Promoted Premier League teams have changed – thanks to a simple stylistic tweak
In his 1953 essay, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin distinguished between two types of thinker: foxes and hedgehogs. Berlin was drawing on a line attributed to the Ancient Greek poet Archilochus, who observed in the seventh century BC that “a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.”
“For there exists a great chasm,” Berlin wrote, “between those [hedgehogs], on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel – a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance.
“And, on the other side, those [foxes] who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory… their thought [seizes] upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects… without, consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into… any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary inner vision.”
“After seven games, Hull, Ipswich and Coventry have amassed a combined 24 points”
And so to the Premier League relegation battle. In recent seasons, several promoted clubs were led by hedgehogs: managers wedded to a particular style, for whom the prickly business of amassing enough points to stay in the top flight was no reason to deviate from their principles.
Now, foxes predominate. Sergej Jakirovic (Hull City), Gary O’Neil (Ipswich Town) and Frank Lampard (Coventry City) have all shown a pragmatic streak this term. It has served their teams well, even after a set of disappointing results at the weekend. After seven games, Hull, Ipswich and Coventry have amassed a combined 24 points, the most for a promoted trio at this stage since 2016/17.
The foxward turn began last season, when Daniel Farke kept Leeds United up and Regis Le Bris took Sunderland into Europe. Both managers adjusted their approach from the Championship, shifting to a more muscular, counter-attacking style. It worked, allowing two promoted teams to avoid the drop after back-to-back campaigns in which all three went down.
The sample size is still small, but the early signs suggest Hull, Ipswich and Coventry intend to follow suit. The three promoted sides have the lowest average possession in the league. Hull and Coventry have the lowest pass-completion rates, while Hull, Ipswich and Coventry’s goalkeepers are in the positional top four for long passes.
Not long ago, it was common to hear promoted managers insist they would not forsake their philosophy upon reaching the Premier League. Adaptation was seen as a dirty word, compromise construed as a character flaw, tactical flexibility tantamount to a betrayal of beliefs. Even when trailing 3-0 against an elite pressing side, their teams continued to take goal-kicks short and play square passes along the backline, like a hedgehog who responds to every challenge by curling into a ball.
The clearest recent examples are Vincent Kompany at Burnley and Russell Martin at Southampton, two coaching careers which have since diverged sharply. Even as their teams hurtled towards the Championship, Kompany and Martin insisted there was no other way.
Kompany’s subsequent employment at Bayern Munich, where he has been successful, would appear to vindicate his unwavering faith in his preferred approach, but his ability to speak German and the unavailability of other candidates were more significant factors in him securing that job than his ideological intransigence at Turf Moor.
Foxes are more willing than hedgehogs to accept that the Premier League is a different animal to the Championship. Lampard’s Coventry played some wonderful attacking football on their way to the second-tier title last term, but they have since been willing to sacrifice some style for substance.
“We’d be fools to think that we’d just go and play like we did in the ‘Champ’ every week when we dominated a lot of games,” Lampard said in August. A few weeks later, he professed that “you have a look at the opposition and you see what you feel is the best opportunity to try to get the best out of our team.”
O’Neil, who replaced Kieran McKenna as Ipswich boss in the summer, is on record as saying he prefers his teams to have the ball, but he acknowledged in July that “come the end of the season, the only thing that most people are going to care about is how many points we put on the board.” Against Manchester City on Saturday, he changed to a 3-4-3 formation for the first time in his current role. Ipswich lost narrowly to the league leaders.
Jakirovic is a slightly different case given Hull were already playing direct football in the Championship. That established model has proved readily transferable to the Premier League, negating the need for wholesale reinvention. Other managers will have taken note. That said, strategic continuity does not preclude tactical flexibility: Jakirovic has switched between a back four and a back five during his Hull tenure, favouring the latter this season.
Why have the hedgehogs lost ground to the foxes? Most obviously, that run of six successive promoted sides going straight back down prompted a rethink. An embrace of more functional methods higher up the division legitimised such an approach for less fancied teams. If defensive solidity and set-pieces are good enough for Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, why not for a club scrapping for survival?
It is not impossible for a promoted manager to keep a team up while playing proactive, attractive football. Brendan Rodgers did it at Swansea City and was rewarded with the Liverpool job. And while Hull, Ipswich and Coventry have begun brightly with a more utilitarian outlook, there is no guarantee their good form will last. All three remain the favourites – Manchester City aside – for relegation.
Still, there is something admirable about managers doing what is best for the club that employs them, even if putting pragmatism before principle risks diluting their personal brand. A “fanatical, unitary inner vision”, as Berlin put it, is no longer in vogue for coaches attempting to keep promoted teams above the dotted line. The foxes are in the ascendancy. Hull, Ipswich and Coventry have their tails up.
