Before the final four games of the first half of the season I said I thought we would get somewhere between 5 and 7 points from those games which would have given us between 22 and 24 points at the half way point. We've only taken 2 points from the first 3 of those 4 games, so all of a sudden the one that should have been a bonus game against Man United now becomes one in which we need to try and get something. I maintain that while we have Hughton in charge, we will be scrapping around fighting to get clear of the relegation places - the rest of this season will be exactly that.
I would agree with most of those ratings in your op with the exception of Snodgrass who I thought was awful certainly no better than our other greedy winger. We have played a lot better without him of late. The crowd were groaning and wanting change long before Hughton decided to make his first substitution, surprisingly on the hour. The system needed changing not a like for like exchange. Then it took him another ten minutes to pull Snoddy off - much to the delight of most of the crowd. Hoolahan then seemed to play right midfield so no plan B then. Our manager thought we deserved to get something from the game - what game was this smuck watching! - Hughton we were bl00dy awful. This guy makes Worthington look like an attacking manager. Hughton Out.
Hughton got completely out manoeuvred tactically today by meulensteen, second half nothings happening our midfield is completely flat missing howson, nobody looking to bring the ball forward at all, meulensteen goes 4-3-3. We get no where near any of their attacking players with Olsson all over the place, hangs on hoping i presume that leroy finds a magic burst from the middle which didn't materialise. Too much waiting and hoping it seems sometimes, nowhere near pro active enough in trying to make things happen. We were so so bad in that second half and his blind faith in the system that was leaving us exposed whilst creating absolutely nothing was extremely worrying.
I said way before the end of last season that Hughton did not have the skills required to be a manager of a PL team, how much more proof is needed? Unfortunately the time to sack him has long past, should have done it 6 weeks ago. I believe that DM and the board have missed a great opportunity to remove this clueless halfwit we call a manager. Now we will have to lurch from one disaster to another until the end of the season and pray to the football Gods for divine intervention. I believe there is no defending him, the football this season has been embarrassing, God knows how we have amassed any points or scored any goals. We are the worst footballing side in the PL by a country mile. I have been a supporter of Norwich for 40 years and i will continue to support them but it causes me great anguish and despair to watch this travesty each week. I know most footballers have an IQ one less than a plum but you could put anyone of them in charge and they would not do a worse job.
Just pathetic. As always. I can't believe he is still in charge and we still have to sit through this. Just please bin this tactical mess of a man and push to get Malky in before West Brom or West Ham go for him.
I think there is one last 'window of opportunity' to sack him - today, or failing that immediately after the MU game. After that the transfer window opens and you don't want to be looking for a new manager during that. And there's no chance of a last minute di-Canio style sacking in the hope of scraping together two wins at the end of the season with dead-cat bounce because we play teams who are likely to be 4 of the top 5 in our last 4 games, plus Fulham away (happy hunting ground!) So, it may have to be divine intervention after all.
Is this the Malky who just yesterday lost at home 3-0 to a Southampton side who hadn't won in seven games? Or is it the Malky who came to Carrow Road a couple of months ago looking for a 0-0 from the first whistle, putting eleven men behind the ball and instructing his keeper to waste time from the 20th minute? All of this after spending more than we did in the summer transfer window I should add. Sorry, but could someone please explain why he would be any better? You don't get any extra points at the end of the season because he was our club captain a decade ago by the way.
A lot of criticism of our "greedy wingers", but how often do they receive the ball and have no team mate within 20m of them? There is no wonder they have to be greedy, if not stick in a hopeful ball into the box, too often people just look at individual players to criticise and not the team around them. Also we are not exactly in a crisis are we. We are financially stable and 14th in the prem!!!!! This is not like when we were relegated to L1 with huge amounts of debt, so get some perspective guys.
Six points from the relegation it's a little bit too close for comfort, we should be getting points from teams like Fulham when at home. What concerns me the most is our run of games at the end of the season, I don't think those top four places will be solved until right before the end and there could be anything up six clubs contending for those spots and we're going to be playing them. We're are fortunate is the league is quite close at the moment but we need to strive towards putting some space between us and the relegation zone.
We are suffering from injuries ATM. We miss howson and tetty in the middle of the park, putting pressure on fer to come up with all the answers. I don't really understand why he stuck with the Sunderland starting line up. A good point away but hardly a commanding performance. Fulham were there for the taking yesterday and we let them off. Strange results are happening all over the place, dust ourselves down and go again!
I think injuries, lack of confidence and form, combined with a very well drilled, clever Fulham side conspired against us yesterday, hopefully we won't be that bad again for a while! In a 4-4-2 you need your central midfielders to be on it, and Fer was a country mile off his best. Johnson played his role well, but he's a very limited player and that's shown up in a two-man central midfield. We never got control of the centre of the park, and that cost us for me. Last season I was a big critic of Howson, but he was desperately needed, I do hope he isn't out long! The only time we've really played well this season is the 4-3-3 that worked away to Stoke, but we simply don't have the personnel to play that way at the moment. It needs Tettey rather than Johnson as the holding midfielder to free up Fer and Howson, and Pilks on the wing to better support the lone striker. Our squad is down to the bare bones at the moment, if Fer or Johnson needed replacing there was literally nobody on the bench who could play there! It's also shown in the calibre of subs we're able to bring on, RvW excepted. On Hughton, I honestly don't know any longer. On the one hand I can't think of another way we could have set ourselves up yesterday with the personnel available (short of a highly unorthodox 5-3-2/3-5-2 system), so another manager would probably have sent us out with the same line-up (and I don't think you can blame Hughton for Fer's pants display), so what would be the point of changing. But weighed against that, I don't think Hughton can send a team out fired up and looking to take control of a game, and that's a worry. Another concern is that I don't think the fans will accept Hughton playing with less than 2 strikers now. When everyone's fit, I want us to play 4-3-3 as I really think that makes the most of our midfielders, but it's seen as negative and there's a lot of moaning about it. I think because Hughton has to try and keep the fans onside he's having to compromise how he sets us up, and in that position the manager has to go. But then who would we bring in? Reasons to be positive....? -How often this season are the bottom 3 all going to win away? -Malky's gone, so that's more turmoil at Cardiff -I simply cannot imagine Fer playing that badly again this season -Turner has been excellent at the back -Johnson is getting closer to the player he was last season, so when Tettey's back we'll have competition in my ideal 4-3-3 for the DM role. -Pilks and Tettey should be back mid-January -We're still not in the bottom 3? -We can strengthen in January
In that opening 30 minutes when Fulham were dreadful we could easily have had 3 goals. Fulham were woeful and we STILL didn't look like we would really test them. And then they picked their game up, still didn't look that great and Norwich just got worse. I can take a loss against a team fighting at the bottom but the lack of fight and quality football really is starting to grate!
Why oh why is McNally pissing about FFS, if he doesn't act soon he'll lose his credibility with the fans as well. Things are NOT going to change for the better he needs to act now. Get the new man in early January so he can quickly assess what he's got and bring in fresh faces if necessary. I know I keep banging on about sacking our inept fool of a manager, but don't feel sorry for him he probably earns more in a week than most of us do in a year, neither he nor his family will go hungry.
So you're not satisfied with calling for CH's head, now you want DM's as well! You really are something else!
Please, you are not going to say we played with any quality, passion or skill in those three games, we were terrible against other terrible teams. Lets face it, even the goal against Fulham was lucky. I believe it is now too late to get rid of Hughton and there is no one out there to replace him. People are citing injuries, with or without those players we are still going to be s$$t, we are a rudderless ship about to hit the rocks. Lets hope Cromer and Wells lifeboats are on standby and we can salvage some dignity from the debacle Hughton and his backroom staff are trying to pass off as football.
