Dave Bassett: ‘Playing the right way is to win’

“Some of the coaches annoy me now with all this talk about the right way to play. If you’re successful, you’ve played the right way”. Those were the words of Dave Bassett, former Watford and Sheffield United manager.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Bassett says that playing to win by any means is the only way to play football.

Bassett had no involvement in Birmingham City in his long and successful career but Blues fans can relate to his words. We`re led to believe that one of the reasons behind Gary Rowett`s sacking was his style of football. Despite being one win behind third place, Rowett was relieved of his duties and replaced by a man who the board believe can get Blues playing attractive football.

‘If you want to survive as a manager, you’ve got to play the right way, and the right way is to win’, said Bassett.

One criticism of Rowett was his tendency to set his team up to avoid defeat rather than going all out to win. So Bassett`s words can be construed from many angles. But, as fans, do we buy into the notion that ‘sexy football` or ‘tika-taka`, as it is aggravatingly referred to in the media, is more important than three points?

Remember Tony`s Mowbray`s West Bromwich Albion side of 2008-09? They were relegated back to the Championship despite playing a brand of football described as ‘brilliantly entertaining` by a journalist. That season, Albion had the fourth highest pass rate in the Premier League, but they were relegated.

At the time, some Baggies fans were content with the dog fight because they were entertained on a Saturday afternoon. ‘We`ll get out of it soon playing the way we do`. The problem was, Mowbray`s side were toothless and had little creativity. They could pass the ball 300 times square, sideways and backwards and they would always look to win games, but they were so impotent. Would they rather have gone down or grit their teeth and have a manager like, say, Tony Pulis, who would keep them up comfortably but send them to sleep in the process?

Gianfranco Zola`s vision is for Blues to become an entertaining side with good technical ability. That is all well and good and Blues fans will appreciate being entertained. But if the results don`t follow, quite frankly, it`s pointless. We strive to be a Premier League club. We won`t accept being a mainstay of the Championship so long as we`re playing pretty football.

Bassett was right. The only way to play is to play to win – if you can add a bit of ‘sexiness` to the mix, perfect. If not, just win games. It`s a simple as that.