Now that the team seems to be playing with a coherent idea and and an acceptable degree of fluidity, we can see that the offensive buildup doesn't break down as much because of people not being "on the same page" or not knowing where/when to run. Rather, it breaks down because we don't have enough quality on the final ball, or the next to final ball. For example, there are a lot of instances where our movement and ball circulation lets Ring and/or Ofori free with some time and space a few yards ahead or below the halfway line, they see Tinny bombing up on the right... Ofori will simply not attempt the long ball, and his extra pass to Maxi or Ring will kill momentum. Ring always will attempt but his completion rate is dysmal, especially if you're asking for a really well-weighted long overhead pass. For that reason alone I wouldn't mind trying Ring as CB and Sands as 6 in the future. I am sure Sands long balls would be much better. If the long ball arrives to its destination, then Tinny's crosses are barely OK and Sweat's are a crime mostly. One other aspect where lack of individual quality/creativity just kills us is in the 1-2's where the cornered overlapping wing or wingback makes a short back pass, generally to Maxi. Maxi has such good close control that he could manage to engineer a really fast give-and-go but a guy like Sweat, for example, would never think of trying to run a quick diagonal into the 18 and wrong-foot his marker. We see Manchester City trying a lot to break out of that kind of jam by having Sterling/Sane do that with Silva, or Silva with Gundogan, etc. I mean, it's kind of mean to make these kind of comparisons but our overlapping fullbacks, particularly Sweat more than Mata or Tinny, seem to run forward and back on a rail, without a chance of turning the corner. The most they improvise is to stop and cut inside, but that usually leads to stasis since they don't have the quality for a good through ball to Heber.
