ECC final- 1977 how did Liverpool manage to beat 'Gladbach?

PDG1978 · Oct 14, 2021

PDG1978 said: ↑

After so many years lol, I can add a little bit of extra anecdotal evidence to the discussion since I started to have a bit of a look at this latest Arnold Muhren interview I noticed on Youtube, and he says that "Liverpool and Nottingham Forest played more the continental style" in the opening minutes of it (discussing as well how Ipswich's style changed to accomodate himself, as is often stated - Bobby Robson actually was Ipswich manager at this time of course).
KOA special: The boys of ‘81 - Arnold Muhren on UEFA Cup glory - YouTube

I haven't listened to much of the interview yet, but it could be one @PuckVanHeel would be interested in of course, being about Muhren and his time at Ipswich (though there have been similar ones already that you've seen/heard with him talking to Ipswich fans/correspondents Puck IIRC - this one will specifically focus on the UEFA Cup in 80/81 it seems mainly anyway).

That said, maybe a few might have asked after the 1980 Final vs Hamburg - "Which continental style was that - cantennacio" lol! Like I've said I don't think that represents the Forest team that got to those European Cup Finals very well though, even if there was a period towards the beginning of the previous season where in the First Division they had relied on keeping goals out and not scoring a lot (towards the start of that season) - they still scored plenty in the European Cup games relatively early in the season to be fair though.

I remember Gregoriak did post somewhere a 'review' of the 77/78 English league season that was more complimentary in terms of Forest's brand of football anyway. In general possibly the most acclaim they got style wise was about a decade or so later though, being at that time considered enjoyable to watch (which I can vouch for too), albeit sometimes cited as being a counter attacking side (especially in away games), but I think they were just good on the counter attack as opposed to defensive minded (in fact they wouldn't be so good on the counter attack if they were defensive minded moreso because their counter attacks relied on inter-passing and progression of players up the pitch moreso than launches from deep to forwards).

I think they were already considered both an exciting team and a counter attacking team based on games like this from 85/86 away at Manchester United (or even for that matter away at Manchester United in 77/78 with the famous 4-0 win). But along with the later quotes about entertaining fans, not playing in the clouds etc, Clough did already say in the 70s things like "we try to be entertaining" and apparently didn't want his players to concede possession on their 'own pitch' to the extent that the opposition had more of the ball than them, encouraging defenders to push up too at times with that in mind when playing home games.
Man Utd 2 Notts Forest 3 - YouTube
Click to expand...

Even that longer video doesn't actually show the full build-up to the second goal lol (which most highlights the counter attacking aspect because it built up from near the Forest box, involving Walker I remember, before the final pass through by Davenport to Walsh - there were older videos that showed that I remember)!