it's not just coincidence that grabban is getting the most stick. he's getting it because people who are watching his performances aren't impressed. as i said above, the goals, if anything, are making him look better than he is but we can't complain at his record. i seem to recall clint easton and mark rivers scoring for fun early on one season in the past. those goals were invaluable to the team but the balance of that side was all wrong and their goals glossed over the imbalance. it wasn't long before both were out of the starting line up, replaced by better players. we won the title that season by the way. we aren't set up correctly to get the best out of any of those front three at the moment - ok, we were still winning games so as i say, i can understand why adams may have been loathed to change it, but why continue playing in a way that limits all three players? try something else - i think we will at cardiff.
We haven't had a competent striker since Holt left and Rivers and Easton were both sold and replaced by better players ,we don't have better players we have Jerome Loza and Lafferty until Hooper returns we only have one striker capable of actually getting goals . You may not like him or his style Supers but we don't have anyone else who can score . If we sell Hooper then we will finish mid table IMO.
Id like see Ruddy Whitaker Martin Turner Olsson Vadis Howson Tettey Redmond Lafferty Grabban/Murphy Think this would drive us forward a bit more and ideally once Hooper is fit he will take the chances and show the movement we need.
it is imperative that we hold on to hooper. i'm told it is unlikely he will leave now so i'm clinging to that because there are plenty of rumours floating about! for what it's worth, i think hooper is twice the striker grabban is. it'll be interesting to see where VOO fits in and if he can make a difference.
i do think lafferty needs to be the teams focal point. in his first two appearances everything good came through his neat footwork and hold up play, something we've completely forgotten to do the last two weeks. he's completely wasted out wide right. he was getting very frustrated yesterday as well because he wasn't getting the ball to feet.
I agree Supers Hooper is potentially light years ahead of Grabban in terms of touch awareness and shooting accuracy and if we sell him we won't have the guile or firepower needed in this division . I don't rate Grabban as the finished article he is a battler with the knack of scoring goals . RVW is technically twice the player Grabban is but he couldn't score for us .
I really don't get the continual demand for Lafferty as our solitary striker. Yes, the received wisdom is to have a back-to-goal target man to "knock it down, lay it off", but frankly I'd rather we didn't play like that. Also, you need a seriously good finisher as well as a target man - like Benteke. Frankly, Lafferty has been trying too hard these last couple of games and not played as well as his first couple. Or at least not as consistent. That makes it look like there's something wrong with the formation and his positioning, when actually it's just he needs Adams to tell him to calm down or to have a little break. He clearly has a much better touch than most of our target men in the past, and can actually pass, dribble and cross (shockingly well, considering his height). However, he can't finish well. Why would you want him as a solitary striker? Ok, if we play 442 I'd agree with him up front. But I'm not keen on 442 these days. Particularly if the likes of Bournemouth are going to flood the midfield. As a target man for releasing pressure, I also much prefer him being out wide - he tends to be up against the worst defender for headers (the fullback) and also in a position where he lays it off and we retain possession and send it back into midfield, giving us a good chance to set up an attack, whereas with an Emile Heskey style target man it's still a bit of a fifty fifty whether you retain possession. I appreciate that it's unorthodox and people don't like it, not helped by Lafferty having a poor couple of games and putting in some reckless tackles, but from what I've seen it's an interesting, different tactic, which other teams don't have an answer for, allowing us to release pressure on the defence quickly (which we massively missed last year) as well as giving us a better chance to keep the ball and play to our strengths.
probably sounds like grabban is totally being dismissed by everyone. i'm certainly not doing that! i think he'll prove an astute piece of business. he offers pace and clearly has a knack for finding the net. its just that despite his goals those front three aren;t working well together and i can't see them ever working together because none of them are playing to their strengths.
rob, peter crouch is probably lafferty's closest comparison i can think of. would you play crouch on the right wing? you don't have to play long to him as a target man - he just needs to be the focal point of the attack. indeed lafferty was berating martin for playing it to his head on two occasions yesterday. he wants it to feet. play it to his feet and watch him bring others into the game. its actually how holt played during his most productive period at the club. play to players strengths. just to add, i think its fine if all three forwards interchange their roles during matches. lafferty should be allowed to drift out wide, likewise redmond should be allowed to drift inside. none of that is happening at the moment.
Grabban is not a born finisher. But he has a wonderful ability to find space, which means he creates lots of chances. He's like the opposite of Jordan Rhodes. I like him.
Yes, when he had a bit more pace, having seen how effective the tall man out wide technique is. Not now. Now I'd only play Crouch in a 442. Though Crouch's finishing is much better than Lafferty's, which helps.
Interestingly, Lafferty's record indicates he's predominantly played on the left wing when out wide. And I agree with people's demands for Redmond on the right where he seems more natural. Perhaps the best answer would be to switch wings?
it might be as simple as that change rob. what i do know is that neither redmond nor lafferty look comfortable playing where they have been and grabban isn't able to bring either player into the game.
Fair point. Crouch has never been a winger - Lafferty at least is a part-time one. And I really do think that Lafferty was good out wide in those first couple of games, so it's not necessarily a problem. Sometimes I think people are looking too hard for "fixes" for the manager as if he's the sole controlling mind of the team and how they play and if he'd done something differently they would have been brilliant, when actually, a player just had a bad game or two. I could be wrong, Lafferty may continue to play poorly out wide. But frankly I really like the idea of a wide target man. It's different. And it doesn't look like hoofball.
lafferty looked so frustrated yesterday and likewise versus ipswich. it seems bloody obvious to me that he is uncomfortable where he is playing. he is not receiving the kind of service he wants and he's barely been involved in the last couple of games other than two frustrated looking tackles which both earned him yellows. in the first two home games there were two occasions where he found himself centrally positioned and on both those he provided the full back with a great pass. grabban hasn't done that once in five games. that's not his fault, its not his game - and that's precisely my point. we'll work more effectively with lafferty in a different role, be it centre forward or wide left where as you say, he has played lots of football for rangers and palermo. this would also free up redmond to play in his strongest and most effective position, wide right. either way, the front three need tweaking.
Possibly, I'm not so sure. I agree with all the concerns about Grabban. I didn't watch yesterday's match so can't speak for Lafferty's performance, but I thought Lafferty was heavily involved against Ipswich in the first half - a key outlet when were under pressure in the first half, quite a few runs inside looking good, I like his great touch. Unfortunately, that performance was marred by some over-excitable tackling, a few mishit passes and some woeful finishing. As i said, sometimes the hardest thing to say is "there's no problem with the set-up, he just played badly". Difficult to say. Bournemouth are clearly a good team.
I might be going crazy, as no-one else has questioned this, but who the hell is 'Ryben'? Secondly, and more importantly, I cannot for the life of me understand the constant berating of Grabban. He was **** yesterday, apart from the goal, but no player in the Championship is going to put away every chance given to him. Despite some on here thinking RVW is a demigod, he still missed at least half a dozen very good chances last season but got barely any criticism. You'd think Norwich fans would be ecstatic to have a player who actually sticks a ball in the net. Besides that, we scored 28 (TWENTY-EIGHT) goals last season. That is pathetic. I don't know how good a manager most of you think Adams is but we should take any goal we can get at the moment. It takes more than one summer for anyone to transform a team from the most impotent top flight side in years to a free-flowing attacking unit. We're not going to score a lot of goals to begin with, it will take time. We won't be the league's top scorers this year, in all likelihood. So thank goodness Grabban is here to fill the gap until we properly get going.
