Double acts attack

Strike partnerships = goals galore

Welcome to the start of this week’s retro football rewind. It’s Monday so we’ll be turning back time and heading back to my favourite eras of football.

Recently I have read online people saying that the modern game is far superior and they have listed so many positives about it. At the same time, they have found negatives about the past too. So today we’re going to revisit something that is missing from today’s football, that could be brought back in a heartbeat.

Today, we’re looking at double acts. More specifically, centre forward partnerships. The moment that you read that, you thought of two strikers playing together didn’t you?

Criticism of the British game at the end of the 80s and into the early 90s focussed on the style of play. After living in two other European countries, the locals have this image of “kick and rush”. The old knock it long and look for the big man. Are they right?

Since the end of the 1990s, we have seen less and less of two strikers playing together. The end of 4-4-2 was certainly the reason for that. With overseas players arriving on British soil, often the tactics were more 4-4-1-1 with the second striker playing deeper and more like a playmaker. Later we saw more 4-3-3 and of course 4-2-3-1, as avoiding defeat seems more important than going for the win.

Anyway, this is a nostalgia article.

Bring on the double acts!