BUILD UP AND MATCH DAY THREAD: Wigan Athletic v Norwich City

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KIO said:
Saturday's game was pretty dire but we won the match, job done, end of. There's no-one more critical than me on here but for pity's sake give the man a break, who knows Saturday may well turn out to be the turning point in our season <ok>

OTBC INWT (For now :emoticon-0112-wonde)
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Spot on <applause>

Adams has made a lot of mistakes. He's clearly inexperienced. The team are a long way from the finished article.

But we've just won a game supposedly playing poorly against a side that, for all their woes, are tough to beat at home. And don't forget they beat Derby at Pride Park not so long ago - it's not that they lack the firepower. Our team may be some way off looking like promotion candidates, but the end of the season is some way off too. We have our most creative players returning from injury over the next few weeks. We have just managed a clean sheet too.

Don't forget that for all the "it was a dreadful match" - how many matches have you seen that are good in those conditions? Football + cold + wind never equals a spectacular. Grinding out results in those sorts of conditions actually suggest the team's ethic is being restored. I don't think we should worry to much about the football on show there. If the football is still rubbish in front of a home crowd on a still, clear, 10 degree spring day then I will be concerned (of course I expect it a bit more often than that, but what's a little hyperbole between friends?) And praise for the team's work rate - it sounds like certainly Hooper (who really looks like coming into form) and Jerome were tireless - maybe we have the makings of a serious partnership? The team sounded bothered. That is far more interesting than a poor footballing display in the circumstances. Besides, look where Ipswich are with a combination of hoofball and effort ;)

I know the default position for Norwich fans is unabated pessimism, but surely you lot can see a modicum of light in the form of 3 points?? Turning point or otherwise, I woke up Sunday morning feeling a hell of a lot better than I did last weekend. Yes, it's a shame that Derby won so we're no closer to the top of the league and we only jumped a couple of places, but realistically you need three wins or so in a row to really make headway up the table.
 
Well said Rob. What impressed me about this dour match was the work-rate, commitment and concentration from all the players throughout the match. I have been critical of the apparent attitude in players at times that we are PL players and don't have to work as hard. There was none of that at Wigan and it made the difference in the end. As Rob says these were not the conditions for pretty football on a pitch that was cutting up badly after a lot of rain. Graft goes a long way in the Championship and if you can impose quality and skill on top of that then all the better, but get the graft right first.
 
Yep great result really puts us back in the title race, NOT.

We beat the second worse team in the league by 1 goal. We didn't play well. We played our best RB as a CB, even though playing him there is partly the reason we're in the position we're in. And to top it all we left our best player so far this season and a CB on the bench. If I was Turner I'd start looking for a new club. About the only thing we got right at the weekend other than the result was to start with Hooper & O'neil
 
carrowcanario said:
Yep great result really puts us back in the title race, NOT.

We beat the second worse team in the league by 1 goal. We didn't play well. We played our best RB as a CB, even though playing him there is partly the reason we're in the position we're in. And to top it all we left our best player so far this season and a CB on the bench. If I was Turner I'd start looking for a new club. About the only thing we got right at the weekend other than the result was to start with Hooper & O'neil
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Yet they kept a clean sheet. Does that not support NA decision?
 
Unfortunately three points is as much as you can get from a single match, but it did move us up three places and to within 2 points of the play-off places. That second worst team was in the PL two years ago, now managed by the man many wanted to take over at City. IMO, Martin had a good game at CB. Redmond had illness problems so didn't start and Turner was on the bench because his poor marking allowed two goals against Reading. I do agree about Hooper, but I thought O'Neil was the weakest of our CMs on the day (though I like him as a player).

Funny how different people can see the same thing differently.
 
sn 23 inc said:
This always suprises me Turner is the best cb at CR and in this crappy league but we don't do clean sheets.
We drop him and we win 1-0 drop him again until we concede.
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I don't necessarily think we should drop him but you can't criticise Adams for doing so if we then keep a clean sheet. If we should stick with a winning team is another matter. I think you should pick a team to win that game, even if you won the one before. Too often teams are not flexible enough with their personnel and stick with the same team time after time. Saying that sides like Chelsea don't change too much and they are pretty good. Just my opinion.
 
We could have played Grabban and Redmond at CB and won it was all down to KIO and his match thread as me and someone else said earlier.
(No it wasn't supers).
 
Only recall one mistake from Whittaker all game which was a relief considering his very inclusion worried a lot of us. Let's not confuse a bad game with a bad performance because I thought we defended better then we have in recent weeks and Ruddy had a good game.

Our attacking play left a lot to be desired but we are talking about a tough away game, I'm sure we will see better at next week.

Onwards and upwards OTBC
 
tipsycanary said:
I don't necessarily think we should drop him but you can't criticise Adams for doing so if we then keep a clean sheet. If we should stick with a winning team is another matter. I think you should pick a team to win that game, even if you won the one before. Too often teams are not flexible enough with their personnel and stick with the same team time after time. Saying that sides like Chelsea don't change too much and they are pretty good. Just my opinion.
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I guess if defenders are only judged on whether or not they keep a clean sheet then no. Who's to say we wouldn't have won by more or more comfortably if Turner had played. The thing is Adams seems to only be flexible when it comes to certain players. Turner has been our best player this season. He may have made mistakes against Reading, however playing Martin as a centre back has cost us many more points this season than Turner has. How many times has he been dropped ? I have previously supported Adams on many ocassions when others here haven't, but some of the decisions he has made have cost us dear i.e. regularly playing Hoolahan and then when playing him not playing him in his best position / playing Martin as CB.

Adams seems to have his favorites who he will play irrespective of their performances (Hoolahan, Martin, Olsson), whilst dropping some players for making a few mistakes (Turner, Hooliveld).

Anyone who thinks the win over Wigan has turned things around is deluded. If I was Turner I'd be really pissed. We have the players to win this league, however I'm starting to think the balance in the dressing room isn't right.
 
Russ Martin 2 said:
Only recall one mistake from Whittaker all game which was a relief considering his very inclusion worried a lot of us. Let's not confuse a bad game with a bad performance because I thought we defended better then we have in recent weeks and Ruddy had a good game.

Our attacking play left a lot to be desired but we are talking about a tough away game, I'm sure we will see better at next week.

Onwards and upwards OTBC
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I agree with this with the exception of a couple of games our inability to score this season has cost us dear rather than our defending. Yes we've conceded some poor goals. Yes we've dominated some games and still lost by one goal. In the championship to be a top team challenging for a top 2 finish you need to be scoring 3 or 4 goals per game, that way conceding the odd soft goal doesn't matter. Scoring a goal per game won't see us winning many games in this league.
 
carrowcanario said:
In the championship to be a top team challenging for a top 2 finish you need to be scoring 3 or 4 goals per game, that way conceding the odd soft goal doesn't matter. Scoring a goal per game won't see us winning many games in this league.
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I'm sorry canario but that's ridiculous. 3 or 4 goals per game is 150 - 200 goals per season. Even when Reading got a record 106 points they *only* managed 99 goals - which I think is also a record?

If you manage two goals per game on average I'd say you are basically nailed on for promotion. Derby are top having scored just under two goals a game. If your defence is sound, scoring one goal per game is all you need to get three points. It's our goals conceded against the other teams fighting for top six that's costing us - only Brentford, Blackburn and Forest have conceded more in the top half, whereas we've failed to score in just five matches.
 
Canary Rob said:
I'm sorry canario but that's ridiculous. 3 or 4 goals per game is 150 - 200 goals per season. Even when Reading got a record 106 points they *only* managed 99 goals - which I think is also a record?

If you manage two goals per game on average I'd say you are basically nailed on for promotion. Derby are top having scored just under two goals a game. If your defence is sound, scoring one goal per game is all you need to get three points. It's our goals conceded against the other teams fighting for top six that's costing us - only Brentford, Blackburn and Forest have conceded more in the top half, whereas we've failed to score in just five matches.
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Yep your right not 3 or 4 every game. Some games your lose, or draw and some your only score a couple of goals in. It's a bit of a generlisation, but look at the current top 6 the're all high scoring teams that have won games by scoring 3 or 4 goals and when they have an off day they still score. A lot of games when they've won they've still concided a goal or 2. When we were doing better at the start of the season we were regularly banging the goals in (Watford, Blackburn, Cardiff, Brentford, Blackpool) and still conceeding goals. Our bad run started when we stopped scoring. In the games where we've played well, but still lost its generally been because the other team has scored only 1 goal and we've failed to or only scored 1 (Charlton, Rotherham, Fulham, Leeds, Shefield W). The only real exceptions is the Brighton game where we scored 3 and still only drew and the Middlesborough game when we didn't tun up.

Whilst our defence at times could have been better and it would have been nice to have kept more clean sheets I still think our inability to score is our main problem.
 
Finally home after a long weekend at the game then to see a few friends in the manchester area - terrible game but was impressed with the work ethic of the team. Tettey and Oneill particularly controlled the game well. Surprised we didn't set up with the diamond and let howson in the game more advanced, but he did well on the right. Good to see adams look to grind a result and make intelligent subs at the right time as well. Murphy for Hooper was a superb sub at the time and lafferty did well on for jerome who for me looked a bit below par.

I think Cuellar has to start next week, but still unsure on olsson - should be a class above in the championship but is looking a bit average. Great to see norwich win away for the first time in a while, makes the weekend all the better.
 
At 30 goals in 20 games, we've already scored more than we did in the whole of last season. 1.5 goals per game would mean 69 for the season, but with Hooper back and Hoolahan and Odjidja-Ofoe returning, the numbers could increase further, but I agree that the key is tightening up at the back as well.
 
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