“We’re in England” Neil Warnock growled in his typically dogged manner - “You’re going to get challenges like that”.
Warnock was, of course, talking about the challenges Pep Guardiola’s team were subject to in their FA Cup clash.. against Cardiff last week.
What’s quite striking about Warnock’s comments, despite the obvious error, is that they could easily have been used in a non-football sense.
Take out the part about challenges and it’s easy to imagine a Brexiteer using it in a very similar manner.
“We’re in England”, you must do as the English do, has been a worryingly growing populist outlook on life in the past few years.
Football is no different.
We had Sam Allardyce declaring that British managers are becoming ‘second class citizens’ in their own leagues, with Andy Grey and Richard Keys in whole-hearted agreement.
Paul Merson famously ranted on Soccer Saturday about Hull City appointing Marco Silva instead of a British manager, in 2017.
And, now we have examples of those ‘tried and tested’ British managers having a go at Pep Guardiola for feeling not wanting teams to get too physical with his players - the second being Alan Pardew - who said the Catalan should have a look at the pre-Premier League games before he judges the physicality of today’s game.
“Maybe we should get him a video of what it was like in 1972,” joked Pardew. “Check out a First Division game, then you’d see a lack of protection.
The thing about populism, and the reason it is so effective is that you never really have to be right, you just have to play to the crowd.
Take the British managers argument.
It doesn’t matter that foreign managers have a much better record than British ones, because, by playing to nationalistic ideals, you can strum up enough support to pretend otherwise.
You can declare “We’re in England” - despite the fact Cardiff is most definitely in Wales - and some will agree with you for being ‘close enough’
And, Pardew can say Guardiola’s players should have a look at some of the older footage from English football and be grateful that football is no longer that physical, despite this argument holding completely no relevance to the conversation.
It is clear that players like Kevin De Bruyne and Leroy Sane have been subjected to tougher treatment than other players.
Getting tough with teams of superior quality has been a tactic long-used in Britain.
A sort of “If we can’t beat’em, we’ll kick’em, and hope they get so frustrated they don’t perform to their ability” mindset.
Physicality is one thing, James McClean’s tackle on De Bruyne was another.
What does it matter if this tackle would be acceptable in the 1970’s or not? The quick answer is, that it doesn’t.
Football has moved on from that. Football has moved on from the old style ‘let the players do the work’ style tactics.
It’s time some of the above caught up.
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