Nothing wrong with the short-passing game. Anyone old enough to recall a bit of history will remember this was intro'd par excellence here by Moscow Dynamo in their tour here just after the War: but it only worked because, as USSR had no offside rule at the time, offside was suspended for the tour ~~ otherwise the final pass of one of their manoeuvres would always have caught the last man offside. Short passing & offside are NOT incompatible. A decent game of soccer & offside are, to my mind: it is the reason the game doesn't flow as it could if allowed to develop naturally.

I mean, fancy making a virtue of the devious bit of finagling known as the offside trap. Ugh!