Are playmakers coming back into vogue in the Premier League?

Kagawa could become the fulcrum of Manchester United's attack this season

The recent arrivals of Shinji Kagawa and Robin van Persie at Manchester United have left Sir Alex Ferguson with an interesting dilemma. How does he fit both new signings into the same team alongside Wayne Rooney? With Rooney's recent injury, he may not be able to answer that question for a few weeks, but the way United have played in their first couple of matches has been telling. It is clear that after a few years of usually playing 4-4-1-1 with Rooney dropping off a strike partner (most recently Danny Welbeck), the veteran manager wants to place more emphasis on the playmaking role. Kagawa, who can also operate on the wings, is an attacking midfielder with all the qualities to dominate a match in the playmaker, or number 10, position. This is where Ferguson has deployed the Japanese 23-year-old in both the league matches against Everton and Fulham. Of course, Rooney, ostensibly a striker, does enjoy dropping deep into the playmaker position, and when on form displays a passing range which allows him to operate as a creator effectively. In the defeat against Everton, he started as the forward playing ahead of Kagawa but had a poor game, and he was benched for the Fulham victory before coming on and getting injured. Similarly, van Persie tends to drop deep and play the role of creator as well as being a lethal finisher when playing further up the pitch, but in the home game with Fulham, his partnership with Kagawa showed great promise. With the Old Trafford club struggling for midfield creativity in recent years, the addition of Kagawa as playmaker could be both crucial and poignant, but Ferguson could struggle to keep his plethora of strikers happy. 

van der Vaart looks to be on his way out of White Hart Lane

Elsewhere in the Premier League play-makers appear to be coming into vogue, apart from at Tottenham Hotspur where Andre Villas-Boas is keen to shift Rafael van der Vaart, despite the Dutchman being one of the most talented creators in the league. While he has played a 4-2-3-1 formation early in his Tottenham career, it is known that AVB favours a 4-3-3 formation, and his reasons for selling van der Vaart could be that it is difficult to fit a traditional number 10 into such a system. Last season at Chelsea, Villas-Boas deployed play-maker Juan Mata wide on the left of his 4-3-3 formation, and while the Spaniard did perform well, the Portuguese managers tactics ultimately failed. When Roberto Di Matteo took the reins at Stamford Bridge, he shifted to the popular 4-2-3-1 formation with Mata as the central play-maker and managed to lead Chelsea to Champions League and FA Cup glory, though it is worth noting their league form did not improve radically and they still finished 6th in the league. Either way, Villas-Boas doesn't seem keen on having the focus of his team on a play-maker and it is expected that his two creative midfield signings, Gylfi Sigurdsson and the newly-acquired Moussa Dembele will play centrally in a 4-3-3 but more as box-to-box creators than number 10s. 

Fernando Torres can expect Juan Mata and Eden Hazard to provide plenty of ammunition

Over at AVB's old club, Chelsea, the contrast could not be more pronounced. Di Matteo, who was the Portuguese's assistant before taking over, clearly disagrees with his predecessor on the play-maker front. Alongside the already established Mata, he has brought in the Brazilian Oscar, the German Marko Marin, Wigan's Victor Moses and the much-hyped and incredibly-named Belgian prospect Eden Hazard. The first three games of the season have seen Mata remaining the central figure with Hazard taking one of the wide positions in the 4-2-3-1 formation. Marin is currently unavailable through injury, but with the likes of Raul Meireles, Ramires, Florent Malouda, Daniel Sturridge, Ryan Bertrand, Moses and Oscar all competing for places in the attacking third behind Fernando Torres, it is going to be extremely difficult for Di Matteo to keep many of his creative players happy at all this season. The perception is that now Roman Abramovich has won his much longed-for Champions League, his new target is to build a team which play the sort of entertaining passing football which Barcelona and Spain have perfected. These teams play with multiple play-makers, and this summer Spain often lined up without a recognised striker, as the 'false nine' formation polarised opinion, but ultimately proved successful. But for it to work effectively at Chelsea, Di Matteo will need great man management skills and for his holding midfield duo, currently Frank Lampard and John Obi Mikel, but with Oriol Romeu and both Meireles and Ramires also in contention, to protect the defence effectively. Regardless, Torres will surely have plenty of chances carved out for him, so a repeat of last season's appalling goal-scoring form will be inexcusable, and his two goals in the first three league games show that that will be unlikely.

It might be difficult for both Silva and Nasri to start in a 3-4-1-2 formation

Over at the home of the champions, the Etihad Stadium, Roberto Mancini is overseeing an intriguing experiment with his formation. The Italian has been trying out a 3-4-1-2 in pre-season and used it in the Community Shield victory over Chelsea and the 2-2 draw away to Liverpool but it is clear his players aren't quite used to it. Playing three at the back has been extremely rare in football over recent decades as the back four have dominated, but the back three is making a comeback in Italy, and Wigan Athletic pioneered it with much success in the latter half of last season. However, while to the untrained eye it appears to be a defensive formation with an extra centre-back shoring up the back-line, Mancini's true ambition could be to make the most out of his play-maker. At Anfield that man was Samir Nasri, who operated behind strikers Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli and ahead of a midfield which consisted of James Milner and Aleksandar Kolarov as wing-backs and Nigel de Jong and Yaya Toure in the centre. It didn't quite work away to the Reds as City's players still seemed to be getting to grips with the formation and they were lucky to be gifted a point by Martin Skrtel's clumsy back pass late on. Yet by putting the emphasis on one play-maker, Mancini seems to be playing against the strengths of his squad. With David Silva, Tevez, Sergio Aguero and even the Ivorian Toure all capable of playing as in the number 10 role, it does seem counter-productive to play with four deeper midfield players. In fact the formation makes it very difficult to fit both Silva and Nasri into the same team, as neither would suit the wing-back role. But Mancini has shown over the past few seasons that he knows how to make a team evolve, with the holding-midfielder-overload of his early days at City replaced by last season's free flowing, goal-laden success. If he gets his players all singing from the same sheet then the wily Italian could be lauded as one of the best tactical managers of his generation. 

Barcelona are very familiar with the concept of play-makers

Over the past decade or so, play-makers have struggled to fit into English teams. The likes of Rooney have been played largely as strikers and talents such as Joe Cole have been forced out wide and often wasted. But on the continent they have often still thrived, as seen with Kaka in Milan's Champions League successes of the mid 2000s, at the fulcrum of a narrow 4-3-1-2 formation, and with Wesley Sneijder playing behind Diego Milito in Internazionale's treble winning campaign of 2009-10. Real Madrid have gone from Zinedine Zidane to Mesut Ozil over the past few years and Barcelona have been spoilt with the likes of Javier Saviola, Ronaldinho and Deco even prior to the current crop of Lionel Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas. But it is only now that the Premier League's top clubs all seem to be embracing the idea of the team focusing on playmakers. The obvious exception being Tottenham and Villas-Boas. If he fails, as many think likely, and the likes of Kagawa, Hazard and whoever becomes the focal point of Mancini's 3-4-1-2 succeed, then a whole new era of play-maker orientated football could be upon us. Worse things could happen to the Premier League.

Captains, coaches and media make a Messi of it

Lionel Messi is the best player in the world right now. Not many people, Cristiano Ronaldo fan club aside, would argue with that. 60 goals for club and country in 2010 including twelve braces, five hat-tricks and a memorable quadruple against Arsenal in the Champions League quarter-final says more than enough. His control on the ball, pace, passing, movement and all-round ability is second to none. But he should not have won the 2010 FIFA Ballon D'or award.

Why on earth not, you may ask? Well, because the award (slightly rehashed this year to merge the long-running Ballon D'or with FIFA's own World Player of the Year award) is meant to commemorate the footballing year. It is the player of the year 2010 who should have received the accolade. And what are the most important and memorable footballing moments of a calendar year? Each country has their own individual leagues and cups of course, but worldwide it is the UEFA Champions League that is best remembered. And of course, once every four years, 2010 being one of them, there is the small matter of the World Cup. These are the tournaments that stick in the worldwide footballing conscience for years.

Cast your mind back to 2002. The original Ronaldo led Brazil to World Cup triumph and rightfully claimed the personal honour for himself. Zinedine Zidane scored that wonder-volley at Hampden Park to land Real Madrid their ninth European Cup as well. These things stick in the memory. 2006? Fabio Cannavaro led Italy to World Cup glory and claimed the award. 2008? Cristiano Ronaldo had his incredible 42-goal season at Manchester United as they claimed the Champions League title, again he correctly won the award. 2009? Messi was the key figure as Barcelona won no fewer than six trophies, and the Argentine netted in both the Champions League and World Club Cup finals. He rightfully claimed the award.

But this year, where was Messi when Jose Mourinho's Internazionale shut up shop at the Nou Camp to prevent the Blaugrana from going through to the Champions League final? Where was Messi when Argentina were crushed 4-0 by Joachim Lowe's effervescent young Germany team in the World Cup quarter-final? As incredible as he is, the diminutive no.10 didn't quite do the business in the two tournaments that really mattered last year.

So who did deserve to win it? Well, the other two contenders in the final shortlist of three, Messi's clubmates Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta both could have a better claim. Always mentioned together due to their similar playing style and near-telepathic communication on the pitch, the Catalan duo were integral to Spain's first ever World Cup triumph, passing every team in the tournament to death with Iniesta smashing home the winner deep into extra time of the final. They have also contributed to Barcelona's success at league level, and while they play a different role to Messi, their passing, movement and creativity is just as integral to Barca as Messi's goals are. When people think back to 2010 in a few years time, they will remember Xavi and Iniesta's World Cup magnificence more than Messi's failure to score at all in South Africa.

Personally, I feel there are two other candidates even more worthy than any of the Barcelona trio who were in the running. And don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of Barcelona, I'm sat in my room with a Xavi Hernandez poster and a diagram/article of Barcelona's formation featuring all three of the players in question on the wall next to me! But both Wesley Sneijder and Diego Milito should have been in the running for the award. The UEFA Champions League is the ultimate tournament in world football today. It takes thirteen games to win it, as opposed to the seven of the World Cup, and on the whole, the quality of football is undoubtedly much higher. Milito scored the goals that won Inter the final at the Bernabeu in May. Not only that but he scored the clinching goals in Serie A and the Coppa Italia as Mourinho's team claimed an unprecedented title. He should surely have been in the running, and at least in FIFA's World XI of the year. But no, not a single international captain, coach or media representative gave the Argentine striker a vote.

The bigger case still rests with Sneijder. The Dutch maestro did get some votes, notably from England captain Rio Ferdinand and Italy coach Cesare Prandelli, but not enough to make the final three. Yet it was he who was the key player, the trequartista that opened up defences across the continent to deliver the Nerazzurri's first European title since 1965. Not only that but he led a Holland team, scarcely fancied at the start of the World Cup, to the final itself, scoring five goals along the way and playing with a real verve and swagger not seen in many other players today. They lost the final, and the team's dirty tactics gave them a bad name, but Sneijder could not be blamed for that. The combination of star player in Inter's treble and leading Holland to their first World Cup final since the 1970s should surely have been enough to make him the player of 2010. Or at least make the final three.

Hats off to Lionel Messi, he is a true footballing genius and will hopefully be around winning trophies for many years to come. But when I think back to 2010 a few years down the line, and I'm sure I won't be alone, it will be the flying Dutchman, Wesley Sneijder, and his star role in both Champions League and World Cup that will stick in my memory.