The thing is Bassett learned a lot from the under rated footballing genius that was Charles Hughes, who did some in-depth analysis and came to the theory that most goals were scored resulting from moves that involved 3 passes or less, and he also coined the POMO (position of maximum opportunity) theory, which makes perfect sense.
I think one of the problems with modern day football is too many teams fanny about with the ball playing nice looking tippy tappy passes to one and another in the middle of the park, when the better option would be launching it down the channels for players to run on to, and when they have got it wide, they look for the easy pass rather than more sensibly throwing the ball in to the mixer.
I can remember Tranmere spending years in the second tier, and one of their most successful tactics they employed was having a long throw specialist who could throw the ball long in to the mixer, creating more POMO's, and it was a widely under-rated tactic, but one very much appreciated by the Tranmere fans who would sound an air raid siren whenever they got a throw in deep inside the oppositon half, and sent the big lads up to get on the ball when it got thrown in to the mixer.