blueinsa said:
The issue for me is when faced with the parked bus, we slow down to an absolute crawl. Far to easy for any professional side with a tad of organisation to then keep themselves in position and defend against us.
We have to inject pace and we have to have the fantastic movement and for me, the biggest thing is we have to have the width that a player like Navas provides because we will have to get in behind them.
The Rags have faced the exact same problem for years and they solved it by getting it wide and in behind and the sheer amount of goals they create that way proves it does work.
We just have to be able to adapt.
I've written at length on this subject before, and whilst I think you're right about how slowly we recycle the ball against a parked bus, getting the ball wide alone is not the answer. We knocked in no less than 50 crosses and corners at the Stadium of Light (stat courtesy of JMW on here), but about 47 of them were a) outswinging, and b) shite, and there was no-one in the box anyway. The rags speciality, and they must run endless drills on it at Carrington, is the whipped inswinger. Shrek and Crashley Young specialise in this coming in off the left flank, whilst The Rapist's corners are so vicious they're tantamount to shots. They aim for the centre of the 6 yard line, and everything is whipped in flat and fast at head height taking away all the defending team's natural advantages. Playing the percentage game further, the rags will have runners attack the front and near posts as well as the centre of the goal, to mop up anything that is marginally either underhit or overhit, and all they're looking to do is get the faintest nick on the ball to divert it over the line using its own momentum. It's served as a get out of jail card for them for years, and is so effective that even a circus dwarf like Evra managed to bag 5 headed goals from set pieces last season, and just for good measure he did it again on Sunday.
You also need to remember that the rags are a massive team physically. Popular myth may have it they're a great footballing team, but they ain't. They counter attack well with pace and width, but a large element of their usual game plan is long balls and set pieces. At the Etihad in September 8 of their 11 players were 6ft 2' or taller. Whilst the world is generally aware that Smalling is 6ft 5' Vidic 6ft 2' and Camelgob 6ft 3', people forget that Valencia, Wellshit, Carrick, Fletcher and the Rapist are all 6ft 2' as well.
I think our delivery has improved this season, but whereas even Rafael and Evra can put a cross on a sixpence, with the exception of Kolarov (and even he's hit and miss), our crossing is still amongst the least effective in the top flight