Pleading poor case for the defence

Having just seen the ball enter an assortment of nets 27 times in five Premiership matches, it is hard to believe that not so long ago serious consideration was being given to the idea of making goals bigger. Goalkeepers had grown larger, it was argued, therefore they should have more to keep.

The suggestion would not have gone down too well in South Yorkshire this week, not after Barnsley had lost 6-0 at home to Chelsea on Sunday afternoon to be followed by Sheffield Wednesday's 7-2 mauling at Blackburn on Monday night.

Gianluca Vialli did not leave Oakwell with the look of a man who had been asked to thread the ball through the eye of a needle, and at Ewood Park, Sheffield Wednesday gave the impression that had they been defending a hockey net, Blackburn would still have scored several times. In fact had they been defending O J Simpson the accused would have thrown himself on the mercy of the court after day one.

Television, of course, cannot have too many goals and football as a whole will never tire of high-quality goals of the type just scored by Vialli for Chelsea, Dennis Bergkamp for Arsenal, Chris Sutton for Blackburn and Karl-Heinz Riedle for Liverpool. But an abundance of easy goals devalues a league of any standing and this week's bulging nets have reconfirmed the view that defensively the English Premiership is a fun house built on sand.

The first of Vialli's four goals at Barnsley was a classic of simplicity from Ed De Goey's quick throw through Dan Petrescu's astutely angled pass to the Italian's wonderful finish. But his other three were like shooting fish in a barrel, given the naivety of the opposition's defending.

Similarly, while there was much to admire the following evening in the sweep and verve of Blackburn's football, they really had to do little more than turn up near goal to score while Sheffield Wednesday stood and watched. And when even an Arsenal defence cannot defend against high crosses - the root cause of their failure to hold out against Leicester City on Wednesday - then the greatest league in the universe is clearly lacking something.

Full-backs who can defend, for instance. Since the game discovered wing-backs, the art of the covering tackle, or barring a route to goal, or even showing an opponent the touchline appears to have been forgotten.

The average English centre-half used to be master of his trade. Whatever else the English league lacked, every half-decent team had a big honest pivot at its heart, able to head danger away, intercept an opposing forward, organise an offside trap and protect his goalkeeper. Now clubs go to Scandinavia or Holland to find defenders who were once as common to English football as Dubbin and the Litesome Supporter.

It is true that life has not been easy for defenders or goalkeepers since the offside law was liberated from the letter of strict interpretation while the handling of passes back became outlawed. Defenders need to show better judgment in knowing when to hold off and when to challenge, greater awareness of what is happening around them.

No wonder Bergkamp is at present mopping up, just as Eric Cantona once did for Manchester United. At Elland Road on Wednesday night a point had been reached where Riedle's continued presence on the field for Liverpool was a mystery. Then the German turned up on the right-hand side of Robert Molenaar and sent a shot curling into the top far corner of the net even as he was being held back by his shirt.

But unless the impact that leading foreign forwards like Bergkamp, Vialli, Gianfranco Zola and Riedle are making is matched by more accomplished defending all round then even Sky viewers will begin to see the virtual vacuous reality of it all. Alan Mullery once subdued Pele by reading his movements. Too many of Mullery's successors are semi-literate by comparison.