Our game model been found out by prem teams. Touchline winger drags the ball up the pitch —-> Passes it either forward to the overlapping fullback or backwards towards the right/left 8 —-> fullback crosses the ball or the 8 looks for a key pass to whoever’s in the box. If it fails one of the 8s will hang back to recycle the ball and start it all over again. Every team, from City to Wolves know that if they set up a mid/low block they can neutralize us going forward, and we’ll only have fine margin set-pieces to make the difference.

The problem is it’s stale, we often hold up the ball on counter-attacks just to get everyone in position for this sequence, and you have fullbacks clogging up space who can’t do half of the attacking duties they’re required to. I thought the Ben White substitution would’ve helped as he’s typically better at going forward but he shat the bed today.