In our 40 league matches so far this season we have successfully completed 21,496 passes. The highest in the Championship. Of those, 9,306 were attacking passes (43%). Simply to demonstrate how good that is, the second team were Wolves with 19,667 completed passes. Down at the foot are Cardiff on 11,079 completed passes. Unbelievable. They say "the League table doesn't lie". Well, it sure as heck doesn't tell the whole story.
You don't get any points for completing passes. You get points tor scoring goals and not conceding. You've scored 8 more goals than us. We've conceded 8 goals less than you, the lowest in the league. Indeed the table doesn't lie. If the league was based on subjective aesthetics you would be above us. The other thing to consider is where our passes are made. In the final third. We also have the second highest number of attempts on goal, suggsting our passing gets us into better positions than yours. You could make 10 forward passes to get to half way then lose the ball. 10 attacking passes without an attempt on goal. We might make one long pass, two or three short ones then get a shot off. You have pretty stats. We have attempts on goal. You can let isolated stats tell you what you want. Still a lot of points to be played for. And no doubt you are a fine team. We're still looking over our shoulder, but you can have as many passes as you like so long as you don't score 5 more points than us.
That's not to say passing isn't an important aspect of the game, just putting credence on a single aspect of the game. Many times this season we've had 40% possssion or less. In a lot of those games, we've won, having 50-100% more attempts on goal than the opposition. Isolated stats mean nothing.
Not conceding goals rather than scoring them appears to be at the root of the praise here rosc. Whatever, certainly know which style of football I prefer to watch.