Norwich fans are acting a lot more stranger then usual of late, I had a disagreement with two monumental ****s of the highest order both fellow Norwich fans a couple of days back, I somehow amazingly kept my cool, within a few seconds the mud slinging started I can take that, however one of them spouted some complete and utter bollocks which was totally not on, someone of that age should know a lot better too, if I ever see the guy I'll demand an apology if I don't get one he'll be having his jaw wired together down the hospital. Thing is Tony at least you could all have a fairly civilised conversation about it that's surely a positive.
NO, it wasn't, but that's the one that REALLY stood out!!!! Of our games so far this season, we have competed and attacked the opposition in most of them, but. admittedly, goals have been hard to come by. Even Spurs with all the money they spent in the summer have scored the same number of goals!!! (We are one of 5 teams on 9 goals for and there are 9 teams [nearly half of the league] with 10 or fewer in the 'goals for' column)
Excellent, Munky! It's almost therapeutic seeing these lame arguments pulled apart. As for JR's contention, Chippy, go back and have a look at Lambert's year in the PL: http://www.norwichcity-mad.co.uk/results_fixtures/2011_2012/norwich_city/index.shtml You could start with the 0-4 defeat at home to MK Dons in the 1st round of the league cup and 1-2 at home to Leicester in the FA Cup. Then there's 1-5 and 1-6 to Man City, 0-3 to Liverpool and so on. The reason Lambert left, IMO, was the run of 12 games at the end of the season with 2 wins, 2 draws and 8 losses, many of which were depressing to watch. He could see by then that so much more would be needed to achieve long-term survival in the PL. He did, however, manage a draw against Arsenal and a win against Villa at the end, but those don't count as the opposition 'were on the beach'!
If memory serves me correctly - didn't we manage no attempts 'ON TARGET' (and only about 4 attempts total) against a very poor Blackburn side????
Why do people keep having to hark back to PL? He having been mentioned could have been the chief reason that we developed that incredible spirit and determination! I don't wish to hark back, though we can learn from the past it is the now and the future that I'm concerned with hopefully Hughton will take us forwards. Bah!
Excellent opening post and thread. I also think that many are comparing Lambert to Hughton. We became spoilt with two promotions and safety with games to spare in the return to the Premier League. RiverEndRick has also mentioned Lambert's poor season-ending record which is conveniently forgotten by some. Oh, we also beat an 'on the beach' Aston Villa on the last day.
"We're just so negative all the time and Hughton has beaten all the attacking football we had under Lambert out of us" First things first, he has beaten all the attack out of us. I think he's trying to change it back, but the statement above is perfectly acceptable except for one thing, it should read successful attacking football To argue against the point that he has is nonsense, we used to score lots of goals, now we score hardly any. I said it last season that the defensive football would have an effect on this season, and it has. "Didn't you see how rubbish we were against Man United and Man City?" This is a question which you and everyone else agree we were rubbish so I don't see the issue. In addition, you are picking these games out as if they are the only ones, they merely reinforce the previous games. "We will go down this year if we keep playing as badly as we are, no question" Whats the issue with that, regardless of who we played, IF we keep playing badly then we will go down, whether we are playing badly enough at the moment then I'd personally say no we are not. I wouldn't say its as cut and dry as you are trying to make out. "We only won today because of a lucky penalty" Yes, I'd agree with this because prior to the goal we were doing nothing despite this much vaunted CH inspired turnaround in the players. It was the goal that turned the game in our favour. "We should get Malky Mackay or Di Matteo in" I agree this is not the solution "We only stayed up last year because our last two rivals were on the beach and weren't interested" I believe we'd have been safe even if we'd lost those two games, however those teams were nowhere near their best and that is why I feel the 11th position was well above the quality of our play. The high position argument doesn't really wash with me because it did have a large element of fortune with six points. "He never gives our players any credit and is only interested in praising our rivals" Have you been in the dressing room then Munky? I seem to hear far more negative comments out of him about the players than positive in terms of talking about the things we didn't do or shouldn't as opposed to what we can. He also continues to big up the opposition. "We need someone big up front to hassle the defenders" Yes, I agree that this is unnecessary, not because we have Elmander, more to do with playing better football. "He should never have let Grant Holt leave" I personally think he could of been more constructive with him so he didn't want to leave. "We never played like this under Paul Lambert" Depends what aspect your talking about, Lambert was far more long ball through the centre than Hughton has ever been, but I certainly think Lambert believed far more in working better chances through movement and interaction between players when building an attack. Hughton has proved to be inept at building fluency and joining the areas of the pitch up, Hughton also has better players to work with. I'm not interested in the last two as they don't concern us. So whilst some of the statements are a bit ridiculous they mostly stem from rather a rather powerful argument of truth.
"Hughton has proved to be inept at building fluency and joining the areas of the pitch up, Hughton also has better players to work with." For me, this issue of fluency is one of the key problems. I remember the Southampton game last year which we almost fluked with a crazy last minute penalty. It was like watching slalom skiing, with the Southampton players as the skiers and our players as the static flags they were trying to manouevre around. No other game quite outlined our rigidity for me as much as that one, because the game was opened up and we still couldn't show any creativity at all. I think CH is really trying to make our play more creative and fluid this season, but the outcome has been patchy. I'm not sure if this is mainly due to the difficulty of the transition or if it's because CH can't really quite let go so we often end up with the worst of both worlds (porous at the back, static in the middle, and toothless at the front). Things have improved, but again I'm not sure how much of this is simply the better quality of Fer and Olsson. I guess the next few matches will make things clearer.
I don't understand why people have so much difficulty in accepting that long term success in the EPL has to be based on sound defensive play providing a basis for effective attacking play. That's clearly the aim, and equally clearly we are progressing towards it, allbeit not as quickly as some would like. However, if we all can agree about the soundness of the objective, and that we are progressing towards it, surely we can unite behind the manager and team while sharing insights on here into where things are or aren't yet working as they should. CH may not be the greatest manager in the world, but all-in-all he is making a decent enough fist of a difficult task. We can have good debates on here instead of spats simply by all agreeing that the objective is sound and then discussing the football instead of the manager.
I hope to see some more games like we had against Cardiff, but this time actually trying to get the ball to the striker(s) (heaven forbid!!!) than taking long-range attempts at goal.
In football the margins between success and failure, winning and losing, scoring and not scoring, conceding and not conceding are fine. Every game is hugely influenced by fortune in one form or another, and the playing field is not level for managers even in the same league. Only a small element of a team's performance in a game can be unequivocally attributed to the manager (percentage-wise, somewhere in single figures according to the research). Yet people behave as if the manager is a deus ex machina/puppet-master controlling everything and responsible for everything good or bad. Yes, managers make a difference. Wouldn't we all like to have Wenger, or Mourinho, or Ancellotti or Guardiola managing NCFC (plus the budget needed to entice them here and pay them). But that's not an option. This fixation on managers seems to be a peculiarly British thing (partly down to the managers themselves who perpetuate the "I want to manage everything here, not just the football team" approach and throw tantrums the minute there is any mention of a Director of Football). To repeat, yes Chris Hughton is not the greatest manager in the world (nor is Malky Mackay, or Steve Bruce, or Steve Clark, or Alan Pardew, or Gus Poyet, or even, dare I say it, Paul Lambert, etc. etc.), and when the board feel he has taken us as far as he can, he will be thanked and replaced. Until then he is our manager, of our team, in the employment of our club; not every short-coming is attributable to him in person, and it is actually possible to debate the football without constantly reverting to attacking or defending him. Or should be.
Like Barcelona against Chelsea in the CL semi-final second-leg you mean? At least against Cardiff we didn't lose the game like Barca did! [Only teasing. Yes there's a lot of room for improvement in our attacking play, but also some positive signs (particularly in central midfield). It's coming -- slowly!]
It always amuses me how many people remember that game as Barca losing... It was 2-2 on the night, although yes they lost on aggregate...
Good old Carrabuh, turning up with his glass half empty and only deciding to pick out the bits he wants to argue with, ignoring some of my key points, taking things out of context, exaggerating and contradicting himself Busy day today so no time to reply fully, I'll get round to that later on though - needless to say however I'm not in agreement with the General about this one and really fail to see how he can come to the conclusion that it is a "very good" response to my original post Then again the General does seem to change his opinion/outloook like the wind so I probably shouldn't be that confused.
ah hit the wrong button... Was going to say also... probably the manner of the draw (and how they pounded Cheslea for most the match, 2-0 up and Cheslea down to 10 men... goal in the final minute etc) made people think that they lost the game...
I thought it was a good post, too, and definitely deserving of more than your patronising attitude. And yes, I'm sure you think I change my opinion like the wind as well. It's called having an open mind. You should try it some time.
Hang on, I changed my mind from thinking CH was the right man when he was appointed to not being so over the course of last season. When it came to the summer I wanted rid. when he was kept I agreed that whilst I didn't think he was right for us and the job, that as he was being backed that he should have a chance to prove his worth. I just still feel he hasn't and now am still as sure as I was in the summer that he will not take us forward. As someone pointed out, could it be that the only improvements we have seen (If you've seen any) this season is because we have some slightly better players. Are we any closer to becoming a sustainable premier league force, yes but financially not in terms of real team progress or improvement. (Again my opinion) And besides which I had carefully selected my words as a slight barb to the preceding, toe the party line "very good post Robbie". To be honest though such was the length of your original post, with the time I generally get to reply, it would take me or anyone else about a fortnight to argue there way through the original post fully. Bah!
