The Curious Case of Crossing the Ball

No point on crossing it in with only 1 guy in the box.It is infuriating to watch,especially when our striker is 5"8".
 
If the way to break down teams is seen as getting it wide and get crosses in - then fair enough.

but......

In the 2nd half there was no variety. Was high ball after high ball. Easy for the defence.

If we could have went for pace across the goal between keeper and defence, then you always have a chance of an OG too.

It was so infuriating. And so predictable. As it's by no means the first time we have done this.
 
Teams know we push it out wide and then try cross it.
They set up with this in mind and they are able to defend against this far too easily.
Everyone can see this.

Apart from Arfield, our central midfielders (Jack, Ejaria and Couilibally) don't get into the box enough. They don't make enough attempts to get beyond the opposing defence. They don't try to play through defences either.
So naturally the ball will get pushed out wide.

In Gerrard's defence, he's had one transfer window.
His budget couldn't realistically be sufficient to have us 10 points ahead of the soapdodgers at this stage.
He had to strengthen various areas of the squad but I'm sure he knows that other areas need better players.
The fact that we're only 2 points behind and with a great chance of making the last 32 in Europe suggests good progress has been made though.

I'd be utterly gobsmacked if he hasn't identified that an attacking midfielder is a priority but as I said he has a budget and the budget may not be big enough to bring in the desired quality at this point.
We might need to live with this.....
 
Earl of Leven said:
Also infuriating that our goal came from quick interplay at edge of box...
Click to expand...

Like the goal we gave against Villareal in Spain, the exact same 2 centre half’s who have no working relationship what so ever.
Both played like they were drunk.
That up field pass from Worrall that hit the ankles of the manager on the bench was as laughably bad as Waghorn trying to control the ball against Celtic and running it out of play.
They were like drunks chasing a balloon.
 
I feel I oft repeat this, but I do feel a lot of our offensive limitations come about as a result of Candiea's limitations, so easily negated out of a game.

He is average in a broken game when we have to break, but in games when we dominate the ball against a pack defense he is a hindrance to us.
 
In the second half we had 28 crosses from open play that big the first Dundee defender and 3 that did not tactics are irrelevant with that type of skill
 
It's down to the quality of the cross and the person attacking the ball to be well positioned. Unfortunately we had neither yesterday.
 
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