Our unwillingness to cross the ball

[Scrote]

It's not just crossing. Our entire team seems afraid to take any risks. Every ball is a safe one backwards. No penetration, no carrying the ball past players, no one-twos, no danger.

We must be so easy to defend against.

It's the wall-passes around the half-way line I don't understand as they never seem to persist with it long enough to draw the opposition in. It's all just football as painting-by-numbers.

Crossing it into the box at every opportunity only works if we can get the numbers in and around the box regularly enough to push the percentages higher that it will drop to our man, otherwise it's just giving the ball away.

Our main issue this season is failing to get enough support around the box to keep the pressure on, our midfield has been in no man's land and are easy to counter against.

Whilst I agree with this being the problem, I think you're mixing up cause and effect. We don't get players gambling in and around the area BECAUSE the ball doesn't get played in often enough.

Towards the end of the match yesterday when we were putting pressure on there were plenty of bodies in half-decent positions. If we'd moved the ball around quicker we might have created some decent chances.

 

[Inoffthebar]

Towards the end of the match yesterday when we were putting pressure on there were plenty of bodies in half-decent positions. If we'd moved the ball around quicker we might have created some decent chances.

We didn’t have anyone showing enough bottle for that. Plenty of the ball and plenty of opportunities to create something, but too many players wanting rid of the ball and passing the responsibility to someone else

 

[Scrote]

We didn’t have anyone showing enough bottle for that. Plenty of the ball and plenty of opportunities to create something, but too many players wanting rid of the ball and passing the responsibility to someone else

I think it was lack of quality rather than lack of bottle. If anything they ended up getting in each others way.

The point being that we did get bodies around the box when we had the ball there. It's the lack of gambling on the ball being crossed in that means we don't pose enough of a threat.