It went massively out of style, didn’t it? One minute 4‑4‑2 was the backbone of British football, the formation you could sketch on a beer mat over a few pints on a Friday night, the next minute it was treated like some embarrassing relic from up the loft.  We woke up one morning and it had vanished – puff – like the last bus out of Hanley on a Tuesday night. 

And yet… and yet… there’s something in me that refuses to believe it ever truly died. You don’t just kill off a formation that raised generations. You don’t bury the shape that built dynasties. Fergie’s United, gliding and snarling in equal measure. Wenger’s invincibles, all silk and steel. Rudgie’s Vale sides of the 90s, 4‑4‑2 played like jazz – improvisational, instinctive, alive. 

People talk about modern football like it’s some kind of enlightenment. Possession. Data. Heat maps. Expected this, expected that. Playing out from the six‑yard box like you’re defusing a bomb. And listen, I’m not some dinosaur roaring at the meteor. I’m not anti‑progress. I’m not clutching my pint and muttering about “proper football” like a caricature. It is not me shouting “gereet forward” every two minutes from the Paddock.

But some things never should’ve gone out of fashion.  A glass of stout. A meat & potato pie.  High‑waisted trousers and a saxophone solo drifting through a smoky room. Fyfe Robertson. Normid.

And wingers. 

Wingers who run at full‑backs like they’ve been insulted. Wingers who make the crowd lean forward in unison, that collective intake of breath, that primal electricity. You can keep your 23‑pass sequences that go nowhere. Passive possession. Shove it where the sun don’t shine. Give me a player who knocks it past his man and chases it like his life depends on it. Give me chaos. Give me heartbeats. 

We saw it against Blackpool in that second half – the shape loosened, the lines stretched, the old rhythm rediscovered. George Hall creating mayhem. Two banks of four, but not the rigid, chalkboard version. More like a memory returning to the body. A ghost waking up. Those halcyon days of Guppy and McCarthy.

And tomorrow Barnsley roll into Burslem. Barnsley, who look shakier than us – which is saying something.  Barnsley, who we’ve already done twice this season. Barnsley, who must be sick of the sight of us. Let’s give them another portion. Another serving of misery.

We lit the fuse on New Year’s Day.  Now we need to keep the flame burning.  No overthinking. No spreadsheets. No existential dread in the defensive third. 

Just football.  Just wingers. Just 4‑4‑2, resurrected like an old song you forgot you loved, blasting out of the pub jukebox as you step into the cold Burslem air.