And why bring subs on after 55 minutes, why not at half time?? Something is wrong and I don't like it!!!!
Our last clean sheet was on August 16th, the Bristol City game. If that doesn't tell us, the management and board that something at the back is fundamentally flawed, I'd like to know what the fook will do?
The defence was prone to balls over the top and McGovern made two great saves from Hugill and Robinson to keep us in the game. We looked shaky and vulnerable and although Pinto's late withdrawal couldn't have helped our defence looked all at sea whereas the Preston defence looked secure and organised. There's a lot of games to go before the January window opens and I fear that our failure to keep clean sheets may be our undoing.
AN is not the man for the job!!! Tactically set up wrong again at home with 2 holding midfielders, Pritchard sitting on the bench for 2 games after playing well and then with 1 sub left and struggling let's leave our 2 attackers on the bench and keep Tettey and our back 4 on the pitch! Beyond belief!!! Been poor all season so far with a squad that is capable of so much more!!!
I'd love to know how the ref yesterday paced out the 10 yards when Jerome got felled on the edge of the box. The free kick was right on the edge of the 18 yard box, so surely the wall should have been just short of the 6 yard box, but no, the ref managed to place it roughly halfway between the 2 areas and then the Preston players were standing with their feet on the actual line. A similar thing happened with one of our other free kicks!! #norespect
So now 4th in the league and 4 points off the top. Another uninspiring, lack-lustre performance against the type of team we should be beating at home, if we’re going to get promoted. Having said that today is the first time we’ve lost at home this season, so hopefully this is a blip rather than the start of a slow steady decline to mid-table mediocrity. 6/8 Blackburn 1 (22nd) Norwich 4 13/8 Norwich 0 Sheffield Wed 0 (5th) 16/8 Norwich 1 Bristol City 0 (6th) 21/8 Ipswich 1 (17th) Norwich 1 27/8 Birmingham 3 (7th) Norwich 0 10/9 Norwich 3 Cardiff 2 (20th) 13/9 Norwich 2 Wigan 1 (23rd) 17/9 Nottingham Forrest 1 (19th) Norwich 2 24/9 Norwich 3 Burton Albion 1 (15th) 28/9 Newcastle 4 (1st) Norwich 3 1/10 Wolves 1 (18th) Norwich 2 15/10 Norwich 3 Rotherham 1 (24th) 18/10 Fulham 2 (14th) Norwich 2 22/10 Norwich 0 Preston (9th) The highest placed team we’ve beat is Bristol in 6th. The lowest placed team we've lost to is Preston in 9th. We’ve played 7 home games, winning 5, drawing 1 & losing 1, and 7 away games, winning 3, drawing 2 & losing 2. So perhaps not surprisingly our home record is better than our away record. Of the 14 games we’ve played 5 have been against teams currently in the top half of the table, won 1, drawn 2 & lost 2. Of the 9 games we’ve played against teams in the bottom half we’ve won 7 & drawn 2 (both away games). So proportionally at this stage we appear to have played more of the weaker teams in the league. We’ve played 3 teams in, the top 6 (won 1 (home), drawn 1 (home) & lost 1 (away). So mixed results in potential 6 pointers. It looks like we’re going to beat most teams we play in the lower half of the table, especially at home, with the occasional draw away from home, whilst continuing to struggle against teams in the top half. The next 3 Championship game are against Brighton (3rd) & Leeds (10th) & QPR (13th), so looking at past performance I would hope to get 4 or 6 points from the next 3 games. December & January fixtures still look particularly difficult.
I just get a feeling that we'll have to drop below half way in the league before realisation strikes! We are not a very good team we can't defend and switch off for long periods in most games, from the stands it looks a total shambles on the pitch.
If we play as badly as we did yesterday, I can see us dropping down the table very rapidly. As carrow says, let's hope yesterday was just an 'off day's.
I hope so as well, but, we seem to have too many "off days", I'm worried about it as we don't seem to be able to resolve it!!
We are still a centre back and striker missing from a realistic title contending side and no where near good enough for the Premiership.
That's the irony. In the post-match debrief and in the press, he identifies what went wrong...and then proceeds to pick virtually the same team and employ exactly the same tactics in the next game. Adapt things, you stubborn fecker.
You mean like he did last year and got panned for not picking a regular team? Seems you have a stick to beat him with whichever way he goes!
I hope this season doesn't turn into one like 95-96. Fancied to go up, a bright start then falling away. We were then stuck in this tier for nine years.
Player ratings from yesterday's game in and from the Rotherham game only a week ago Michael McGovern 7.0 7.0 Russell Martin 6.0 7.0 Ryan Bennett 6.0 Timm Klose 6.0 7.5 Martin Olsson 6.0 7.0 Graham Dorrans 6.0 7.0 Alex Tettey 5.0 7.0 Jacob Murphy 5.5 6.5 Wes Hoolahan 6.5 8.5 Robbie Brady 5.0 Cameron Jerome 7.0 7.0 Nelson Oliveira 5.5 Alex Pritchard 7.0 8.0 Looking at those ratings, it's easy to see why we were so poor yesterday, with only McGovern and Jerome putting in similar performances. I REALLY think it's time to relegate Jacob to the bench, as he's not putting in the sort of performances that he was earlier in the season and I'm sure most of us would love to see Pritchard start ahead of Brady, but AN will say that he needs Brady's defensive abilities for the challenge of Birighton.