How the box -to- box midfielder has become the most tactically important role

Wing-backs, back threes and false nines – they’re all the rage in the Premier League.

However, as was illustrated by the signature signings that were sealed during the summer transfer window, the true tactical arms race at play in the English top flight once again hinges on a less exotic focal point.

The box-to-box midfield generals are back, if they ever went away in the first place. In a sport where pressing and counter-pressing has risen up to rival patient, possession football as the dominant mode of play, having an all-rounder in the middle capable of shrugging off challenges and escaping traps has become all-important.

Not only are these individuals key to evading or undermining the collective efforts of opponents drilled to close down and trap teams as an organised unit, their ability to wrong-foot their aggressors is a tactical weapon in its own right.

Chasing down the opposition to try and take back possession is one of the most exhausting aspects of a game of football. It doesn’t just sap the legs of energy, it can pull players out of position too, especially if they are joined by one or two team mates intent on corralling or containing the man on the ball.

If their target is able hold them off or wriggle free, they can emerge into the space vacated by their assailants, escaping into open ground to charge forward or lay a pass off to another player capable of exploiting the gaps left by their rivals’ failures to successfully press them into disarray.

Effectively, the hunters become the hunted as they find themselves back-tracking or left watching on as their foes stream off down the other end of the pitch to cause mayhem or score.

Last season, Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso – and Kyle Walker and Danny Rose prior to the former’s defection to Manchester City this summer – showed how devastating a pair of wing-backs can be as they provided the drive and width to liberate attacking players from their responsibilities out wide. Eden Hazard and Pedro, and Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli, were able to come inside and bring their quality to bear in the most dangerous parts of the pitch, safe in the knowledge that the flanks were covered.

The back three has also gained prominence of late with an extra body at the back enabling managers to balance out teams featuring more forwards and attacking midfielders. Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have all used an additional centre-back to great effect over the past year of competition in the Premier League and FA Cup.

At Liverpool, Roberto Firmino has become the most high profile example of what can be achieved by playing with a false nine or a forward that is happy to drop extremely deep into the midfield to create holes in defences by dragging players around, winning the ball high up the pitch and warping the opposition’s shape. Despite his goal record, Harry Kane has provided a similar service to Spurs from the front in recent seasons.

Yet it is midfield where games can truly turn, especially when an all-rounder with the right mix of strength, skill and intelligence is deployed to dictate matches and undercut their opponent’s attempts to attack or defend and exploit any imbalance in the transitions between having and losing the ball, and challenging to get it back.

Mousa Dembele remains the master of this art in the Premier League. After arriving at Fulham as a striker who used his physical might and technical quality to rip into teams as a striker for Louis van Gaal at AZ Alkmaar, he dropped back under Mark Hughes into a midfield role, and continued to retreat further as his attributes allowed him to ran through teams to bring the ball forward from deep.

This became has become his specialty for Spurs, so much so that Mauricio Pochettino’s side have come to rely on the Belgian’s irrepressible excellence with the ball to an unhealthy degree. He completed more take ons per 90 minutes than any central midfielder across Europe top five leagues last season, and was one of the most prolific tackler in the Premier League.

Dembele rarely loses the ball and is entrusted with carrying it forward, barging and breezing past any attempts to rob him of possession. Without his presence in the middle, Spurs can grind to a halt. Their interest in signing Andre Gomes and Ross Barkley in the summer can be explained as an attempt to find cover for the Belgian. It is hoped that Harry Winks can mature into becoming the in-house, homegrown back-up option.

Manchester United paid a world record fee for Paul Pogba in 2016 in the belief that he too possessed all the necessary qualities to take on this role, with the added imagination to govern games as a playmaker from deep. Nemanja Matic was signed this summer as his foil, but the Serbian is another midfielder capable of bringing the ball forward, retaining possession and going past his opposite numbers in the middle.

Together they have formed an intimidating partnership due to a combination of size and guile. Chelsea will have to hope the Serbian’s successor at Stamford Bridge, summer signing Tiemoue Bakayoko from Monaco, can translate his own success at winning the ball and taking it past opponents in Ligue 1 into the Premier League.

Liverpool worked hard to secure the services of Naby Keita as their own box-to-box momentum builder but were ultimately content to wait and welcome him to Anfield in July 2018, for reasons that should be obvious for anyone who has watched the Guinean play. Another insatiable presence in midfield, only Dembele completed more take ons for a central midfielder per 90 minutes in Europe’s top five leagues.

No other player ranked as highly across as many categories as Keita for tackles won, interceptions made or chances created. He also scored eight goals for RB Leipzig too, and has started the new season by completing the most dribbles in the Bundesliga across all positions.

In the meantime, Jurgen Klopp will look to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to add more oomph to his midfield as exactly the sort of dynamic and dexterous ball-carrier he has always wanted the chance to prove he can be – exactly the type of player that can be so effective at accentuating the opportunities that come when an opponent is in transition.

Georginio Wijnaldum ran Arsenal to pieces in their 4-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield, in large part due to his success at taking the ball past his opponents, completing eight dribbles, a personal best for the Dutchman in a Premier League game.

Whenever the Gunners found themselves off-balance, he was ready and willing to push the advantage by overrunning their lines through the middle. Keita will be an upgrade on the former Newcastle United midfielder. While they wait for his arrival net season, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Emre Can will help to keep the intensity levels up for the Reds.

It isn’t only teams within the top six who have sought to fill this niche either. Watford now boast two players who can take on the task from deep in Etienne Capoue and Nathaniel Chalobah, and when fit the muscular Roberto Pereyra is no slouch at winning the ball and charging at teams head-on from a more advanced position.

Southampton have brought in Mario Lemina from Juventus to give their one-pace midfield a new range of gears to find and Swansea City scored one of the great coups of the window by securing Renato Sanches on loan from Bayern Munich.

The German champions already have one of the best players in the world when it comes to driving from box-to-box, seizing and keeping possession, in Arturo Vidal, and it is hoped that the former Golden Boy winner can one day develop into the sort of player worthy of comparison with the Chilean.

He can be a thrilling prospect in midfield but has struggled for consistency, not least due to his inexperience. The 20-year-old made his senior breakthrough three seasons ago, and is the youngest player to ever lift the European Championship, which he won with Portugal in 2014, using his powerful running and flashes of quality to drag his team up the field and onto the front foot.

With time, and games, he could blossom into exactly the sort of midfielder he has been hyped to become, and under Paul Clement at Swansea he should receive plenty of opportunities to refine his craft, up against ready-made role models such as Dembele and Pogba.

The modern box-to-box midfielder is football’s answer to the queen piece in the hands of a chess grand master. Capable of getting up and down the field, coming across to protect territory or seize the initiative in order strike at opportunities as they arise, they are the midfielders who run games and win matches, through individual endeavour or influence.

Other tactical assets may help to shape the course of games but it is these individuals, providing the cut and thrust and control at the heart of their sides, that dominate matches, and the thoughts of their rivals. It is hardly a novel idea. Patrick Vieira was bossing Premier League opponents in a similar fashion more than a decade or so ago. Barcelona’s reign over European football was effectively brought to an end by the muscularity of a Bayern Munich side that boasted Bastian Schweinsteiger at his own box-to-box peak.

While his body was too worn down for him to show his class in England, the man in the middle is now back on top as the most important figure in a top flight football match. The answer to the question of which club has the most commanding midfield general could come to decide who wins the title, and so much more, this season.

Source: Sqwaka