Tech Not Pep Caused Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Lifeless Surrender

As the clock reached 86 minutes with Wolverhampton Wanderers trailing at home to Liverpool pundit Gary Neville boiled over with frustration at the West Midlander's tactics.

The side in gold had the ball as time ticked away but seemed reluctant to move it forward, choosing instead to pass it sideways and backward across the backline.

"They've passed it back to the goalkeeper," the former Manchester United defender fumed .

"It absolutely drives me crazy. You need a goal. Do they know? Stop it. Honestly, it's so frustrating.

"I can't watch this because the reality is you can't kid football fans. They know exactly what's going on here. You've got to have another idea to try and do something different. I'm not talking about wellying it long and second balls."

It is at this stage of a rant about short passes people turn their ire on the man credited for transforming the English game from a direct style into this type of possession-based approach: Pep Guardiola.

And indeed Neville did cite the coach, but his criticism was indirect.

"We always blame it on Pep [Guardiola] but Pep's teams can do it, so I've no problem with Guardiola's team and the way he plays," he continued.

"He's been one of the greatest coaches of all time. His teams over 10 years have been some of the best we've ever watched.

"But we're now watching teams at the lower end of the table playing six passes between the center-back and goalkeeper needing a goal with four minutes to go and I can't accept that."

"It's not just a criticism of Wolves, there's plenty of teams doing it. It's got to stop.

"I have no problem with them trying to play out from the back, but there's got to be some point in the game where you say, 'Look, we're struggling to have an impact on the game, we need a goal, we need to create some form of pressure, get the atmosphere in the ground going'.

"There's 20,000 of these Wolves fans in the stadium and they're waiting for something."

Not everyone is quite as diplomatic about the impact of Guardiola's approach.

"Pep Guardiola has ruined football in every sense," said former USA international goalkeeper Tim Howard earlier this month.

"He's taught everyone that they can play that way, but it's not true. Only three teams in the world can do it well. Sometimes you need to be more pragmatic,"

"If you look at my generation, we were a team full of tough, resilient guys. We had players who won games and made us believe we could compete offensively. Today, that's been lost," he added.

It's understandable that former teammates Neville and Howard might feel frustration at the modern form of English soccer.

They both played in an era when the ball was played forward repeatedly into the wide positions or at the striker's feet.

But the truth is that these aimless forward balls were far less effective than careful possession.

It's pure coincidence that Guardiola's domination of English soccer has coincided with a revolution in data analysis which has proved to teams up and down the pyramid that knocking it long isn't just less aesthetically pleasing, it's also less pragmatic.

It is technology enabling teams to breakdown the best strategy for success which shows that short passes and patient build-up enables teams to mantain attacks and keep opponents at arms length.

Emotionally you can see why Howard, Neville and 20,000 Wolves fans might feel that having crosses fly into the Liverpool box feels more effective.

But it is not Pep Guardiola who is to blame for the shift away from that approach.

'Losing Control'

It's interesting that Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Gary O'Neil cited a point made frequently by Pep Guardiola in relation to Liverpool when discussing why the West Midlanders had been slowly building.

The Manchester City manager often discusses how dangerous it can be to have a game descend into chaos against the Reds and how the lack of structure only benefits the Anfield side.

O'Neil suggested as much had happened to Wolves shortly after they took the lead and his team was punished for it.

"We lost control and went off the game plan when we scored - caught in the emotion of equalizing and we got badly punished," he said.

"It's another game against tough opposition where we were us - we gave the best version of ourselves.

"Gutted for the lads as they deserved something over the last few weeks against tough opposition, but there's loads of stuff I love about the group in that performance.

"You don't want to keep it frantic and open against Liverpool.

"When it went to 1-1, we got carried away and opened the game up too much, but apart from that there were loads of good bits.

"We could have been more intelligent with the ball, we made some mad decisions when we were chasing the game. We just needed to get the ball wide and get the ball in the box, but as you can see from the reaction at the end, that is a group that is fighting.

"Another loss, which nobody wants, is tough to take, but if we keep pushing and scrapping and giving everything like we are, we are going to cause some teams problems this year."

Given this context, the tactics Neville was frustrated with at the end of the game have a clear explanation.