My interpretation of those charts is that we’re hovering around the border between ok and oh shit in just about every category. And pivoting around that position is risky,
The top chart is most illustrative. It places us firmly in the BA / BD (busy attack / busy defense) quadrant. If the attack slacks, or is nullified in any way .... oh shit ... we get Stoke, we lose, we wring our hands and wonder how this is possible. It’s because when our defense is busy it only takes one little oh shit moment and we’re done. Stoke nullified our attack and bob’s your uncle etc they walk with 3 points. And, Cooper’s blank expression becomes even blanker if that’s possible because he has no answer to it.
Why are we planted in the BA / BD quadrant .... midfield not dominating is my best guess ... and as we demonstrated during our Shit Streak a confused and incoherent front line can look busy, but there’s looking busy and being busy as in delivering effective opportunities and threatening the opposition’s goal frequently. Put another way .... flattering to deceive.
The three most important factors that keep fucking us up the arse time and again are Quality, Quality, Quality. Too often recently Cooper has been making subs, not to make a tactical shift to exploit a weakness, but to overcome a paucity of quality on on our part. Compare to Potter, who would make 3, 4 or more tactical changes a game and rarely had to move to overcome a quality deficit. A quality deficit is self-defeating, it gifts the opposition an advantage.
Promotion is achievable, but we must shift our position on those charts to achieve it. Staying where we are in the BA / BD quadrant means we are carrying too much quality risk.