Scalley was not great in that game either, that's true. Or Ream. The two together are problematic for each other. And yes, Scally's support play was very much lacking at times in that game, good observation.
The support play problem can and probably will be addressed. I'm thinking it was, in part at least, due to dangerous overconfidence since the support play was generally better against Brazil. Our mids in this game were providing good angles of support, but the timing was off at times, either a bit too early and thus easily closed down, or coming too late. That's partly what led to Richards, Scally and Ream giving the ball away so much. But some of it was slow decision-making by those three.
Against good teams, our mids are going to have to work harder than is ideal to support the back four to maintain possession. That in turn negatively affects our ability to attack quickly in transition. And it can lead to player exhaustion. I'm guessing that was one of the things GB was messing with against Columbia.
This is why I keep harping on the need to find some defenders who are elite passers. We're pretty weak at producing killer passes out of the back. It happens sometimes, but not nearly as much as with other teams near the top of the rankings. And rarely with the same kind of perfect weight and timing and incisiveness as the best attacking defenders can do. Can only fix this with better players, IMO.
Anyway, let's see what happens on Thursday. Hopefully a bit more cohesion having had some more time and some more game tape to work with.
