Usain Bolt once claimed that due to his pace he was happy to pull on the boots for Manchester United should the need arise for a player who was exceptionally fast to play on the wings. It was a laughable quote, but it may have hidden a kernel of truth.

It is arguable that in an era that has seen such major developments in sports science, that pace has now become the most important attribute for any successful winger. Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale and Daniel Sturridge have become crucial for their respective clubs, and the key similarity amongst the three is their ability to cover the pitch at an extraordinary speed. This is synoptic of a wider trend within football where pace has become the must-have commodity for wide men.

Speedy wingers have always been popular in the Premier League, with Ryan Giggs and Manchester United the first real profiteers of the concept. The role of the winger has always typically based around beating men on the flanks and whipping in crosses for tall target men.

This trend came largely from a lack of invention tactically from Premier League matches; 4-4-2 became default for nearly every club in England. This meant it was essential to have players who could win the obvious individual battles that eventuated from identical formations.

Due to the duplicable nature of 4-4-2 versus 4-4-2, some teams became simply better than others because they had better players in better positions. This was even more true for wingers than perhaps any other position, and as a result for many years their role went largely unchanged.

However the arrival of two foreign managers with new ideas and principles changed this. The first was Wenger, who was particularly influential in his introduction of new sports science and nutritional philosophies. This of course led to the ‘super athlete’ that has become the norm for a Premier League player. In creating this league of peak athletes, defenders become stronger and harder to beat. This upped the stakes for the winger, who had to alter his game. Soon they started to come inside, perhaps an earlier version of what is today termed the inverted winger. As Sir Alex Ferguson has said, a player is at his most dangerous coming from a wide position into the box. Players in the style of Robert Pires and Gianfranco Zola became the norm for wingers.

But then Jose Mourinho changed the winger yet again, due to his legacy on the league in his tactical innovation. In introducing the 4-3-3, he lead to a widespread adoption of 4-5-1, where teams sacrificed a striker for midfield and defensive solidity. In doing this, he placed the onus further on wingers to be sources of attacking inspiration in combination with increased defensive duties. Arjen Robben and Damien Duff became the first of the new breed of winger, hard working and diligent in defence and utilising their speed on the counter attack as a primary source of attack.

This incarnation has survived extinction so far, but is under threat from a revitalised edition of the first wingers. We can credit this to Pep Guardiola and Barcelona, who have proven a high tempo attacking style can truly be successful at the elite level. In conquering club football, Barca has established a code of attacking and pressing amongst the top Premier League teams. Central to this new founded belief is a reinvention back to the original attacking winger, where they start high, with a primary brief to support the attack from the flanks.

However the winger also has to work against the improved, hardened defences made up by the stronger, physical players. To solve this they have had to become varied in their positioning, fluid and versatile enough to work across the entire pitch and attack from any angle. Wingers are no longer only on one flank; they are dynamic and liquid in their movement. They are also sometimes not the supporting act but the focal point; onrushing behind a false nine or deep target man to finish with aplomb.

Gareth Bale perhaps epitomises this best; and perhaps his performance against Norwich eulogises it. He didn’t just consign himself to the left; he popped up on all sides of the pitch, and used his pace the old-fashioned way in beating defenders in one-on-one battles.

We have not seen enough of these performances to suggest this type of winger has become the norm the way others have before it; but the role of Bale in leading Spurs to a comfortable 2-0 win is surely a sign of the positives to other managers. If he does become the standard, then his second goal may well become the best way to capture this latest shift. On the counter attack, like Mourinho’s wingers, he used his pace at break neck to beat all before him, like the early speedsters, but even faster than those before him, thanks to Wenger. He finished with the coolest of chips to truly capture the class of the latest school of legendary wingers.

Photo courtesy of Hazboy.