Thinking coaches keep football-dom on its toes with their predisposition for the hitherto untried. When a player is redeployed to great effect, it usually improves the team’s collective output, resulting in an upturn in fortunes. Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has earned a reputation for such novelty in his 14 year coaching career. The scramble for sweeper keepers similar to Manchester United’s newly signed custodian Andre Onana and veteran Bayern Munich skipper Manuel Neuer, who are more or less an extra man on the pitch because they expand the field or contract play according to their team’s requirements can be traced to former Barcelona keeper Victor Valdes who turned sweeper keeping into an art form despite obvious limitations as a shot stopper.
More tactical tinkering that worked a treat at Barcelona includes moving 5 ft 8 inch Javier Mascherano from holding midfield into central defense, switching a young Lionel Messi from an inverted winger into a number 10 and converting Daniel Alves from an attacking midfielder into the most effective wing back in football history. By the time the Catalan football incubator left the Camp Nou he was already a legendary coach on account of the avalanche of silverware he won in 36 months.
At Bayern Munich, Pep’s most famous innovation was the conversion of Germany’s 2014 World Cup winning captain Phillip Lahm into a deep lying midfielder.
In the Cityzens’ treble winning season, moving John Stones into midfield in a ‘Franz Beckenbauer role’ was the most inspired coaching innovation as Guardiola went about bridging an eight point Premier League deficit on Arsenal. Playing Swiss centre back Manuel Akanji as a full back in the later stages of the 2022/23 campaign despite the availability of full backs like Kyle Walker made the treble winners defense more impenetrable.Before that, the Spaniard was the first to deploy full backs in a supporting midfield role. Long before Joao Cancelo excelled in this hybrid function, Gael Glichy used to stand at the edge of the centre circle to the bewilderment of football watchers.
In the upcoming season, it’s going to be interesting to see how Trent Alexander Arnold fares if he is deployed in midfield. His assists record as a right back is way up there with Daniel Alves’ but can he replicate such numbers in a more congested part of the field where there is less time afforded to players and even less space to manipulate? If it works out, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp, who is short on numbers after letting Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and Naby Keita leave, will be glad to accept the plaudits.
Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger’s contribution to the evolution of Premier League football went beyond his innovations on diet and training regime. The Frenchman famously converted Thierry Henry from a winger into the one of the most devastating strikers the division has ever seen. Two equally inspired redeployments came in the switch of Cameroonian midfielder Lauren Etame Mayer into an uncompromising right back and pulling Ivorian Kolo Toure from midfield into a decent centre half.