The three players who stay home decide how brave everyone else can be

Rest defence is the least discussed part of attacking football and it sets the ceiling on every risk taken further forward.

Count the bodies behind the ball the next time a team has possession in the final third. Usually it is three, sometimes four, arranged in a rough triangle around the halfway line, and they will not touch the ball for the next forty seconds. Everything happening in front of them is possible because of how they are standing.

That is rest defence and it deserves a better name, because nobody is resting. The three are positioned to do two things at once: cover the lanes a counterattack would use, and stay close enough to the ball that a loose one can be recycled rather than surrendered. Get the spacing right and your winger can attempt a low percentage dribble in the corner knowing that a turnover leads to a throw-in rather than a two on two. Get it wrong and every ambitious pass in the final third becomes a coin flip on the match.

The part clubs still underrate is selection. A midfielder's rest defence value is a genuine attribute: does he read where the danger is before the ball is lost, does he hold his slot when the play drifts away from him, is he willing to spend a whole attacking phase doing nothing visible. Some very good footballers are hopeless at it because they follow the ball, which is what they were praised for at fifteen.

I would go as far as saying that the presence of one excellent rest defender is what separates teams who can attack with five from teams who cannot. Everything else is the same. The attackers are similar, the coach's ideas are similar, but one side has a player who is always in the right place at the moment the ball is lost, so the other seven can be reckless with permission.

There is a cost and it is not small. Keeping three behind means attacking with fewer, which in a tight match against a deep block can look timid, and there are matches where the right answer is to gamble and accept the odd break.

Just make it a decision rather than a drift. The moment your defensive midfielder starts pushing forward for a corner routine, somebody has quietly changed the risk profile of your entire evening.