Mark Allen receives key advice from iconic former world champion on how to boost Crucible title hopes - 'Play my type of game'
Published 17/12/2025 at 10:30 GMT
Mark Allen has confessed he needs to win the World Championship to realise his career dream, but one former Crucible winner has an opinion on how he can carry off the sport's biggest prize. 1986 world champion Joe Johnson studied Allen's clinical 4-0 win over Ishpreet Singh Chadha at the Scottish Open on Tuesday, and feels he is at his best when he decides to commit to a faster attacking game.
Watch: Allen ‘much too strong’ for Chadha in 4-0 Scottish Open victory
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Mark Allen is a much more dangerous player when he speeds up and is aggressive among the balls, according to iconic former world champion Joe Johnson.
Allen has notably slowed down his approach in recent years, at times becoming a grinder in the Mark Selby mould, as he bids to mount a sustained challenge for the sport's biggest honours.
It helped him become world No. 1 at the end of the 2023/24 season, but victory at the World Championship is the one last thing missing from a trophy-laden 20-year career that has so far delivered 12 ranking titles and the Masters in 2018.
Allen began his quest for a second Scottish Open title on Tuesday night with a 4-0 win over Ishpreet Singh Chadha in Edinburgh that saw him enjoy rapid breaks of 97, 74, 88 and 84.
The English Open champion will face Wang Yuchen on Wednesday afternoon for a last-16 spot.
Popular Bradford potter Johnson became world champion in 1986 with one of the greatest swashbuckling performances in Crucible history, which culminated in an 18-12 final win over Steve Davis as a 150-1 outsider.
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It was an era which also produced Northern Ireland's last world champions in Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins (1972, 1982) and Dennis Taylor (1985).
"The problem is that Mark Allen has turned into a kind of safety player, and he's very, very good at it," said TNT Sports analyst Johnson at Meadowbank Sports Centre on Tuesday evening.
"There's no doubt about that.
"The problem is, so is everybody else on the tour. Everybody is good at the safety play.
"And I'm sure if I was in Mark Allen's boots and could play like he could play, I'd be opening the reds up off the safety, coming off them [the reds] thick and trying to force my opponent to play my type of game.
"And he's such a terrific attacking player, Mark Allen. Five maximums to his credit and 682 century breaks for his career.
"So he's proved that he's a great attacking player.
"Like I say, everybody can play this safety game."
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Speaking during a run of interviews to promote his autobiography Unbreakable, Ronnie O'Sullivan revealed his admiration for Johnson's memorable success in Sheffield.
It was remarkably the stylish Bradford player's only ranking triumph in a 25-year professional career, but Johnson showed his class by returning to the final a year later when Davis held him off for an 18-14 win in the 1987 title match to claim the fourth of his six Crucible trophies.
"At the time, Davis was the king, but since YouTube has come out I've watched a lot of old videos," said O'Sullivan.
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"I didn't realise how good a player he was. He didn't win anything else apart from the World Championship, but then made the final the next year.
"I said to him: 'Joe, you were a proper player'. And he went: 'really?'. I said 'yeah'. Because I call people proper snooker players, or they're not.
"I like a certain style and he was a proper player.
"That was one of the finals that stands out in my memory during the Embassy years when snooker was huge in the 1980s and everyone bought into it."
World No. 10 Allen said last year his career will be regarded as a disappointment if he cannot replicate fellow Northern Irish greats Higgins and Taylor on the game's grandest stage.
"I've won the UK Championship and the Masters, two other majors, but you turn pro to win the Worlds," he told the BBC.
"I'll see it as disappointing if I don't win a world title. More than anything, that's what I want to do.
"You dream as a young kid starting out to be world champion, having that final black to win a world title.
"That dream is still there, and I believe I have got a good chance."
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