JOHN NICHOLSON

Football has changed. Sometimes we don’t realise just how much it has changed. We get used to the incremental alterations to the rules and the changed culture of the game.
But if you look at a match from even just 10 years ago, let alone 25 years ago, it’s remarkable just how different it was in some aspects.
Most obviously, tackling has been practically outlawed along with almost all of the physicality that many of us used to love about football.
Not only that, this new lack of physicality has been, by some rather precious modern football fans, been lauded ...