DAVE BASSETT: Here's what I can't stand about 'snail-paced' modern football, from lying pundits and VAR to 'xG nonsense' and feigning injuries... and how we can save our game in a heartbeat!

One of English football’s elder statesmen is not happy. Dave Bassett, famed for leading Wimbledon, Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest into the top flight, cannot shake the feeling that his love for the game is fading.

So, he took a straw poll among friends and former colleagues, including some who are still active in the football industry, and found most were aligned to his point of view.

He also knows long-standing season-ticket holders at clubs in the Premier League who are turning in their tickets in favour of watching grassroots and women’s football, or even rugby union.

'Everyone’s entitled to disagree,' the 81-year-old tells Daily Mail Sport. 'They might think it’s nothing more than a Bassett rant. It’s still the best game in the world but for some time now I haven’t really enjoyed watching football as much as I did and I'm more selective than ever about what I watch.

'The game has changed and I’m not sure in a good way. The unrelenting emphasis on possession for a start. Snail-paced build-up. Passing the ball around for the sake of it, coupled with the obsession with data and invented measures of performance.

'It makes the game fundamentally dull to watch. When a team gets praised for hundreds of completed passes but is bottom of the league; when centre halves and goalkeepers have the most touches of the ball, and usually in areas where you’re unlikely to score from, something is just wrong.

'Along with all the other things, it means momentum has gone. It’s still the best game in the world but a lot of the excitement is gone. 

'Passion has gone. And without all that, the game isn’t doing it for me any more. It’s lost the dynamism that made it the best spectator sport in the world.'

Divers, time-wasters and penalty-box grapplers are in Bassett’s thoughts when he mentions his long list of complaints.

So is VAR. Of course it is. And the academy system. So are football’s army of pundits, powered by the market machines of competing TV channels peddling their unmissable parade of live action.

'I watched Newcastle against Barcelona and they’re all telling us how it’s been amazing to be there and eulogising about the most basic stuff,' says Bassett. 'A lot of the commentators and pundits are like that, building the game up. Makes you wonder if you’re watching the same game sometimes.

'You hear managers and pundits talking about low blocks and high blocks, and breaking lines and turnovers and transitions and all the rest. 

'It’s as if they’ve invented some totally new sport and are seeing things in the game that didn’t exist before, which of course they did.

'Times change, I know. The world moves on, but I hear analysts spouting stats that are supposed to demonstrate how good a player is, all this xG (expected goals) nonsense is part of a new vocabulary invented to convince us the game is scientific. And it isn’t scientific.

'Data is useful to coaches because you want to know where you’re strong and where you’re losing the ball and where teams are punishing you. But pressing? That’s what we used to call winning the ball back as quick as possible.'

Bassett was an innovator in his era. He was among the first to adopt video technology, recording games to study opponents and splicing tapes into clips to share with players while creating plans to topple bigger and wealthier rivals.   

Now he is infuriated by the time-wasting he sees. And he has not imagined it. This Premier League season, the amount of time the ball has actually been in play in games is the lowest it has been since 2010-11.

'Time-wasting, feigning injuries, blatant attempts to slow the game down,' Bassett fumes. 'Feigning head injuries to stop a counter-attack. Players are playing the officials. They know the referee can’t afford a single mistake when it’s a head injury.

'Many players and managers don’t even try to hide it any more. The away sides start by taking their time on every throw-in, free-kick and corner and the goalie lingering with the ball at his feet.

'That’s slow play, that’s not entertainment. That’s boring. Entertainment is tackles, crosses and shots on goal. 

'Teams looking to score. Fans are paying more money than ever to watch football.'

Bassett’s teams could always be relied upon to make tackles and cross the ball. They were always dangerous at set-pieces, too. 

Long before specialist set-piece coaches were de rigueur. He loves to see an imaginative set-piece but the time spent organising them drives him mad.

'I watched Spurs, they take an age over a free-kick,' he says. 'But they all do. Newcastle - there’s nothing wrong with the right back going to the left wing to take a corner because he’s got the best delivery, but he doesn’t run across, he walks. They’re all as bad as each other.

'Then the scorer will tear off into a corner of the stadium and the whole team follows and they mass there, all diving in and having a hug and everything else, then they walk back in their own time to the halfway line. That can take three or four minutes. I’ve timed it.'

It is tolerated because this is the time when the officials are double-checking the goals in the VAR studio. Ah, yes, VAR.   

Bassett adds: 'What we were told was a system to correct clear and obvious errors is now two referees at Stockley Park trying desperately to find some minor or technical infringement of the rules, often going back a long time before a goal was actually scored.

'Why does it take more than one VAR? Why do they need an assistant VAR? It leads to yet more discussion, slowing the game even more. In cricket, the third umpire calmly comes to his own conclusion.

'They never seem to do anything about the wrestling in the penalty area. The players will carry on doing it as long as they can get away with it. If the referee booked five or six for pushing, that would stop. Zero tolerance.'

For so many people, VAR has been a joy-sapping innovation. New Nottingham Forest boss Ange Postecoglou raged against it while at Spurs. 

Earlier this month, Burnley manager Scott Parker bemoaned technological advances removing ‘raw emotion’ from football and making it too ‘sterile’.

VAR is one of the last safe areas where managers can still say what they feel and have a good grumble. More often, they are wary of causing offence to their players, board or supporters.

'Post-match interviews are bland,' says Bassett. 'I sympathise with managers. Society has changed. They have to be careful not to say the wrong thing at a time when they’re under stress and haven’t had time to analyse the game properly.

'Half-time interviews are a joke. I realise TV companies have invested a lot of money and expect more access, but I feel sorry for the managers on that one. They’re frightened to make a mistake. You can’t come out and say some of the things I used to say.

'You can’t show too much personality. It’s safer to be technical. As viewers you don’t learn anything. You can’t really blame them for playing it safe. They don’t want a call in the morning from HR or anyone accusing them of damaging the brand. It’s all quite boring.'

This sanitisation process permeates throughout modern coaching, especially in the academies.

'The academy system doesn’t allow for the creation of maverick players,' says Bassett. 'Coaches are not encouraged to raise their voices in case it’s classed as bullying and young players can’t handle criticism, they take it all so personally, so you can’t test their character.

'I hear of coaches with less than 18 months' experience, university graduates who should still be playing the game, not coaching it, in important academy roles. They can learn to put on drills but there’s a hell of a lot more to coaching than that.

'They can’t have the necessary experience required to conduct a dressing room or turn around a tearaway kid like Ian Wright or Paul Gascoigne. 

'Those sorts wouldn’t survive now. They’d be branded obstructive for not toeing the line.'

Bassett isn’t out of touch. He is out at games most weekends. On Saturday he was at QPR as they beat Stoke. He tunes into televised games regularly and hasn’t lost his sense of humour.

He predicts his scathing critique of the modern game will be met with replies about sending him off to the Natural History Museum but he is no longer in the mood to stay silent while watching a game he has loved for so long change beyond recognition.