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This has frustrated me for years. Same with surrendering possession chaply at throw-ins - players making only token effort to show for tgh ball.

We continue to lose goals due to not stopping delivery from wide areas. It was a weakness last season and continues to be so. Our full backs really need to get out quicker and stop these balls coming in, or at the very least put pressure on the player crossing to make their life more difficult. If the quality of ball in is allowed to be good, its obvious its going to hurt us.

And we continue to score goals by making lots of deliveries from wide areas. Which suggests to me that, in the modern game, that is an are that is difficult to defend. When Tait was at his peak with us he had the most assists in the Premiership. If you were to put a list together of the world's best full backs right now, not many of them would be on there for their defensive skills. Just look at Liverpool - they have 2 full backs that bomb up and down the wings, but can be questionable when put under a bit of defensive pressure. They countered that by paying about £150 million for Van Dijk and Allison to deal with the crosses that come in, but I doubt most teams can afford that. It's something that has made me scratch my head for a number of years now, but it seems to be a key part of football these days.

It's not taking the flack that's the issue, it's the commercial side of the business where the game needs to be promoted and the sponsors need to be enticed. Doncaster was the one who instead of bigging up our game - which is his job - kept saying we were lucky to get what we had because our game wasn't very good. Barry Hearn nailed it 6 years ago, and we've done nothing about it since then. The game needs someone like him to be promoting and expanding.