[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

The earliest footballers would have thought the Victorians negative for playing with designated goalkeepers instead of rushbacks.
The Victorians thought the Edwardians were negative for making two players into "defenders".
Everyone under the sun thought 1930s Arsenal were negative for pulling the centre-half deep and creating the three-man defence.
And that Alf Ramsey was negative for using a four-man defence and no proper wingers.

Would the game be more skilled and entertaining if none of these innovations had been made, and everyone was still chasing willy-nilly after the ball in a twenty-two man pack?  The history of football is the history of teams making themselves harder and harder to beat.

(I reckon we'll have to agree to disagree on all this).

I dread to think of what the Victorians would have thought about Pulis haha

Given that most Victorian players were public schoolboys, sending Pulis into their dressing room would be the stuff comedy sketches are made of


"I say, isn't it rather unsportsmanlike to have so many men behind the ball?"

*Headbutt*

"Sir, I must protest about this ungentlemanly time-wasting habit."

*Headbutt*

"Please, this is all too cruel, I want to go back to the Foxhunting Society."

*Headbutt*

"NOW LADS, WE'VE GOT 'EM BY THE MONOCLES - LET'S SEE SOME AAAAAARD WORK!"