I'm surprised you disagree. From about 2010 it's ALL been about holding on to posssession and if that meant passing sideways and backward from the likes of Carrick and/or Fletcher, that's what we did. It's been mundane at times and not this free-flowing attacking football you seem to admire. Granted we looked for openings and then tried to take those opportunities, but how can you deny we've needed a creative midfielder precisely because we've played possession football without any penetration? What we also lacked, and what made us inferior, was our complete lack of pressing. Both those things meant that everytime we went up against a decent side who did press us, we crumbled.