BILLY BUNTER

Weblog: The football punter

Left-field approach from Psycho was just mental

WHEN it comes to talking tactics I have to admit I used to be something of a dinosaur and would prefer the efforts of a Mike Bassett 4-4-2 to anything too fancy which arrived from foreign soils.

But you have to move with the times and these days it’s all about trying to be a revolutionary. We’ve had christmas trees, midfield diamonds, wing-backs and Spain won the Euros with Cesc Fabregas as a false No. 9, admittedly Emile Heskey has been playing the role of a false No. 9 for years but it seems to be really taking off right now.

Stuart Pearce attempted to bring himself up with the Pep Guardiolas and Vicente del Bosques of this world on Friday with his three left-back system for Team GB against Brazil and unsurprisingly it flopped miserably in a 2-0 defeat which saw the samba stars thankfully declare at half-time.

Perhaps we should not expect anything different from a man nicknamed Psycho.

After all, he once showed a team to his wife which looked strong on paper because it had 12 men selected and then there was the occasion he actually tried to use goalkeeper David James as a centre-forward - probably the first time the world had actually seen a false No. 9.

When will Stuart P realise he is never going going to be a Pep G. If you’re not good enough, realise your limitations and stick to the Mike Bassett plan of action. All together now, today we will mainly be playing four, four...