The Beautiful Game

If Tony Pulis is accused of taking football and fashion back to the early 1990s and getting away with it, maybe it is time for action. John Francis asks, should there be a proviso that any team entering the Premier League should play football?

When you spend time and money watching overpaid athletes physical abusing players from the opposing team, albeit they do so with an element of skill that creates doubt in the mind of the officials as to who is at fault, then you start to wonder why you are indeed there.

After all, you know before the game starts; when you look at the fixture lists at the start of the season; that if there was anything else to do worthwhile on that particular day then that is a match you could gladly miss.


Why on earth would a highly paid manager set out a team of highly paid players to waste time from the first whistle; to stop opposing players from playing rather than attempting to show a modicum of the skill that a lot of them undoubtably possess?

Invariably they will, at some time during the game concede a goal, and then change tactics/personnel in an attempt to then get back on level terms which sometimes is so successful that you wonder why they had not set up like that from start?

These teams do not play like this because they lack finance to sign players, indeed they spend £millions and then coach these players into this negative stifling style that consists of two lines of defence; lofting the ball as high and as far as possible during play and attempting to make the most of set plays in the hope of 'nicking a goal in the mayhem of a packed penalty area or that their one attacking player will have a moment of brilliance and they can hang on to a lead.

So there you have it, there is no need to name the teams as we all know who they are,we just have to put up with these fixtures year after year because it is a game plan that has been encouraged to the extent that even when they are relegated it is more than likely they will be replaced by a team operating a similar style in the hope of preserving their new found status in the 'best league in the world'.