Back to the Tottenham Hotspur Newsfeed

Rise of the playmaker - Glenn Hoddle on why the future is Phil Foden for England

Most people who watch and understand football at a high level now would never see Jack Grealish, Phil Foden or Mason Mount as luxury players, which is how I was always labelled.

I called my new book 'Playmaker' because that's how I always saw myself, even as a young kid coming through, but back then that role was never really recognised in this country as it was around the rest of Europe.

Most of our clubs in the 1970s and 80s played a rigid 4-4-2 and it was the same when I was with England too. If you were a creative player like me, then you were fighting against that system constantly because you had to fit into it, with four against four in midfield and the ball in the air too much for my liking.