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I thought that this was a bit like watching 25 years of MOTD highlights, including some fairly standard football punditry. You get to see some fabulous players, the big teams (a lot) and have the illusion of being better informed. Its enjoyable, but how in depth is it?
I had a seed of doubt in the opening pages when the author is making some disparaging comments about long ball football, and the fabled 'position of maximum opportunity'. Now I'm no fan of the theories of Wing Commander Hughes and the big ball, but at least I know that the position of maximum opportunity is somewhere between the penalty spot and the near post. Michael Cox , however, places it on the back post. A bad start for a book on tactics...
Thereafter, well it is all a bit of a nostalgia trip, and the author has a clear and convincing thesis about how English football has been progressively transformed by the influx of foreign players, coaches and tactics. He concludes with some poignant comments about how much this is at odds with Brexit 'and all that'. But I'd say that throughout its all a bit 'tactics lite'. It does for example make much of the modern trend towards 'pressing'. which I find fascinating. How can 10 outfield players + a keeper playing as sweeper effectively press 11 talented opponents on something the size of a football pitch without being comprehensively out passed? You know from the author that the players have to be very fit and have to practice a lot...beyond that, well, I'm still none the wiser.
Still a fun read, even if the author suggests, on at least two or three separate occasions, that Paul Scholes wasn't a genuinely world class performer. Says a lot.