that spectacular runs and shots on goal are in the ascendancy.

I’d go so far as to state that, simply on the evidence of what I saw on television over the festive period, Premier League football these days is much better and more entertaining than it ever way in my day.

I never thought I’d say this (as a rugby person through and through) but, on a day to day basis, modern Premier League football appears to provide better entertainment for the uncommitted onlooker than your average game Aviva Premiership rugby. The cultures of both sports are quite different, of course, and in this respect for me rugby is infinitely more attractive, but that is not the point and message of this piece.