Friday 2 June 2017 14:03, UK
Antonio Conte won the battle of the superstar coaches but perhaps the Premier League's big clubs could all be winners in the end. Adam Bate examines the trend towards tighter games between the top six and why this could lead to a resurgence in Europe...
Every Premier League season throws up fresh records and statistics. Chelsea are the first team to win 30 games. Their away points total is the best ever too. But perhaps it is a more abstract defensive stat that could prove most significant. It could even represent a shift in emphasis that will result in the Premier League dominating European football once again.
For the first time in eight years, three different Premier League teams completed the season having conceded fewer than 35 goals in the competition. Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham boasted the meanest defence in the country but neither Jose Mourinho's Manchester United nor Conte's Chelsea were too far behind.
That benchmark has been a tough one to hit in recent years. For example, not one team managed it last term. And while the Premier League has provided ample entertainment in the intervening period, the return to three teams keeping it this tight at the back harks back to an age when English clubs were a major force in the Champions League.
Indeed, the Premier League accounted for three of the four semi-finalists in each of the three seasons between 2006 and 2009. And in the 2007/08 season, a record five teams conceded fewer than 35 goals. Perhaps it's no coincidence that this was also the year of the only ever all-English Champions League final. Solid defences are a platform for success.
At Champions League level, that has not changed. Juventus have reached this year's final on the back of a vastly experienced defence that has conceded only three goals in 12 European matches this season. The Atletico Madrid side that reached the final in two of the previous three seasons boasted Europe's meanest back line - keeping nine clean in 12 home ties.
Now defending is back in fashion in England too. But why? Conte's influence is a factor. Not only have four of the last seven Premier League winning coaches been Italian but they have also been the exceptions in the interim period too. Carlo Ancelotti's Chelsea had the best defence between 2009 and 2011; Roberto Mancini's Manchester City from 2011 to 2013.
Jose Mourinho, himself an ex-Inter coach, had the best record in the two years after that and recognises a kindred spirit in Conte. "They score one goal and they win," Mourinho said of Chelsea. "They defend a lot, they defend well. When they are winning, in the last 20 minutes they bring defenders in. They don't care what people think, they just want to win."
The presence of Conte and Mourinho in the Premier League together for the first time, alongside Pochettino's well-drilled Spurs side, might have tipped the balance in favour of more defensively astute coaches. Certainly, Conte's famed formation switch back in September was primarily motivated by the need to tighten up at the back.
"We have not got the balance," he said after Chelsea's emphatic defeat to Arsenal. "It is incredible to concede three goals." He solved that defensive problem and in doing so cracked the code to winning the Premier League. Others were not so successful but it would be a mistake to think that defensive concerns were not at the forefront of their thinking too.
Mourinho's emphasis on stopping opponents is well documented but even Pep Guardiola, for all his reputation for free-flowing football, adjusts his approach to the opposition and works hard to construct from the back. He is proud of having had the league's best defensive record in each of his seven seasons at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Arsene Wenger, meanwhile, a coach instinctively committed to concentrating on his own team's strengths, has responded too. His decision in April to "add a little bit more stability" by switching to a back-three for the first time in 20 years could be seen as a victory for the latest fad but it might also be interpreted as a reaction to the new clash of coaches.
Managers are having to think again. The cult of the manager might be a media obsession but it is one shared by the protagonists themselves who are acutely aware of this battle to outwit one another. Perhaps that is why the numbers point to the influence of the top coaches being particularly felt in the matches that pit them against each other.
In total there were 78 goals in the 30 matches between top-six teams in the Premier League this past season. That's a significant downturn from some of the hectic-looking numbers racked up in recent years with more than 100 goals between those six sides in both 2011/12 and 2012/13. A look at some high-profile scorelines from those seasons explains why.
Arsenal won 5-2 against Tottenham and 5-3 at Chelsea but also lost 8-2 away to Manchester United. That result was the high point for Old Trafford fans but they did not have to wait long before losing 6-1 to Manchester City at the same ground. It was exciting but it was also chaotic - and the game's so-called super coaches pride themselves on control not chaos.
This season has seen things become more tactical. When Tottenham outplayed Arsenal in November, Pochettino's decision to use wing-backs for the first time in almost a year was hailed as a shrewd move. The same switch helped Spurs become the first team to stop Chelsea scoring with their new system when they met at White Hart Lane in January.
Conversely, when Wenger opted for Arsenal to go with a back-three at the same venue in April, Pochettino promptly reverted back to a 4-2-3-1 formation - and won. In this game of bluff and counter-bluff, mistakes are costly. Liverpool's double over the Gunners effectively ended Wenger's proud 20-year sequence of qualifying for the Champions League.
Sometimes the changes have come mid-game. Mourinho's United were destroyed in the first half of the Manchester derby in September before he added an extra body in midfield and the game changed completely. He went on to shut out City and Liverpool away as well as deploying Ander Herrera in a man-marking role on Eden Hazard to help beat Chelsea.
The upshot of these manoeuvres can be summed up in a single statistic: we are currently on a run of 29 Premier League games between the division's top six without a match in which five or more goals have been scored. Liverpool's 4-3 win at Arsenal on the opening weekend has proved a one-off. The previous five seasons featured 31 such games.
Fewer high-scoring matches reflects a desire for greater control. But with four of the top-six bosses in their first full seasons in charge, that's not been as easy as some would have liked. City's frenetic 1-1 draw with Liverpool in March might well have brought more goals but seemed to leave both Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp exasperated. It was not their goal.
So what can we expect in the future? As the likes of Mourinho and Guardiola have more time to mould their teams, the little details are likely to become more important than the big chances. And close matches decided by the details are the matches that make teams better. They could even be the catalyst for improvements in Europe too. Naivety no more.
An example from an era when English football dominated the Champions League illustrates the point. There were only three goals in the four semi-final matches between Mourinho's Chelsea and Rafa Benitez's Liverpool between 2005 and 2007 - and one of those did not cross the line. And yet, it represents something of a tactical zenith for the English game.
Before the last of those ties, Benitez realised that Mourinho would be watching every minute detail of his team's set-pieces for weeks ahead of their clash. As a result, he saved a special set-piece routine for the second leg; holding it back for the moment that really mattered. Daniel Agger duly scored from it and Liverpool progressed to the final.
Coincidentally, Benitez himself returns to the managerial mix next season at the helm of newly-promoted Newcastle United. Just another big beast looking to get the better of foes new and old. All of which should make for a more tactically adept Premier League - and perhaps the first fledgling steps towards a renewed period of Champions League success.
