Watching the GB game last night along with our performance against Ajax summed up how the majority of teams in this country will play. We dominated possession for an hour against Uruguay. When they decided to up the pressure and keep possession further up the pitch, Uruguay kept getting the ball back on the half way line. As a nation, we will thump, hoof, slice the ball anywhere rather than try and play it out of trouble. As soon as we relaxed a bit, we played further up the pitch again and didn't have to hoof it so much. Our first reaction against Ajax was to aim for position not possession. Lets hope there was a lesson learnt by both teams.
"Our first reaction against Ajax was to aim for position not possession." I like this simple assesment. It is a spot on assesment of English football when it gets too tough.
ILD. I think we're to some extent talking at cross-purposes. I totally accept that, as a mid-table PL club, we have earned the right to play teams of the quality of the top teams in Europe. The issue I have with some of the posts is that far too much is being read into Tuesday night's game. We know that Chris Hughton is NOT Tony Pulis; and we know that our players ARE capable of excellent football, such as can match, on the day, teams as good as Man Utd, Arsenal and Spurs, which was the point of my comparisons ("on the day" because, at the moment, we cannot produce that quality with the consistency that the top teams show; it's something to strive for as we improve). Tuesday simply confirmed for me that CH is one of those who believes that success is built first and foremost on sound defence.
Robbie, It's a debating forum, if everyone saw things exactly the same way this place wouldn't exist. I hate that sort of football,..... you see something else in it,..... we disagree and debate it, I'm fine with that Chris Houghton was my top pick as our new manager, and I have faith in him, I just hope he doesn't do that again! ILD OTBC
i'm not one of the spelling police but can we try and spell our managers name correctly! its gonna drive me mad
i can live with that as its clearly a done on purpose, but calling him houghton is annoying me. how hard is it to get it right???
sorry, i never normally moan about spelling but i think we should be able to get our managers name right! keep calm and carry on people
I'm no advocate for hoofball, and I've criticised the "English game" many times on here. But while my sympathies lie with redruth and carrabuh (see above), I think we (Norwich) have some considerable way to go before we are able to maintain possession for any length of time, particularly when being pressed. Meantime I see CH as taking what immediate steps he can to ensure that our goals against tally at the end of the season is a lot lower than the 66 we conceded last time. I personally think that's a sensible approach for the coming campaign.
Spot on and from the little I watched of the ggame against Ajax, we weren't able to maintain posession for any length of time to be able to play the ball out of defence. I hope I don't witness a repeat of the game on Tue when I watch the game against Borussia Monchengladbach!!
as one of our more positive posters, i find that comment a little hard to take. i only moan at you... meanwhile, great post by robbie
I don't think the Spanish way can be ignored by the big Premiership teams for much longer, possesion football sems to be the way the game is moving outside of England and Germany (why they decided to follow our model I don't know, they now have exactly the same issues as us).
Not only is english/german brand of football more exciting this years champions league final suggests that it still has something to offer
