Thing is fans don't want direct or long ball football, as it's ugly, loads of our fans where whinging under Pulis etc and we were doing ok.
Man Utd played direct for years, when they were dominating, not really lump ball, but they tried to get it forward as fast as possible, and took some risks doing that, but it worked, as they had rapid players with technique to take advantage, and top level strikers.
If fans don't want it (lump ball), as there's something "nicer" available, then this will eventually filter down into players not wanting to play like that as kids etc. So more look to be more technical and it being less about massive big lads holding the ball up, or flicking onto a rapid little lad who was crap, but faster than anyone else.
I think the UK is just in a bit of a transition, between physical to technical, and we lagged behind Europe in the technical aspect for years. Seem to have caught up now, for the very best players, but still probably not enough good ones to go around to fill up other teams. This leaves teams a bit half way, sort of like where we are now. We almost have the players to do it when fully fit, but when we have players out it makes it much harder, but the players/ squad in other positions aren't really geared up for any other style. To me we're like a 6/10 playing out from the back side, hoping to be an 8/10, but to do it you need to go from 5/10, to 6/10 to 7/10 etc, and keep upgrading players. Last year we had the attackers/ forwards to make up for anything, this year we don't.
When teams are set up to play out from the back, but have crap players, it's hard to do anything different. The players aren't good enough to win at the style they're playing, which is probably the optimum for their team/ squad, so if they changed to a lump ball it would be even worse. All they can do is try different routes of playing out from the back, there are a few ways to do it, which are quite complex tactically, and it needs the whole team to know how to do it, to get it to work. City changed how they do it from using wide lads at the back, to now using centre backs left/ right who then come in after the other centre backs like Stones push forward through the middle etc, creating an overload.