Sorry Rob, no offence meant, but, he has been awful all season, and seems to think he's got a "free" ride in the team, he needs his arse kicking very hard! Also I can quite quantify how: he didn't play well, but improved things? Once again just my opinion!
Poor bugger didn't have any options as the defence had gone missing, yellow card was fair in my opinion.
Interesting if true - maybe that's why the boys 'self-destructed' on Saturday? To help save the club £1.5m ish? @FourthOfficial_ Steven Naismith fee could rise up to £10million if Norwich stay up #EFC #NCFC {Anybody who thinks for even a nano-second that I'm being remotely serious needs a good spanking}
None taken, honestly! It's a fair question, and it requires a little bit of a step back... When you're looking at a player and how they're playing, there are two contributions - how they touch the ball, move, pass it and their control. All their "on the ball [City]" play. But then there's all their off the ball work - their runs, movement and also how they make the opposition react. What I mean is that I totally agree with you that Redmond's "on the ball" game was not impressive (though actually I thought slightly better than in the last few matches, believe it or not). He made a couple of really poor passes, there was one excellent break where he was put into space and he was shut down quickly by two Bournemouth players and seemed clueless, ended up giving the ball away and wasted a good opportunity. So on that note I completely agree with you. However, the point I was making was that as soon as he came on the pitch, it was quite clear that Bournemouth put two players marking him if they could and their defence sat deeper. Redmond also ran some decent lines which dragged his markers away from the ball. All of this meant that simply Redmond's presence gave us more space and time on the ball and created chances. If you remember Mbokani's attempted lob - Redmond got the ball in the middle of the pitch, mis-controlled it (sigh!), but because the defenders sat so deep, his two markers immediately shut Redmond down in actually quite a safe position and one panicked to get a tackle in early, which resulted in the ball flying back towards the Bournemouth goal and Mbokani muscled in a chance. Now you could fairly say "oh Redmond's touch was poor" and "oh but it was a Bournemouth players mistake" - both of them would be true, but they weren't defending like that until Redmond came on - he makes teams panic and even though he wasn't playing well the space we got as a result helped our other players play better. That was my point - his presence on the pitch helped our other players play better (by giving them space), even though he was actually quite poor (though arguably you could say that is the price because he was heavily marked, much like Hoolahan). Of course it was then deeply unfortunate that despite us improving, Redmond then was partly guilty of giving the ball away that lead to Afobe's goal (though the more I look at that replay what a hell of a cross that was - time and again the Bournemouth players were whipping it in from wide and we desperately need that sort of delivery for Mbokani!) All a bit long winded, but hopefully that makes my point a bit clearer!!
Oh, right! Did you think we were worse as a team after he came on then? From the sounds of things we only started playing after the 60th minute or so. What did you feel it was?
It's that effect on the opposition Rob, that I think AN wants in how he would like to set up the team. I think he is just finding it impossible to keep picking Redmond with his recent form. His/the clubs selling of BJ to be replaced by Brady and/or Jarvis suggested that he wanted pacey wingers to stretch the oposition. But he has now ended up selecting Howson and VOO slightly out of position on the right rather than Remond. Bradders was doing rather better than either of them although against admittedly weaker oposition. I have to be honest I think I would take £15M for Redmond if indeed it was on offer, because I find it hard to believe that we could not replace him with someone who could offer pace like Redmond but with added consistency, delivery and better defense. On the continent there must be someone we could pick up with those attributes. And we still have 2 raw young pacy wingers in the Murphy's who I don't think are so far behind Redmond. Bah!
Thats not uncommon, we've had so many games this season when we've only played well in the last quarter of the game. Howson pushing forward more seemed to help a bit, but if you're saying that Redmond is the answer to our current crisis, then why isn't he starting? This could go on for ever, you won't convince me that he deserves his place on his current form!
Sorry ILD, I think you have misinterpreted what I was saying! I do not think he is the answer, he should start and I am not trying to convince you he deserves his place! I am just trying to explain that I do not think he is quite as useless as half our supporters seem to think and that there is a reason why Neil keeps bringing him on despite his weak "on the ball" form.
I tend to use Footytube, I watched the highlights on Sunday morning and it certainly showed the Rudd tackle. I have just checked , and it is still available. http://www.footytube.com/video/AFC-Bournemouth-vs-Norwich-City-397187?ref=lchan_results
So it is, thanks for that. It's about 2:16 in if you want to avoid the other 'highlights' (strongly recommended! )
Thanks Mike. Yeah ok I see what people mean - he was very lucky not to get a red for being the last man. However, Eddie Howe's whinge that it would have been a red card anywhere else are rubbish - it was not two-footed and it was clearly a legitimate attempt to hit the ball, with Afobe nicking the ball away at the last moment to take the foul (which means that the foul has been anticipated and is much less dangerous than a blindsided foul with feet planted like O'Neil's ludicrous one). And I'm sorry but while Martin might have put his hand out as he fell over for that penalty shout, that is a horrendous dive from the Bournemouth player! He falls over after Martin has touched him but would have been better off going for goal. People cannot claim it's not trained into teams by their coaches because the number of penalties Bournemouth get and claim is ridiculous, whereas there were at least two occasions where Howson (and others, but Howson is the best example in our squad of someone fouled who doesn't go down easily) was fully fouled, but stayed on his feet rather than diving to the floor and trying to get the opposition carded or a freekick. It's frustrating as I guess you could argue it is us being too honest when there is so much at stake. EDIT: and a ref review agrees (and also notes that the actual penalty was soft....) http://www.teamtalk.com/news/ref-review-the-incorrect-decisions-from-week-22
