Playing out from the back... tactic or addiction?

Time to ask the question

Coming out can’t be an easy thing to do. Particularly in football. We all have our secrets. We all worry how we will be received and perceived if they escape.

But last night I saw something at Newcastle that gave me the courage to speak out. To say what I’d never admitted in public before.

I’ve never been a fan of playing out from the back. There, I’ve said it.

Well, no… can I qualify that?... no, I didn’t think I could. Because this is a football world in which you’ve either got to be a believer or be the infidel. A world of philosophies and beliefs, of ancient and modern, of right and wrong.

But it’s in such a world of dogmas and decrees that rebellions stir. Little covert pockets of resistance. Whispers in corridors, questions in television studios. A turning of a tide, an uprising of dissent, a time to say what we’re all secretly thinking.

Get it up the field.

There will be a good reason why David Raya decided to pass to Declan Rice last night… a Declan Rice with Fabian Schar surgically conjoined to him at the time. There will be a fine theory that says it was the correct thing to do. But in practice, even Donald Trump had better ideas yesterday.

I’m betting it wasn’t Raya’s idea. Not even his instinct. It was a passage from a playbook he’d been given. Most keepers I know enjoy life the most when the ball is as far away from their goal as possible. They wear a ‘1’ on their backs mainly because there were better ‘10’s’ in their childhood dressing-rooms. They know their place.

And their job has its perks. They get to catch the ball and throw it. In the modern game, they are now mysteriously allowed to lie on the ground and hold onto it for ages. They have their own marked territories where only Ben White is allowed to touch them. In a sport called football, they can play handball… outside their natural body silhouettes.

So, why are goalkeepers suddenly being recruited and selected for their… wait for it… kicking ability?

I managed to secure an exclusive interview with a current Premier League goalkeeper. He didn’t want to be identified. Out of respect for his wish to remain anonymous, we will call him Fraser Foster for the purposes of this article.

Me: When did you first feel you were becoming addicted to playing out from the back?

FF: I got in with a new set of friends. I’m a big guy and they wanted me in their gang.

Me: The Spurs Crew?

FF: Yeah. And it was fine until they got this new leader.

Me: Angie? (name changed)

FF: Yeah. He’s a good guy. A really good guy but…

Me: … take your time.

FF: I think it was the Cruyff turn.

Me: That’s when you knew?

FF: I was out of control. It had to stop.

Me: Is that when you decided to boot it down field.

FF: I just felt better. Everybody did. Except…

Me: Angie didn’t?

And, hey, I’ve never coached a kids’ team, let alone won titles in Scotland, Japan and Australia. You don’t need medals or a Pro Licence to understand the benefits of passing the ball to one of your own, of committing an opponent before you do or of working out strategies to beat a counter press. I’m honestly not a disciple of any ‘get it up to the big man’ religion… particularly when your big man is Kai Havertz.

It's the religious zeal with which some coaches appear to propagate their philosophies that brings out the sceptic in me. I am naturally suspicious of any cult that applies the same inerasable commandments to every minute of every circumstance of our lived experience. I like choice.

Football matches are just different in the final minute to the first, just different at 2-0 up and 2-0 down, just different against Forest and against, yes, Spurs.

Carlo Ancelotti is the reigning Godfather of football management. Who can tell me what his philosophy is? As Don Corleone told the other families, “we are all honourable men here, we do not have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers”. Carlito’s management is built on trust and an age-old street wisdom, not legislative edicts set in stone.

Liverpool fans won’t thank me for tempting fate by praising their manager’s approach on the day of a semi-final but what exactly is ‘SlotBall?’ It’s everything and it’s nothing. It varies, it’s adaptable. It can be long and it can be short. It’s sometimes racy and intense then it becomes slow and controlled. It has structure and fundamentals but it’s full of practical solutions, it’s whatever it needs to be in any given situation. It’s life itself.

I fancy that it even has allowances built into it for the fact that Mo might not chase back as often as the others and that Trent could have a defensive lapse or three. It plays instead to their unique strengths. Picking a precise pass under pressure is not David Raya’s strength, not at 3-0 down in a semi-final at St James’s.

I’m not advocating a ban on keepers passing the ball but it shouldn’t be a requirement, it can’t become a habit. I don’t mean to trivialise genuine addiction but the pass that Raya attempted and the same one that Stefan Ortega played to Mateo Kovacic last weekend were the actions of people doing things against their better judgment. They’ve each been sold an idea and an ideal that they haven’t worked out how to use safely.

Risk is a contemporary football word. It makes modern-day coaches sound bold and innovative when they use it. But it’s not new. Football – like most sports – is a game of percentages. There is nothing innovative about asking footballers to do things they cannot do, that don’t serve a purpose. That’s just risk. Take up Free Running or Base Jumping.

There is a statistic for nearly every aspect of the game today but I haven’t seen any data for goals scored and conceded as a direct result of trying to play through a press. I don’t think the tactical snobs would like the numbers. The best results come from playing the percentages successfully. If the first priority of goalkeeping was passing ability, Martin Odegaard would have been between the Arsenal sticks last night.

There is no revolution in the air but maybe just a sense that evolution is happening a little too quickly for some of us to keep up. And some of us are finding a voice to say so.