A great article........ 

Ian Rush: "When I was at Juventus I didn't really enjoy the football,' he admits. 'If you went 1-0 up you'd just defend and that is happening here now. It's a pity, because in my view the best players in the world are in the Premiership and it would be easy to go out and entertain."

Dugarry: 'I think something bad is happening to English football,' he says. 'What people love about it is the pace, the rhythm, the commitment. It's a spectacle. But I think the foreign coaches are changing that with a more tactical approach, and as there are fewer and fewer English players in the teams their task is made easier. They are bringing in lots of negative aspects from European football."

"Look at Rafael Benitez at Liverpool. He shows no desire to go forward, he just wants not to concede. The way he treats Steven Gerrard says it all. Gerrard has to be running the game, but he would run it in an English style, looking to attack or shoot all the time, blood and thunder, what the English crowds enjoy. But Benitez just wants everything organised, to be tactically correct. Jose Mourinho is the same. Having too many foreigners in England is ruining your game, in a way - it's taking away the natural attributes that the English enjoy."

Clichy: 'Time was when you'd see 4-3 matches quite regularly in England, that's what people abroad liked about the game here,' the full back says. 'Now most teams come to our place with nine defenders and one guy up front. Villa, Everton, Middlesbrough, Newcastle - they all came to defend. The problem for us is that we let them all score a goal, so that meant they sat back even more afterwards."

De Zeuuw:  'When I first came here everyone played 4-4-2 and you knew what you were going to get,' De Zeeuw explains. 'Now you see teams with one up front and five in the middle most weeks. And one of the five will usually be in the Claude Makelele position, providing an extra level of defence.

'I don't think games are necessarily any worse to watch, but everyone is more cautious now because there is such a big gap between the top three or four and the rest. Once you go behind against Chelsea they won't let you back into the game, so teams are thinking first and foremost about how not to concede.

'Johan Cruyff used to say all you had to do to win a game was score more goals than the opposition, but it's hard to find that attitude in the Premiership any more. Too much money at stake, too much pressure not to fail. Managers are not allowed to make mistakes. Look at Charlton. They weren't playing that badly, they played football and looked as if they could pull themselves round, but still the manager was sacked. That's pressure.'

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