I'm sure dribbling is forbidden by a lot of possession-fixated coaches, who seem to want a team full of midfielders playing one-touch keep-away while forgetting there's a goal to attack.
It's "safer" to pass the ball before you have to beat anyone. They try to beat the defence with passes instead, but because possession football is almost always slow-paced (how much can you stretch the field playing 10 yard passes?) those passes then have to be world class to beat the 10 men that have had time enough to walk back in front of their own goal. It is much easier to defend that style of football than it is to play it.
Look at Martin - I've joked before that he's secretly playing a 0-10-0 formation most weeks. Look at his pets:
Darling would be better as a midfielder than a defender - he's good a good shot and his braincramps would harm the team less. Fisher would even be better as a midfielder than a goalkeeper, because a midfielder who passes like a goalkeeper is still less of a liability than a goalkeeper who catches crosses like a midfielder.
Martin's midfield fixation has ruined Piroe, too. Piroe is a striker capable of scoring 0.54 goals per game but he's been played as a #10 or a #8 so much he's forgotten how to play #9.
I was looking at the table earlier. Swansea are still somehow in 8th place after today while Bristol City are 18th. I chose Bristol City because of their stats:
Both teams have scored 27 goals.
Bristol City have conceded just one more than Swansea - 29 v 28.
Swansea are 8th, Bristol City are 18th.
Swansea are 7 points better off than Bristol City.
This means that Swansea's attack and defence capability is almost exactly the same as Bristol City. One team is 7 points and 10 places better off only because one or two goals fell at advantageous times for Swansea where they did not for Bristol. The teams could easily be in each other's places.
It's a far cry from the records of the top four or five teams, who either have staggering positive goal differences (Burnley +14 and Sheffield United +16) or at least healthy ones (Watford and Norwich +6, Blackburn +5).
Swansea are the highest-placed team that have a negative goal difference. This isn't sustainable. The attack and defence needs to improve, but Martin can't get his head out of the midfield long enough to see it.
At MK Dons he almost always played 3-5-1-1, which is another way of saying 3-6-1. At Swansea it's 3-4-2-1, which is also another way of saying 3-6-1. It's a perfect symbol of Swansea's struggles. The smallest numbers - 3 and 1 - are at at the two ends of the field where Swansea need help, co-incidentally the same two ends of the field where the goals are and the two ends of the field you're least likely to want to play a pass. No wonder passing-obsessed Martin doesn't know what to do in either.
I'm not a long-ball advocate but a few weeks of 4-2-4 really wouldn't go amiss right now