Though I want DF to stay, there was more he could have done last season. A CB on loan could have helped, allowing us to go 3 at the back with WBs, for example. Another player with pace to improve our counterattacking, like Placheta in January instead of now. We knew we were in trouble in December and Rupp and Duda were not enough. I doubt it would have changed our fate, but it might have made our season more respectable instead of downright embarrassing.
As you (and everyone else on here) know full well Rick, IMO there was more he could have done which didn't require bringing in new players; he showed too little respect to our rivals in the bottom half of the table by thinking that we could impose "our game" on them. By Christmas it was clear that we couldn't, but DF refused to change. Even in his summary of the season he kept re-iterating the same refrain "We could do no other" despite the team having demonstrated that they could if sent out to do so. Also, I think it incontestable that he could have done more as far as the final nine games of the season were concerned. Given our dire but not entirely hopeless position when the season was suspended, the least we could have hoped for was some sign of a coherent plan to lift us up the table. I saw no sign of any such thing; did anyone else?
But it's not up to DF whether we got another CB on loan or not under the current system. We are limited to a squad of 25, we started the season with 4 dedicated CB's and 2 midfielders that could have covered that role, that should have been enough. We don't know what DF's thoughts were, but no manager creates a team that can play every possible formation under the sun. I don't remember anyone at the start of the season jumping up and down saying that we needed another CB. What I do remember is people praising the skills of Klose & Zimmermann. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Despite what some might say there's no doubt the the unusually high number of injuries to our CB's over the season had a significant effect on our season. I blame Webber for not buying a crystal ball at the start of the season.
Like most of us, I thought we were more than adequately fixed for CBs at the start of the season. When Amadou left and we were struggling for CBs mid-season is what I meant. Like Robbie, I think we too often left ourselves exposed by commiting the FBs forward. If we played with 3 at the back, the WBs could go forward without leaving us exposed. There were also the times when Tettey had to play at CB and we lost his shielding of the defence. An extra CB could have made a big difference in the second half of the season.
Why ? I think we probably had as many CB's fit in the second half of the season then we did in the first. In most of the post covid games we had many peoples prefered pairing of Klose & Godfrey. If our season had ended with lockdown many commentators would have been saying we were the best team to have got relegated. The truth is our post lockdown performances were particularly poor. Interestingly many posters early whipping boy, Hanley, didn't feature in this period. Early on in the season we had some good performances often despite losing games. We changed our style and the result was our performances got worse and we lost more.
But we didn't change our style (and if you won't take my word for it, listen to DF's own end of season reflections). Basically, all DF did -- apart from a bit of shuffling of the forward three behind the striker (e.g. when Buendia was finally benched) -- was try to put more beef into defensive midfield by playing any two of Tettey, Trybull or McLean in those positions. He has repeatedly stressed that we had no alternative but to continue with the attacking, possession based, approach that won us the Championship, and that's exactly what we did, game after game. Match after match we went all out to get the first goal, failed to do so, started to surrender possession, came under the stick, conceded a goal and ended up beaten. It worked once, in the second game of the season, against a struggling Newcastle side we were fortunate enough to catch before Bruce began sorting them out.
It's very difficult to play 3 CBs when we've only got two fit. The first half of post lockdown it was Godfrey and Klose, then Klose was injured and DF was forced to play Zimbo before he was ready.
Experimental 361 principally focusses on the Championship, so we can look forward to having our progress over the season ahead tabulated in graphic detail. But, for anyone interested, there are some end of season scatter graphics for the EPL 2019--2020 here. Nothing new, but a graphic (sic) demonstration of how bad it was. [Edit] There are a couple of other interesting graphics (an xG table, and a breakdown of striking effectiveness); links are in the "Latest Posts" list to the right of the scatter graphics.
If you delve into the archive and look at the Championship graphics for 2018--2019, you'll see the extent of our dependence on Pukki, and our defensive shortcomings vividly pinpointed. Re. 2019--2020, the attack breakdown is interesting in showing that neither Pukki nor Cantwell deserve criticism for poor finishing. Neither was exceptionally clinical, but the idea that Pukki in particular should have scored more is, as DH pointed out earlier, not justified. Pukki's problem was that he was so exceptionally clinical the year before.
Maybe we shouldn't have expected to stay up, but against all the mitigation of budgets/injury etc etc you have our worst season ever and the most spinless surrender you could ever see since lockdown ended. I'm not calling for Farke's head, but I can't pretend to not be a little worried about such an abject season and whether Farke is up to it. A lot to prove in the coming season. Bah!
Yes, there is a big question mark about whether the squad, DF and SW can turn the corner and start fresh. The 7 new players will help and Idah and Martin are still like new players. There is a feeling that the players brought in on a shoestring budget when Webber took over are now being thinned out to make way for those new players but it's a turning point where we could either kick on or fall into a downward spiral like Sunderland and Ipswich. I just hope it's the former.
I understand that before the lockdown one of the pundits - who despite popular opinion do know what they are talking about - said that if we go down we will be the best team ever to be relegated. After the lockdown we were dreadful. A variety of reasons have been suggested one of the most credible being that there was not enough time to get the players back to the required level of fitness required. I also suspect that the break gave them too long to look at the league table and realise the very difficult position they were in and this feeling got worse as defeats mounted up. I find it difficult to believe that the change was due to something DF did or didn't do
Rick, I don't see much at all in our situation which justifies your comparison with Sunderland and Ipswich. Both those clubs had "downward spiral" writ all over them, with tired, ageing squads, disillusioned, error-prone owners, and precarious finances. Our only issue is whether DF has it in him to get us up again; and if he hasn't, we have Webber to appoint someone who has.
The pundit, if I remember correctly, was Danny Murphy. What he meant was that we played an attractive brand of football that neutrals enjoyed watching. The fact that we regularly ended up beaten, even by fellow relegation strugglers, suggests a somewhat eccentric use of the word "best" -- particularly when you consider that the compliments about our brand of football were usually accompanied by comments to the effect that "Norwich leave themselves wide open" and "It's only a matter time before they concede". My definition of "best team ever to be relegated" would be something like "the team relegated by the narrowest ever margin, with the highest points total of any relegated team, having scored more goals and conceded fewer than any other team to suffer relegation". Our stats for the season don't bear any comparison to that. Regarding what you say is one of the most credible reasons offered for our post-lockdown disaster, didn't every team face the same problem of recovering match fitness? But anyway, DF quite explicitly denied that our players were less fit than opposition players, Since he has the data I'm inclined to accept what he said.
I think what he meant was we were the “nicest” team to be relegated, ie, we did not play unattractive hoof ball, made few enemies and were very generous to most of our opponents.
I do not think that any team was fully fit when the season restarted but a team with skill can survive that better than a team relying on effort. Unless there is a factor that has eluded me I cannot understand the difference in form before and after lockdown apart from the reasons I set out. I know that is not a popular line of thought but I still stand my view that our squad was hopelessly inadequate for the Premiership, never stood a chance of staying up and no Manager or change of system would have altered that.
Agree with alot of this although if the pieces had fallen differently I think we had a chance of staying up, albeit a very very slim one. Personally I'm content with the clubs strategy with not spending massive amounts, to increase our chances from very very slim to very slim. Because of that decision and some other excellent earlier decisions taken in terms of players contracts we are in an excellent position financially now, despite Covid-19. We don't have to sell our best players for a pittance, just because a 'big' club comes calling. I hear people say we could have splashed out a little more and we could, but I'm not convinced by spending a little or indeed much more would have significantly changed our chances of staying up. Could we have spent for example 30m and stayed up, I doubt it. Villa spent a 100m and it took a never before seen Hawk-eye error to keep them up. The difference between our pre and post lockdown performances is really frustrating. It's our post lockdown performances that sour the season for me and we found out a lot about some of our players characters that wasn't apparent in our promotion season. I don't know the reason for this and I doubt it's one reason, more a combination of many. I see it partly as a downside of developing young players, lack of fitness, lack of depth of quality in squad and for me the key loss of Hanley. I don't believe if Hanley had been fit and playing he would have let those around him at times just throw in the towel. Clearly the squad needs revamping and we seem to be going about this pretty well from what I can see so far. I suspect we are a long way off finishing our dealings this window. I'm sure DF made mistakes, there's no doubt at times he could have played his cards differently, but we really shouldn't be surprised by this as he is a young developing coach, just like a lot of our players are young and developing. In just 3 years Webber and DF have totally turned the club around we are financially secure, have had a promotion season, spent a year in the PL, done better in the FA than we've done for a lifetime, cleared out a load of deadwood (although we're not finished), created PL quality training / youth facilities and developed a handful of players who hardly anyone had heard of to 15m + players. Yet with some people that's not enough. If we see a similar amount of progress over the next 3 years we will become the established PL club that many want us to be. Rome wasn't built in a day and a man that never makes mistakes never makes anything. Get real people !!!!
