Here's your tactical explainer on the midfield generals that can win a game
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Have you ever just tried to sprint the actual distance between both penalty areas on a full-size football pitch?
Even when swept along by the exhilarating thrill of a counter attack for your amateur team, that inevitably leads nowhere, it can feel an exhausting task.
As a youngster training in West Ham’s academy, Frank Lampard used to stay behind for hours after practice finished, solely to perform solo shuttle runs, charging repeatedly from box to box. I guess this is what separates the best from the rest.
Lampard was one of the great ‘box to box’ midfielders in the Premier League. But what does it mean to go ‘box to box’ in the modern game, how important is it and does the role still exist?
Here’s your handy tactical explainer.
Frank Lampard – one of the great box to box midfielders (Image credit: Getty Images)
What is box to box?
Going from box to box is the ability to run effectively, between your own team’s penalty area and the opposition’s.
Plenty of midfielders can physically get between both boxes. That isn’t why this skill is so hard to master.
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The difficulty is doing this as a repeated action, in high-tempo matches. As a central midfielder, right in the heart of the action, going box-to-box can be difficult. The box-to-box midfielder is particularly prevalent in either a traditional 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 formation.
In these systems the central midfielders need to cover a lot of ground to ensure their team can be solid defensively but also a threat going forward. It is all about balance.
Players performing this role need to help out defensively, making clearances and tracking opposing midfielders. But they also need to offer something of a goalscoring threat, while progressing the ball and sustaining attacking plays.
Who are the great box to box midfielders?
Let’s be adults and not turn this into another Steven Gerrard vs Frank Lampard debate. But England’s perennial noughties midfielders were brilliant box to box players.
They had a proper engines, could tackle and read the game. Both were also superb long-range strikers of a football, which helped with their general goal threat. The pair could also time a forward run to perfection. However, work they put in off the ball is often criminally underrated.
Going back a generation, Bryan Robson was the undisputed king of box-to-box midfielders in the 1980s and early 90s. Robson had everything you need to dominate a midfield. Stamina, power, strength, passing range.
He was also expert at running into the box from deep to score – his two goals against France in the 1982 World Cup a textbook example. Robson’s eventual successor at Manchester United, Roy Keane was much more of a box to box midfielder earlier in his career, before he became a dominant defensive midfielder.
From the modern era, Yaya Toure, Arturo Vidal and Paul Pogba are all classic examples of box to box midfielders.
Does the role still exist?
With fewer and fewer teams, at least at the top level, playing only two central midfielders, the box to box midfielder could be regarded as something of dying breed.
Players who are equally effective at both attacking and defensive actions are a rarer beast, at least in the middle of the park. We live in football’s age of increased specialisation when it comes to positions.
So naturally there is less room for a balanced central midfielder, capable of doing everything quite well. There is also the factor of speed. Admittedly this is more of a specific issue to England, but with games in the Premier League played at lightning speed, the stamina levels required to consistently go box to box are punishing.
Considering the Premier League and before it the old Division One gave birth to so many of the greats in this role, this perhaps explains why numbers in this position dwindled. Football teams dominated by technical ability and pace may not have room for an old school box to box midfielder.
But they do still exist. Joelinton’s redeployment from misfiring forward, to box to box bulldozer is one of the cornerstones of Newcastle United’s revival under Eddie Howe. The fact the Magpies struggled without him when injured speaks volumes.
Douglas Luiz performs a similar role very well for high-flying Aston Villa, while Gary O’Neil has given another Brazilian, Joao Gomes the freedom to push forward aggressively for his Wolves team when required.
So the answer is no, the box-to-box midfielder is far from a thing of the past. But these days they might be likely to come from Rio rather than Rochdale.
Jack has worked as a sports reporter full-time since 2021. He previously worked as the Chief Women’s Football Writer at the Mirror, covering the England Women’s national team and the Women’s Super League. Jack has covered a number of major sporting events in recent years including the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup on the ground in Australia.
