It annoys me when people moan about sideways passing without really understanding what they are seeing, it's the desperation to pass it forwards when a pass isn't on(or to completely overcommit) that led to the blunder passes earlier in the season when we were gifting teams points at times we were dominating the game passing it around in their half. No team likes that(if we were passing it around in our half they'd have a point but we're not, we are giving defences a workout and getting better at it), the pressure builds for the opposition, it's a matter of patience and picking the right moment. Fair enough if a pass is on and the player can execute it, then you can maybe grumble at a lack of invention, Kolarov has been very impressive at cross field passes from deep but some managers are probably wise to it now.
Tonight we didn't really open them up enough but we absolutely did dominate them(we worked them over and tested a pretty decent defence, we will probably learn from it, Jose may have been banking on us overcommitting so I'm glad we tried to strike a bit of balance, as loss would have been far worse to take), we pushed them right back into the final 3rd hanging on for almost all of the second half. We are getting better, it's about small percentages that we are missing and a bit of luck as a lot of people keep saying. I think next season if only due to the law of averages our luck will change from being so desperately unlucky to at least getting the results the good football we play deserves.
