we've played five games. what do you mean 'why is it taking so long to make any head way this season?' had we won on saturday, which we arguably would have done more times than not, we would currently sit (give or take goal difference) about 9th. yet one result later we are doomed. makes no sense... how many clubs hit the ground running? its not as if we have been abysmal every game. we played well against everton and better against saints. we've disappointed badly in two games while the villa game really we were a tad unfortunate to lose - a draw was certainly the least we deserved. of course it would be rash to sack a manager when there are as many positives as there are negatives! it only takes a couple of negatives to suddenly turn around and he's back in the good books. if it flips the other way then fair enough but its far too early to tell how this season will pan out at the moment. granted, if we lose our next three games then i think the pressure might be too much but that doesn't mean i think it's right, in fact i find it pathetic. two of the next three games are against title contenders but that's where we are now because we probably should be on 7 points now - that's what i felt we'd be on after 5 games, not 4 - that's not quite good enough but is it a sackable offence? we know his aims for last season because he told us in public on numerous occasions that he was tasked with keeping the club in the premier league, no matter how.
Excellent posts by both carabuh yesterday and Supers earlier giving both points of view and both perfectly valid - I gues it all comes down to which 'camp you're in'. Whlst I haven't always been impressed by CH's team selections etc, IMO he's better than some of the options available. I have NO DOUBT that McNally will make the correct decisions to hopefully keep this fantastic club in the Premier League and as Supers said the fans MUST get behind the team at CR. There was little or no atmosphere there on Sat -even before the saved penalty or Villa's goal. The match at Vicarage Road tomorrow evening could have massive implications - let's hope we have a strong team and I would certainly drop Snodgrass for a a couple of games at least.
the players we have aren't good enough at this level to play balls into rvw's feet and his runs, and we didn't but those players to build around him as you say cromer. the wide men just pumping balls in high for him rather than wipped in lower at pace, well that's just down to either poor tactics (ch is telling them to do it) or poor choice on the pitch.
You look at what happened with Benitez at Chelsea and you think 'why?' But then some fans just have it in for Hughton here too. Some fans just need to get over Paul Lambert already.
Well, they play in the best league in the world and earn around £20k a week so they fecking well should be. Poor decision making and even poorer execution is what's costing us so far this season. It's all very well talking about 'upgrading the midfield areas' next summer, but unless we start shaping up soon, we could well have to cut our cloth a bit differently, as there'll be no guarantees we'll still be in this division if we still fail to score goals.
how much of it is down to the lambert effect? i think initially it was all down to it. surely it can't be now? the treatment of benitez was scandalous and thankfully we haven't seen it get as bad as that. at least there is some substance to the criticism of hughton! edit. just to add to that, i wonder how much of this is down to the swansea effect?! i think some fans are jealous. they've seen us come up together but seen them progress quicker and with more style.
always think you have a far more realistic but optimistic slant on things Supers which i do relate to more than a lot of the negative slants. On facebook during the summer i was enjoying the fans comments on NCFC fan page during transfer window, all that has now turned to stupid negativity often back up with a senseless argument (so i unliked the page). At least the anti-hughton fans on here have some reasonable debate even if i do disagree with it. To cheer myself up i had a look at our first 7 fixtures last season, after 7 games we had 3 points. I know he was given more of a chance last year because he was a new manager, but at least this time around in the first 7 games there are still signs of improvement. But last season it was after a 4-1 defeat to Chelsea that things turned around. I see signs that is going to happen again this season, WE WILL BE OK! We may not go on a 10 match unbeaten run but we will be ok. It took until October for our 1st win last year, do people forget this? We've already beat Southampton who just beat Liverpool at Anfield. Surely we're not as doomed as our fans claim we are????? If we sack CH after 7 games or so, we then arguably have to give the next manager another 5-10 games to get settled. He may not hit the ground running, then all of a sudden its halfway through the season. Surely people must see there is more danger sacking the manager and getting a new one during a season???? Wolves, QPR, Reading......... need i go on? Especially as no one is giving any suitable replacement suggestions. All the managers i have seen suggested are RISKY!!!! if we change the manager it has to be for a safe bet. Our fans need to realise we are a mid table club, which means we will win 30-38% of our games, draw abt 15-20% and lose the rest. Personally, i think a win tomorrow and/or Mcnally coming out and backing the manager would settle the nerves. If you dont trust CH trust Mcnally!
But i also agree, we do appear to be at the point of no return. Once the crowd turn its just inevitable. I just hope DM has more nerve than that.
Do you think the criticism would be this bad if we'd lost to, say, Southampton instead of Villa? Some people here view it as absolutely essential that we humiliate Paul Lambert (or at least unthinkable we should lose) everytime we play him, and because we didn't it is therefore Hughton's fault.
you should not sack a manager unless it is obvious that it is the correct call and have a replacement lined up who is better. obviously we can't answer the second part as we don't know but other than about three or four posters on here who are adamant he is the wrong guy, can anybody else say that it is 'obvious' that the manager has to go? its still a fairly small group of fans who think he should be sacked. the largest number seem to be in the 'give him a few more games' camp while quite a lot are still fully behind him. the issue last season was always 'substance over style' but we all know that if results go downhill, its harder for a manager who puts the emphasis on substance to keep fans onside. results dipped second half of last season, although overall i think results have been roughly what you'd expect, give or take a few either way. that is why i think it is down to impatience because they aren't seeing a big enough improvement (some might say any improvement but there is definitely a slight shift in the way we are trying to play which we are still to adapt to and there is definitely an improvement in personnel) quickly enough and that has led to the idiotic booing of his substitution which in turn has led to more pressure being heaped on him by a section of the crowd who have made their feelings known during a game. as scottish canary says above, if you don't trust hughton then at least trust mcnally to make the right call. he's not let us down before.
equally, if you watched how bad manchester united were yesterday, especially in wide areas where they were absolutely horrendous, shouldn't players earning £80k+ a week be better than that? problem is, football doesn't always work like that. if you're not on song, not on form, it can be difficult and it doesn't matter how much you earn, you can do no right and make mistakes. they aren't robots programmed to be perfect
Then again, if McNally did do that it would mean he agrees something is wrong. But if anyone can see the bigger picture it would DM. Just think it may settle some of the fans nerves, people have a lot of faith in DM. If DM didnt think CH was up to it, we'd know by now.
I think what CH really needs is for certain players to turn up on the day, why is it we can play brilliantly against Saints then be totally pants for the next two games, what's going on?!
The thing of it is for all the positives you believe there to be and I can see some, but can CH actually get this side scoring goals? Against a lower league side in the cup, yes. But last season was charactorised by defending with practically the whole team, set piece goals and sweet fanny addams from open play. Has this changed? In all of preseason and the season so far, has he developed a way of getting the ball to RvW in dangerous positions. As most have said, the lad has the movement and the talent to bag goals, why after the expenditure over the summer have we not seemingly developed any way of utilising him? You could build a team to feed him or Hooper for that matter. They are not getting anything but scraps. Same as Holt last year. Bah! Maybe I should go and join carrabuh's thread, I am just finding it rather difficult to believe in CH. In DMWT.
The answer is that we are NOT actually set up to pump crosses into the box. The whole point about inverted wingers is that they are not there to perform the traditional wide player's role of taking on the full back, getting to the by-line and crossing. They are NOT there to hug the touchline and cross TO the strikers in the middle; they are there to move into the middle and play WITH the central forward players. By moving in and drawing the defenders with them, space is created for the full back to run past and onto a through ball, or receive a pass out wide and cross from the by-line. This is not rocket science to understand, or strange or novel; inverted wingers are pretty much the norm in top leagues. Yet on here we have people constantly calling for Snodgrass to be played on the left and Redmond or Pilkington on the right. The irony of this is that on Saturday we actually saw this beginning to take shape, albeit imperfectly. Russ Martin's terrific run onto a straight ball played inside the full back, which he collected on the by-line and fired in a great cross (which in three games out of four would probably have produced a goal and very nearly did but for two strokes of luck on Villa's part), was exactly the type of play intended. The further irony is that we are being set up in fact to play more as carrabuh wants, as opposed to what he fears. Even he has has noticed a change, but puts it down solely to better players. That is nonsense. It is the product of a slow but definitely intended change of approach plus the arrival of players better equipped to realise it. If you look at the pattern of Norwich passing in the second half, the entire pitch forward of our penalty spot is a criss-crossing mass of blue lines; it shows just how false it is to say that Hughton's strategy is to get the ball out wide early, play up the touchlines and throw long crosses in to the traditional two strikers. That is a travesty of what actually went on on the pitch on Saturday afternoon. Villa were extremely lucky to go away with a win; they would have been lucky to go away with a draw. As Dangerous Marsupial posted yesterday, on our play we deserved to win that game. But as anyone who studies the game seriously knows, football teams get their just deserts only 50% of the time. The other 50% of games are decided by the balance of fortune, which yesterday fell on Villa's side. Most independant observers reporting on the game said as much; and Paul Lambert definitely knew it.
well i think that will be answered in the coming weeks. we will need to score more goals so if he wants to survive he'll have to come up with the formula. i think the formula is already there to a degree, its just a case of a) getting the midfield personnel correct - which i think was close on saturday) and b) the players delivering better quality. i couldn't care less if we ping the ball out wide more often than not - its a great way of stretching teams. just make sure if you do you put decent delivery in the box. hughton can't deliver the crosses! i still maintain that by getting the midfield balanced correctly we'll create more through the middle. our passing was much crisper in the centre of the park and the combination of fer and howson linked well but because they had nobody behind them they didn't push forward s much as i'd like to see. its not an easy thing to get right - none of us are able to pick a side and think 'yeah, that'll deliver everything we need'. there's always an area of weakness but that's why these players are at norwich and not man city! i'd be tempted to go for stoke if all available, maybe give rvw a break as he's clearly getting frustrated. i'd let tettey do nothing but sit, no license to get forward at all - let fer and howson break with an emphasis on using both wide men AND finding through balls for hooper. i don't think we need a link man in this formation as long as both howson and fer can support. both full backs can continue to support and overlap allowing both wingers to cut inside, giving them two options in forward positions: ruddy martin bassong bennett olsson tettey snodgrass fer howson pilkington hooper edit. robbie has basically said what i was about the wingers/full backs
