How bad is passing?

I feel like it near impossible to execute basic passes now without interceptions, this needs to be tuned. Through balls are basically off the cards completely. I packed Messi day one, even with his incisive+ I feel like you lose the ball more often than you complete the pass.

I usually play in Div 1 - Elite, so feel like I have a relatively good grasp on gameplay, but I don't think I ever remember a year being this bad for passing.

I don't believe this is a skill thing either, I notice it happen to opponents as much as it happens to myself. It's one thing to anticipate a pass, move a player into position and intercept, that's fine, you should be rewarded for reading the game. But I'm frequently receiving the ball from passes my opponent makes that look viable as a pass, it's not like I'm reading each one.

Dunno, maybe it's just because it's early in the year and players are obviously at the lower end of the stat spectrum, but still, pretty annoying.