Described by Steve Barker as a 'sonic documentary', the album is a homage to football, and was recorded amid, and in response to, a period of turmoil for the sport in the United Kingdom, following numerous tragedies in the 1980s, the banning of English clubs in European tournaments and a social paranoia surrounding the game.

The record combines electronic rhythms and styles of dub, rock, noise and funk with taped samples and found sound snippets of football commentators, crowds, terrace chants, players and managers, lending the album an anthropological feel.

[12] On-U Sound's first football-themed release, and a precedent for The English Disease, was Tackhead's early 1987 single "The Game", with its samples of ITV football commentator Brian Moore and the message "Where's the Barmy West Ham Army?"

This was followed in January 1988 by the first Barmy Army release, the single "Sharp as a Needle", which sampled the traditional Wembley and Anfield Kop anthems, "Abide with Me" and "You'll Never Walk Alone", respectively, over a rhythm originally slated for Mark Stewart and the Maffia.

[6] According to Thompson, the Barmy Army were "an anarchic electro-punk dance monster" cast firmly within "the mutant rave culture of the age", while The English Disease employs "throbbing rhythms, scything guitars, raucous chants, and sampled crowd and commentary to paint the most dramatic aural portrait possible of the state of the game in the UK at the end of the eighties.

"[8] Music author Stuart Bortwhick refers to it as a reggae-influenced album,[5] whereas reviewer Stephen Cook considers its "rock and electronica-dominated mix" to be a departure from the reggae and dub-centric style that characterised Sherwood's earlier productions.

[2] Music writer Tom Ewing says it "mixes found commentary and chants into Sherwood's typically mechanical take on dub",[3] while Barker considers the album's tough rhythms to be rooted in reggae and funk.

[11] Kelly highlighted the album's political edge as being evident in songs like "Mind the Gap" and "Civil Liberty", which address issues that plagued the sport such as "ID cards, crowd safety and commercialisation".

[10] Ewing, discussing the record's politically charged samples, highlights "then-beleaguered England manager Bobby Robson" and "the voices of the Kop, of Wimbledon fans, of politicians, of the older school of sports commentator whose style was less banter, more orator.

[14] In his review for The Observer, Simon Frith considered Sherwood to be a unique figure in British pop due to him "applying an indie sensibility to the deeper, more avant-garde end of dub and funk production."

He adds that, on the album, Sherwood concentrates his quirky approach on "football fervour, sampling crowd noises and terrace songs, managerial banality and politicians' idiocy", making it "necessary listening for Colin Moynihan.

"[16] Reviewing the album for NME, Kelly repeatedly described Sherwood as a genius and wrote that, although arriving late in his career, The English Disaster was one of the producer's very best ideas for how it combines their extraordinary music and football, the two "most beautiful, precious and important [things] in the world".

"[2] In their review of Tackhead's discography, Trouser Press contributors Tony Fletcher and Megan Frampton note the album's application of football chants to "deep, dubby music" and wrote: "It's a fun idea for a couple of tracks, but the repetition turns tiresome by record's end.