The laws of football evolve slowly. Very slowly. Almost at a glacial pace. But watching various sports in this lovely (if wet) summer of Olympics on our doorstep shows how other sports develop and innovate, to preserve and develop the qualities and challenges of that sport. That begs the question: what rule changes could football adopt that would improve it?

The guardians of the rules of the game are the eight members of FIFA’s International Football Association Board. Half of those members are from FIFA itself, the other half from each of the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FAs – this is one of the privileges afforded to the Brits in recognition of having codified and developed the game more than 100 years ago. Personally, I think that structure should be ditched but that’s not relevant right now.

As a preliminary point, I’m not going to say much about goal-line technology. The case for it at the elite level of football is obvious, and the IFAB and Blatter finally realised that they just had to accept it. The only issue now is working out the most suitable technology. But beyond goal-line technology, what could improve the game?  Here are my thoughts:

Sin-binning:

Field hockey does it. Ice hockey does it. Handball does it. Both forms of rugby do it. So why not football? How often do we see a soft yellow card awarded and a little while later for there to be another incident, perhaps more deserving of a yellow than the first, but which means the referee has a dilemma; should a second yellow be given, with the consequence that the player and his team would suffer the disproportionate punishment of losing a player for the rest of the game? Or should the incident be ignored, despite it meriting punishment beyond a free-kick? Then there are the cynical offences, where a player takes a yellow for the team, knowing that there is no real consequence for illegitimately blocking an attack, tripping an opponent etc. And what about all the abuse handed out by players to each other and referees? Referees seem to feel helpless in the face of the tirades of expletive-laced whinging, obviously fearing that in applying the rules literally they would make matches a farce.

The answer to all of these problems and more is obvious: have a sin-bin, so that players can be appropriately punished; a bit like Goldilocks’ porridge, the punishment needs to be not too much, not too little, it needs to be just right. And removing players for five, ten or fifteen minutes would seem to do the trick.

The IFAB looked at sin-bins in 2009, but rejected the idea, without deigning to explain the reasons. The reason for the rejection might have had something to do with their quaint obsession with having a single body of rules that applies at levels of the game, with a view that sin-bins wouldn’t work on Hackney Marshes etc. That seems to be changing with the goal-line technology debate, so perhaps the IFAB will eventually get round to looking again at sin-bins.

Changing the throw-in:

Any Orcs reading this will be laughing at this point: typical whining southerner, complaining about Rory Delap’s missiles. In fact, I don’t criticise Delap or Pulis, they were just clever enough to spot a way of exploiting a weakness in the rules. But those missiles should not have a place in football. They are a device to get around what the game is actually about, i.e. controlling and using the ball without the use of hands. And they are based on an idea of creating chaos and feeding off the opportunities that come from that chaos. I don’t see that as being something that should be encouraged.

So how about changing the throw-in action, to make it harder to launch missiles? Instead of the thrower getting the leverage of taking a run-up and taking the ball all the way behind his head, make it done from a standing position and with the hands going no further back than the top of the thrower’s head. That way the thrower’s range will be much more limited, and it would encourage real football.

Reform indirect free-kicks:

Isn’t it annoying when a rapid attack is ended by a defender’s foul, the net result of which is that the offending defenders get the chance to regroup while the attacking team gather for the indirect free-kick? Why should the team that has had a player fouled be the one that loses the advantage?

I reckon football should follow hockey, which a few years ago allowed a player taking a free-hit to pass to himself. That means that player can immediately drive into space, since he doesn’t need to wait for his teammates to gather. Opponents that are within five metres can’t challenge or get in the way of the player that has taken the free-hit in that way, else they get sin-binned. This gives the team that has been fouled a real advantage; it creates chances to exploit space to greatest effect. It also means that there’s less complaining at referees, since the priority for the fouling team is to get into defensive position before the opponent drives into space.

Those are my suggestions. Do you have other ideas for improving the game, whether taken from other sports or not?

Written by 26may

One of the most difficult things for Arsène Wenger over the last couple of seasons has been looking over at his bench and asking himself just who he could bring on to change the game.

To be fair to Arsène this wasn’t a problem in the early days of his reign he had a first eleven so much better than the rest of the Premier League that when he turned to his bench he was looking to give a rest to the players who had already put the game out of sight.

In the last few seasons as the rest of the Premier League has improved and teams have adapted their game to keep Arsenal at bay he has needed a bench to change the game. Unfortunately due to injuries, want away homesick players, greedy mercenaries and a very tight budget from the Board Arsène  has only been able to look round and see a mixture of youngsters or capable squad players, and none that could be seen as a gamebreaker. Admittedly over the early winter months he could look across to see Thierry and Arshavin and hope they could provide something.

Obviously not every player on the bench is there to change the game, you need one keeper, one defender and maybe two utility players. But then you still have three berths, and unfortunately for the majority of last season we had nothing different sitting on the bench than was already on the pitch, they just had slightly fresher legs (unless the legs belonged to a short Russian) . We had a lot of carbon copies, or players out of form, or players who were not as good as those starting the game. In truth most of the bench was there to only be broken in case of emergency.

But what about this coming season, have the transfers done so far plus the players returning from injury given us anymore from the bench? Whether we lose Van Persie or not the signings we have made already and the further development of the younger players means that Arsène will be able to turn to his bench and actually see players that can change the game, or offer something different to those already on the pitch.

In midfield we will be able to choose a starting three from Arteta, Rosicky, Ramsey, Song, Wilshere, Coquelin, Frimpong, Diaby and maybe Eisfield too.

Up front we will have a starting three from Podolski, Giroud, Gervinho, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Afobe, Miyaichi and maybe even Van Persie and Arshavin.

If we start Podolski, Giroud and Walcott up front Arsène can look over and decide more pace is needed so send on Ryo or Gervinho, or more shots from distance, chuck on Ox.

The same in midfield if starting, Song, Arteta and Rosicky, Arsène can stick Coquelin on for Rosicky if he wants to keep possession, or swap out Arteta for Frimpong if he wants some high energy and to get in the opposition faces, or even put Diaby on for Rosicky if he wants to make another substitution in the next ten minutes.

Even though we have only added a couple of players to the squad so far (if reports are to believed this will be a few players by the time you read this) we seem to have the bench to make Arsène’s life a little easier when he is looking to change the game.

So what do you think, does our bench look better this year than last?

Gooner in Exile

Firstly let’s look at what ‘versatile’ means:

“Capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of various tasks, fields of endeavour”

Arsène Wenger is a well-known for being a visionary and a game changer; we’ve all heard the stories about how he changed certain aspects of the team when he first arrived. But are we seeing a new change on the horizons?

Players have evolved over the years; they are bigger, faster, and stronger. The ‘New Breed’ is starting to come through and they can do it all. Koscielny is the complete defender; he simply has no flaws in his game. The ox has the world at his fingertips; striker, winger, attacking midfielder, central midfielder…it doesn’t matter really because he will excel anywhere, and be bloody world class whilst doing it. Song has adapted and become a complete midfielder. First a defensive midfielder, now an all-rounder that can now thread the needle with the best of them. Young Jack: first thought of as an attacking midfielder, now he can play defensive, central or attacking. The list goes on really but is this simply natural athleticism? Yeah that definitely has something to do with it! But the real person behind all this is Arsene.

He has made players become more versatile, they are not one dimensional, and this has brought with it countless positives:

• When injuries strike players can slip into the team seamlessly. Bugger Jack is down who is going to slip into the attacking midfielder role? That’s ok! Move ox there and chuck Podolski out on the wing, and bring Giroud on as the striker. This can happen in games also. Look how often Song has dropped into CB and we have not dropped an ounce of defensive quality.
• If a player is shut down it will not impact the team as much. For instance if someone sits on our attacking midfielder the weight can shift over to Arteta and Song to create chances. This is imperative because nullify a key player and teams often panic and shut down completely. Arsene says “not here, not in my town!”
• The team is more fluid like in nature. If Vermaelen surges forward, Song sits back. Santos moves forward Arteta slips to LB, and Song sits centrally protecting the back four. This leaves us with less chance of getting caught out on the counter.

This will give us a cutting edge in the game, we evolve, technology evolves, and now we have! Come to think of it Arsene might be a descendant from Charles Darwin!

Welcome to the New Breed of player, the COMPLETE Arsenal

Written by oz gunner