as for wigan, you're assuming that they have started winning purely down to momentum. sure, it helps, winning is a habit, but its also because they stuck with their manager when things were rough, showed tremendous loyalty to him and the players and gave them belief through adversity that they were good enough to stay up. plus, they are a good side anyway - they just had a diabolical run early in the season. the point being made is that despite having that run they turned it around. you think we'll start badly cos we've ended the season with a run of defeats and therefore we are doomed next season - why wouldn't we do a wigan, even if we started the season badly?
you appear thicker than two short planks. i state very clearly that HE is a confidence player. its one individual, not the whole team. if you can't understand that then you're a doughnut, but i suspect you do understand and you are arguing for the sake of arguing.
So once again, you agree with me that winning is a habit, which you had at the start of this season and possibly won't at the start of next season. As for losing at the start of next season, a lot depends on the fixture list. You could get Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City in your first 3 games so it will bound to affect certain players and fans. and that old word confidence springs up again!
so you're ignoring the fact that we could do the same thing as wigan, even if we started the season badly? honestly, you seem to know nothing about the make up of the norwich squad.
Sorry pal, but Wigan's momentum (not too sure about that word) was evident when they came to Carrow Road, up to that point they were still the wipping boys (not too sure about that either)! They drew 1-1 against us, we were extremely lucky to get a draw, they have gone on in leaps and bounds since then. How you measure that, I don't know, I don't believe it was a confidence thing, as they missed a whole hatfull of chances, which could have easily had the opposite effect, it didn't! On your last point, booing of one of your own team is wrong, no matter who they are or what your personal feelings are about them! That is all. ILD OTBC
Supers, at no point have i said that you couldn't go on that run, I would have thought after your great result against Spurs that you would but unfortunately you seem to have gone the other way. but you have been adament that this is all a figment of my imagination, and i have given you reasoned examples(and some norwich fans have agreed).
our win at spurs measures against nothing. thats the point! we were already effectively safe by then. you could say the pressure was off so we played with more freedom. you could also argue that we have gone off the boil since cos we have nothing to play for. none of these matches matter one jot towards how we've done this season - it was results earlier in the campaign that did that. you can swing things to look how you like but it doesn't change what we all know - its up to you if you want to try and convince yourself that somehow we are now in free fall. i mean, this is all so boring now. guru clearly wanted to come on here to try and scaremonger and it may have worked with one or two. however, most fans are capable of seeing clearly what is happening at our club, which is more than can be said about a number of ipswich fans about their own club, who still seem to think that paul jewell is somehow going to drag them back to the promised land.
we effectively only play about a 26-game season - we can't compete realistically with the top six clubs so we have to target all other matches to gain our 40 points. any points nabbed against the big boys are bonus points which give us some leeway elsewhere. if you look at our 15 losses this season, more than half have come against the big boys. that means our record against the teams we are actually in need of beating is very good. thats what has kept us up this season and if we can improve our team, thats what'll keep us up next too.
If I was a Norwich City player and I looked at the first three fixtures of the season and saw Man Utd away, Man City home and Chelsea away, I would be thinking not a great start to the season in terms of fixtures, but hey, we have to play them at some point, so why not at the beginning, and I guess well over 90% of footballers would think that. I assume an Ipswich player would look at it and think - ****, that's our whole season buggered, we'll be down by December!
I think the city game knocked a bit of the stuffing out of us. In the first half before they scored and again in the second up until 70 mins we threw everything we had against them and then once we were nackered they kept hitting us until we were given a bit of a hiding. You do tend to forget all the injuries we have had this year! There are also the point I made at the beginning of the seaqson we needed 40 points by end of March as our run in was terrible. We have had a great season and I don't think the same intensity is there now as it once was now we are safe. We can always say to any other fans who want a mock.... we are premier league.... we are premier league!
I said at the time that two things changed the Man City game and they were Yaya Toure and Mancini's change of shape. Both absolutely murdered us and we had nothing to fight back with.
I must admit to being a bit concerned. I listen avidly to most of Lamberts interviews, recently he has said things like, "I want to finish as high up the division as I can", "Grant Holt has played 3 games running and needed a rest", "I thought we were massive today"! I can't argue with him, and won't pretend that I know better, but the performances recently have been very poor, we've conceded 11 goals in 3 games and only scored 2. If we want to finish as high up the division as possible, why were we so negative against the Wheel stealers? 1 shot on target all game? I've read most of the posts on here, and can't find a reason, even though a lot of it makes perfect sense, even 'some' of the stuff posted by the binners.. Before you jump on me for being negative, I'm not, I'm ecstatic that the season has gone as well as it has, and I can't wait until next season for more of the same. As a fan/supporter I'm just a bit concerned and disappointed with the current level of performance, after all who want's 6 goal's scored against you at home, then to give away 3 more at home in the next game. I don't know the answers, I'm just a fan who watches from the stands who, loves it when we win, and hates it when we lose. I do however agree that the current level of performance won't necessarily continue into the start of next season, why would it. I TRUST OUR MANAGER! ILD OTBC
There is a whole host of reasons why we have lost our last three games (first time under lambert) and not scored in the last two (again, first time under Lambert), but IMO, the main one is nothing to play for, and as much as you and others might not like that reason, its an issue that has been around for years. Its a natural thing to do. This might be a poor analogy but I'll say it anyway. Say you're running in the London Marathon and you're in the top twenty runners in the race. However, you are a newcomer to the elite race. You are sitting around 13th, and are absolutely delighted by that as you only have a couple more miles to go. You also know that the 15th place runner can only catch you up right at the end of the race if they show the sort of pace that they've not shown throughout the whole race. The last five or six miles are the hardest of the race and you're also knackered after such a long run, so the natural thing to do, is take it slightly easier. You might think, well what about trying to catch the runners in front and go for a top ten place. But in your heart of hearts you know that is going to be too tough a ask, especially as you have the hardest part of the race coming up.
i think you have to take everything lambert says with a pinch of salt. he almost always says the same thing, win lose or draw - its just his way. he likes to keep his players feeling ten feet tall. if he didn't say he wants us to finish as high up the table as possible, people would wonder why he hasn't said it. he probably can't win with what he says so he basically just says a generic statement after each game. as far as i'm concerned the players have run out of steam a bit and because the games are more or less meaningless, other than financially, they haven't quite found their way back onto the accelerator. i'm disappointed that we've tailed off cos i really felt top half was possible - it still is but unlikely now - but its totally understandable why results and performances have stuttered - the quality of our opponents, certainly man city and suarez are also a factor. i think we forget just how well we played against man city - that was a great performance until the final 15 minutes when, yes, thats right... we ran out of steam
i know, its great. its what your club strives for, league fixtures against arsenal and the like. you make it sound like we should be embarrassed to be going there. if we get thumped, what do you expect? we go there to try and win and if we don't it won't really matter - the hard work has been done for this season. not a bad place to be in i'm sure you'll agree
Unfortunately Supers, I think we ARE going to get thumped. I'm predicting by at least FOUR possibly SIX or SEVEN ! But, as you say, the hard work has been done and, 'WE ARE STILL PREMIER LEAGUE!'
