Great piece by The Guardian

[Bassey the warrior]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/dec/27/tactical-review-strike-partnerships

Only the best teams can really afford to play two up top, the strikers need to be very technical. Interesting to note that Roy went the other way, starting off with his tried and tested old school 4-4-2, realising they don't have the midfield to deal with this and reverting to 4-2-3-1 with plenty of fluidity much like Southampton. This is unusual for the veteran managers, only Fergie was this flexible, think of that dinosaur O'Neill and of course Jol, so Roy deserves a lot of credit.

I'm told that Barca are moving away from their slow build up so maybe it's the end of that era. Will be interesting to see how Spain play next year.