1. Agree that passing ststs don't reveal everything but what they reveal is accurate passing.
2. I have to watch the replay to give you the answer to this one. What I want to see is whether he had better options or not. Forest parked the bus and were very agressive by tight marking all our advanced players. Was Grimes availivable to recieve Bidwell's passes? I have to watch the replay.
There is no point in passing in front of the target or to the target when the target is man-marked and under pressure. We did it a lot of times and lost the ball.
The problem was that we were too static, the players didn't move into the spaces to recieve the ball. We had passes but we didn't have moves to play pass & move football. And it was not only Bidwell, the whole team passed the ball backwards. They were simply forced to do that by Forest defensive tactics.
It's obvious that the Swans have two problems now. The first one is we don't know how to play against teams who press us high, and the second one is we don't know how to break down teams who park the bus and refuse to play some football.
So, what to do when opposition park the bus?
- Produce pieces of individual magic (dribbles, triangles in tight spaces and through balls)
- Bomb them with crosses, create panic and take advantage
- Shoot from outside of box
- Exploit set pieces (free-kicks and corner-kicks
That's exactly what Manchester City and Liverpool do, and they are experts in breaking down teams who park the bus. Manchester City use creativity more then Liverpool, and Liverpool use more crosses and set pieces. Last season Liverpool scored by far most set pieces goals and goals from crosses in the Premier League. Their full-backs had something like 12+ assists each last season.
Let's go back to the Swans v Forest game. First we have to agree that Forest parked the bus.
Here is Swans and Forest average players position:
1. What I see here is lack of creativity. With all respect to Borja, he is not Oli. Oli is more mobile and creative. Ayew has skills but he is not using them to take on defenders. Not creative enough. Routs and Celina are the only ones who can produce a piece of magic. Grimes play too deep, and Fulton doesn't have creativity at all. So, out of 6 players who are supposed to create something we had only two able to do that. That's not enough. Byers and Garrick should have been in our starting XI.
2. Crosses. Our cross accuracy against Forest was terrible, and we didn't put in enough crosses into the Forest box. Another thing is that we didn't have enough bodies in the Forest box when we put in crosses. We have to risk more in these situations.
3. Shots from outside of box. We have four players who can score from outside of box. Celina, Byers, Fulton and Naughton. Celina had a day off against Forest
Conclusion
We didn't have enough creative players on the pitch against Forest, we didn't put in many crosses into the Forest box, we didn't have enough bodies up front, we didn't shoot from outside of box and we were awful at set-pieces. No wonder we couldn't score and win