Why do modern football managers at Man City and England ignore the obvious?

With Arsenal 2-1 up but down to ten players, the Blues had an attack versus defence training session for forty five minutes. The home team had 88% of the possession and had made over three hundred passes.

As a person who fell in love with football in the 80’s I don’t understand why the modern managers (led by Pep) refuse to use the wings. There seems to be a glass ceiling whereas the wing players stop and pass the ball back at around the line of the area. At one point I counted four City players on the right edge of the box and they still didn’t utilise the available space.

Instead of dropping a shoulder, utilising the space near the corner and driving a cross into the danger zone they stop…….. pass sideways/backwards, and start again. It’s utterly bizarre.

I’m not blaming the players, however Kyle Walker also infuriatingly does this for the England team. I believe that the managers are ordering the players not to cross from the wings and instead play a pedestrian like chess match through the congested box.

Not only were the Blues ignoring the obvious easy pass down the wing, they would often bring the ball back to the middle and play an overly ambitious pass out to the wing, which was always intercepted. This was baffling but on top of that they also played balls into the box from the wing but from an angle, around twenty yards from the byline, which either went out or was headed away.

With around ten minutes left to play, my frustration was appeased when Mr Grealish was introduced. He made brave direct runs to the byline and drove the ball in which created the corner from where the goal came. Grealish then took the corner from which the late equaliser broke the hearts of the Gunners.

I don’t have the answer, but when the complicated perfect goal isn’t coming then look outside the box, preferably down the wing.