As I said earlier give them respect but we need to have the self belief. It's not going to be easy match but we need to raise our game.
Our major problem last season was winning against the teams at the bottom half of the table, why do you think this was the case?, personally I'm not sure. Beat Man U, Everton etc but struggled against teams at the lower end.
A combination of new tactics and players getting used to a new manager, some people might even say confidence was low at the club, after Christmas fitness was a massive factor too. Either way we look at it new clubs are hungry and determined I'll give them that, you can perhaps question quality of their teams. We have to match their determination but keep the game neat.
I know what you are trying to say Northampton and I agree. Positive mindset was there the other day we didn't give up at 2-1 and could have won the game on several occasions ourselves. If we are looking evenly matched with Everton at full strength with a depleted squad, a team that if they can hold on to their players will definitely be challenging for Europe, I think we are doing ok
it was certainly a much better start than last season! plenty to work on but i don't think we need major surgery like we did last season
That's how I saw it too. Saturday was very similar IMO to the home games against the better sides last season. Against Arsenal and Man Utd we managed to snatch the lead and keep it; on the day they weren't able to produce anything to match Barkley's great strike and so unlock the door. As Northampton says, with last season's defensive lessons learned, we should be more confident about our ability to keep less potent sides at bay, and that in turn should give us more confidence going forward. But it is always a question of getting the balance right. If you don't defend properly, even the less potent sides have the ability to make you pay.
I hate to be nitpicking but here's a quick lesson in Dutch, chapter use of capital characters in names: The first character of the first name is always written in capitals in Dutch, like Ricky. In Dutch however, surnames can consist of up three and very rarely four words, for example: van der Vaart. Now the capital rule doesn't apply for the words in the middle when this is a van/de/der/den/in/ten or similar, like in: Rafael van der Vaart, Gregory van der Wiel, Marco van Ginkel, Frank de Boer, Ruud van Nistelrooij. Now here comes the tricky part: if the first name isn't used the rule doesn't apply. If you say just Van Wolfswinkel, the Van is regarded as first character in the name which means the capital character returns. Van der Vaart, Van der Wiel. Notice that the der is still written without the capital letter as this is still a word in the middle. In Flemmish/Belgium the rules are even more difficult
We need to work on retaining the ball and neaten things up, Saturday was a massive test because teams like Everton like to hassle other clubs in possession, our midfield had no time to breathe. Nerves contribute to a lot of this in my opinion. The other area to work on is not being overly casual and switching off, I thought the build up to their second goal was down to this, that will improve with match sharpness.
Thanks Cove. Currently people are still wrestling with the spelling of Hughton, but once this enormous hurdle has been overcome, I'm sure that in the occasional article where Norwich are miraculously even mentioned, vague attempts will be made to spell Ricky vAn WolfsWinkel's name correctly.
Agreed. That's one reason why I think it might be useful to have an experienced "old head" in there. But Fer may make a huge difference in this respect also. For one thing he appears quick and able to accelerate out of trouble.
Trouble is, if he makes a few people look silly in getting away, I can see him getting the old fashioned treatment where centre forwards used to make their presence felt quite painfully if the centre half was too clever!
damnit, character ofcourse. Being back in Dutchland makes me mix up the words again, bloody hell! Still it ain't entirely wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case A character is letter in Dutch.
I was talking about the coaching "they are better than us" staff and the team if they don't believe they're better than the promoted lot and some others. That said there are some who clearly do already like Snoddy! Bah!
