We struggle against "park the bus" teams and have very little width to stretch the defence. Richards and AJ cut inside virtually all the time (AJ because he is played on the right as a left footed player so part of the system we use) but Clichy does tend to stay wide and ping in some decent crosses that our forwards should be getting in the 6 yard box to get on the end of. We usually end up scoring because of some intricate, close passing but sometimes I think we'd be better with wide players as too often the whole edge of the penalty area is too congested with our forwards and the defence.
Hate to bring up the rags but their wing play with hard, low crosses gets them the result. They've always got 2-3 in the box in attacking situations, goal hanger (Hernandez or Welbeck), Shrek at penalty spot, a midfielder breaking into the box and often the opposite winger going for the far post. The ball pings about everywhere, causes panic in the box and, eventually, they get a goal more often than not. Using 2 wingers against those sorts of teams drags out the fullbacks and creates space in the middle. If midfielders drop into defence to cover for the fullbacks then they are a) conceding the midfield and b) liable to make a defensive error more than a dedicated defender.
My opinion on how we could improve against park the bus teams, problem is we would need a) at least one more winger and b) wingers staying wide.
