We are playing a low block, which means gaps.
We're playing this way because our centre backs are slow
Steinmann and Rufer are playing deep so that the gaps are not in front of the centre backs.
Hooper and Ball have to start deep to ensure the gaps aren't between them and the centre midfielders.
Rudan played deep, but he had Krishna and Williams as outlets who could start deep and still cause problems with their mobility, which had the effect of pushing the opposition back. Right now, we are just inviting teams on to us.
Rudan also had extra numbers in central areas to make it difficult for us to be broken down despite the space in front of us.
In our current formation, the wide midfielders are the problem. Everything is fine until the opposition start getting clever and pull our wide midfielders into areas that they should not be going in a 4-2-2-2. but it's hard for them not to because we are so deep. This makes spaces in bad areas in the box in front of the full backs and behind the centre midfielders. Even early in the game, City were able to find a lot of space beyond our midfield.
Most times, for 4-2-2-2 to work, one of the holders needs to create a triangle in front of the back 4, the full backs need to defend wide and the wide midfielders need to defend narrow. We are not doing this.
I think Talay should consider asking Ball to defend one of the full backs, preferably on Davila's side. I think this would help to create an overload in front of the CMs. It would also have the effect of having Ball well placed to counter between that full back and the centre back