Claude Makelele has a lot to answer for.
Defensive midfielders are almost a necessity nowadays. Defence-minded players are more trustworthy and God knows when you’re playing in a tight game against a good team, you want men who are going to track back and not leave your side so open.
After all, the only way you score goals from open play is by creating an imbalance – getting a man over, taking a man on, forcing the other team into a disadvantaged position. Being allowed to shoot even. If you have players who are tuned in and capable, that technically should rarely happen – unless someone does something special, something rare.
But it has come so far that we’re willing to praise everyone and anyone to the high heavens because they sit a little deeper in midfield. It doesn’t necessarily matter what they do when they’re there, just that they are there.
It’s almost a certificate of education for the armchair supporter to recognise that a player isn’t actually there to make anything happen offensively. Rather, in case you didn’t notice, he’s there to break up the play, do a job, play smart – all the bullshit, generic descriptions you hear because it makes someone seem as if they have a deeper understanding of the game.
So it has gotten way out of hand now that ineffective players are excused for being ineffective. They’re allowed to get away with the absolute bare minimum – sometimes less – because they’ll sit for you. They won’t take any risks.
Anyone who questions them doesn’t appreciate the job they’re doing for the team. They don’t have that same understanding of a football game.
Even at home, the Glenn Whelan debate continues to divide the country.
We’re lost somewhere between intolerant outrage and what is almost arrogant and automatic appreciation. There are two camps: One which doesn’t even want to talk about it, they just want to tell you he’s rubbish; and another that understands his role and think he is a vital part of Martin O’Neill’s team.
But it’s like this (and Whelan is only one example of what is becoming an epidemic): It’s not that people don’t understand his role; people are just suspicious of whether or not he’s any good at that role. Glenn Whelan is there to do a job, sure. He’s not supposed to do anything flashy, we know that. But is he actually any good at the job he’s supposed to do?
There he is against Poland. The positioning and anticipation alone are one thing. The inability to adjust and do anything about leaving the entire backline exposed is another.
But he gets a free pass quite often – especially at club level – because he’s disciplined and you can trust him to sit deeper and not look to take off up the pitch.
It’s not a question of trust. It’s a question of management. Look at what Zinedine Zidane had Cristiano Ronaldo do on Sunday.
If you want someone to sit and do a defensive job for you then tell them to do that. And tell them in no uncertain terms that if they do anything other than that, you’ll whip them off quicker than they could saunter up the field.
Imagine you put a good player in that position and told him to play that role. Well, then you have players like Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane. Then you’d have Sergio Busquets and Andrea Pirlo. Players who are genuinely world class, they can genuinely offer protection and players who genuinely contribute to a team – they don’t need the protection of pseudo football intelligence.
They could break up the play, do a job and play smart – all that nonsense. Anyone could if you told them to – especially good players.
But imagine what else a good player would bring you. They’d bring you genuine effect and they might even offer you something else on the ball too rather than someone who’ll roll it two metres to a team mate because his job is done.
And maybe, just maybe, we’d start appreciating good players again at face value because, at the minute, defensive midfielders are impervious to judgement and they’re overvalued by association.
If you say anything to the contrary, you just don’t understand or appreciate their role.
