There can sometimes appear a tendency among the footballing fraternity of the twenty-first century to suggest they have reinvented the metaphorical wheel.
Terms like ‘low block’, ‘false nine’, and ‘xG’ have become modern additions to the game’s lexicon and, while no-one could credibly deny sports science and the deeper analysis the digital age facilitates have not led to some good innovations tactically and otherwise, some aspects of football these emerging expressions refer to are not necessarily new.
As much as Liverpool supporters and the wider football world have loved the ‘gegenpress’ philosophy which lies at the heart of Jurgen Klopp’s model, a number of Anfield legends including former European Cup winning captain Graeme Souness have pointed out that principle of getting the ball back as quickly as possible after it has been lost was a feature of many successful Reds sides of the past and indeed other leading English teams during the late 70s and early 80s when they dominated Europe.
