….time for a new approach from English clubs? I say this because in both the Man City and Liverpool matches I saw plenty of fight but no stab. It’s all well and good fighting with a plastic sword but you’ll get nowhere unless it’s sharp, made of steel and pointy if you get my drift! Liverpool committed players forward especially towards the end where if they had been playing a better team may have been punished on the counter late on.

Still, it was all the same from Liverpool; a diagonal ball to the forehead of Carroll in the hope he could connect with a header. He’s played a cameo in two matches for Liverpool and as bad as Braga are, they are not that stupid as to not think they should keep an eye on him! If Liverpool used other options as well as Carroll they may have had luck but they were clueless! Joe Cole looks a shadow of a player; he’s two seasons away from playing at Notts Forest and as for Glen Johnson, well, words escape me!

Now admittedly I can only account for the final half hour of the Man City game but it seemed much the same. All graft, no final edge.

So what exactly is letting English clubs down? We saw England’s best passing team outplayed by Barcelona at their own game, we saw Man United stutter to a win against Marseille and an embarrassing performance against a Championship team in Copenhagen. Arsenal aside, the emphasis on athletic players in England is embarrassing! It seems to be a common theme all over England and I’m talking right from Sunday League to Premier League; the only players coaches are interested in are massive built, athletic type players and awesome if you can make it work and in Chelsea’s case they managed to sustain that way of thinking for a couple of seasons but it can only be sustained for so long, as we now see Chelsea’s physical edge waning away like Superman after having ate Kryptonite for breakfast. The result for Chelsea concentrating their efforts on such players is that they have noone creative to make the difference. I look at none of that team and see a creative outlet whom I would pay to see.

Liverpool on the other hand two years ago were a pleasure to watch with Alonso, Mascherano, Gerrard and Torres yet who have they got now to replace that quartet? Poulsen, Lucas, Carroll and an injury prone and massively out of form Gerrard.

Big players do not win you games, it’s the vision for the pass required at certain times which win you games; Spaind and Barcelona are great examples of this and what are they doing? Ah yes, dominating football.

So, do you agree that building a team of athletes can only be sustained for so long? Romario certainly agrees with me when in an interview with FourFourTwo he stated ‘skill will always come on top’. Thanks Romario, I’ll leave the debating for you to decide…

See you in the comments!