Time to let loose the juice the beneath jargon
IT’S all about the loading. And geography. And whether sixes can turn into eights and maybe even 10s. There is no longer a need to even raise the importance of good ball circulation. No tired, old jokes about that being dictated by the cut of the players’ shorts, please. This is a deadly serious business. This is The Warburton Effect.
Naturally, I accept my share of the blame. Last season, I spent plenty of time cooped up in small rooms at Auchenhowie as the Rangers manager spoke publicly about Jason Holt’s ‘pitch geography’ and how Leicester City won the English league because they got their ‘loading’ right.
At times, it felt a little like watching Stanley Unwin (remember him?) on the telly as a kid. You got the gist of what was being said without possessing the code to decipher the bits that didn’t make sense.
Not once did I try to nip it in the bud, though. Not once did I raise objections far less write a sneaky letter to Private Eye to see about getting a special ‘Pseuds Corner’ up and running.
Well, it’s a bit like asking for chicken nuggets in a vegan eaterie or putting on some Stormzy records at your Great Aunt Gertrude’s 90th birthday party. You think about it, but you don’t do it.
We all know the game is evolving and it’s easy to appear a bit of a dinosaur these days. That, in truth, is the only reason I mentioned Stormzy. Even then, he is now making rap videos with Paul Pogba.
Grime’s very own intelligentsia will already be laughing at me for daring to suggest he is remotely ‘street’.
It’s just hard staying relevant in the face of football’s ever-growing army of nerds and hipsters, sitting at home in their Mamelodi Sundowns away tops, collating their play-by-play analysis of Matchday Two in the Chinese Super League and letting the whole of social media know that gegenpressing is soooo yesterday. You can get roped into it all. Just recently, I asked Warburton about Jordan Rossiter, coming perilously close to wittering on about how he and Joey Barton are regarded as deep-lying midfielders and may not fit into the same system.
‘He can play four, eight,’ he replied. ‘I don’t think he is so much a 10, but four, eight, certainly.’
I nodded, making a mental note to send a short message in textspeak to the Plain English Campaign and inform them the war is over and I have offered myself to the enemy, waving the white flag.
I guess I had just given up when Brendan Rodgers, Warburton’s former colleague at Watford, got the Celtic job.
There had been all that stuff with him in England, using Latin in his teamtalks, talking about building aircrafts whilst they are flying.
When he stated that he felt Scott Sinclair was ‘not an out-and-out winger. I’d call him an 11 and a half’, my heart sank.
It is bad enough that some Rangers fans can now recite Valeriy Lobanovskiy’s mighty theses on the full press, half-press and false press without the other half of Glasgow taking this up as well.
The thing is, though, that Rodgers appears to have kept the mumbojumbo behind closed doors since.
Perhaps he was burned by the ribbing he took at Liverpool. Perhaps he realises that talking to people from other walks of life in the terminology of your trade — like a brickie rabbiting on in the pub about spotboards and soldier course — merely causes eyes to glaze.
Rodgers’ reign at Celtic, for the moment at least, is more about onfield purpose than off-field noise.
His team seems flexible. They change formation during games to ask specific questions. Compare that with Warburton’s view that ‘Plan B is doing Plan A better’.
Whether through luck or judgment, Rodgers has used substitutes to stunning effect.
Nir Bitton in Astana. Sinclair at Tynecastle. Bitton and Moussa Dembele when it was 3-2 against Hapoel Be’er Sheva and getting hairy.
Regulars at Rangers question Warburton’s use of the bench. Doubts remain over his defence and there have been periods already this season in which the frontline has not functioned at all well.
Joe Garner’s arrival from Preston may mark a shift in policy. He has a physical reputation.
Aged 28 and costing £1.8million, his re-sale value would not appear a matter of concern.
Warburton is certainly under examination like never before. Wes Foderingham insisting Rangers have greater quality than anyone else in the division and Barton making pointed remarks about Rodgers, dressed up in the ghastly guise of banter, have not helped lessen the glare with Parkhead less than three weeks away.
The Ibrox side may not have enough to be champions, but, should they fail to finish a comfortable second, their manager will be looking for a new job.
Warburton is an interesting figure, but he and his team must now be judged on actions rather than words.
Time to see the juice behind the jargon, you might say. Although I would rather you didn’t.