Match Day Thread Lilywhites V Canaries

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General Melchett said:
Very frustraiting, I am happy with a point as I would have been before the game. Any away point is decent as long as our home form continues. Once again we have given up a 2 goal lead but at least we not only didn't lose this one, but it sounds like we came back at them and looked like we were the more likely to pinch the game after it went 2-2. It's a tough call for the manager really. Since Martin came back into the side, we have won most games and accumulated plenty of points, our performances have generally improved too. But did we look more solid with Ryben? Would we be harder to score against if he returned? Because as Neil highlights we are scoring plenty, even in the Newcastle defeat and this draw, we have scored enough to win 90% of the time. So for me time to shake up the defense. It is surely they that continue to undermine our promotion push.
Bah!
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IMO, if the first 'double deflection' goal hadn't gone in, we'd quite likely have won the game. It gave them a huge boost and they went on to score another. The second goal was too soft, but I'm not sure RyBen would have made a difference really. For me, Martin has more mobility and offers more going forward but can get caught out at times because of that. With Lambert we said that as long as we were scoring enough goals defensive foibles mattered less and for me that is still generally true as it produces more entertaining football.

As for Brady, I think we are using a different style this season which suits the league but not perhaps Brady. I think there's a good chance we'll use both Pritchard and Wes on Saturday with Brady on the bench. Pritchard's weakness though is he offers little defensively. That is less of a problem if he's playing in the 'hole' rather than out wide but in away games that weakness would be magnified. Naismith would be the better option then, IMO.
 
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General Melchett said:
Maybe I'm mad for even suggesting it :emoticon-0145-shake, but if either Bass or Klose can play right CB we could give it a go. Both Martin and Bennet look significantly better alongside Klose and Bassong has in the past been better than either Martin or Ryben. So why not? Maybe his habitual FUps may be diminished with Klose? Unlikely I know, but it seems Ryben is less favoured than Martin (I won't pretend to understand why) so if Neil feels the need for a change, might he try it? could that work?
<cracker><cracker>

Bah!
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Klose is a right-sided CB General, but he can also play on the left, so your suggestion isn't that 'crackers' really. Klose is the key as we haven't lost a single game when he has been playing. IMO, we'd have stayed up last season if he and Tettey hadn't been injured.
 
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RiverEndRick said:
Klose is a right-sided CB General, but he can also play on the left, so your suggestion isn't that 'crackers' really. Klose is the key as we haven't lost a single game when he has been playing. IMO, we'd have stayed up last season if he and Tettey hadn't been injured.
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Thats what I thought, but the crackers bit was in theory the inclusion of Bassong.

Bah!
 
"Defensively we need to do better as a team".
Alex Neil stating the bloody obvious!
Last week it was individual errors!
I wonder what the next excuse or reason will be?
 
ilovedelia said:
"Defensively we need to do better as a team".
Alex Neil stating the bloody obvious!
Last week it was individual errors!
I wonder what the next excuse or reason will be?
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Drop RM???? He gave CM al the space in the world to score the equaliser last night!!!!
 
ilovedelia said:
"Defensively we need to do better as a team".
Alex Neil stating the bloody obvious!
Last week it was individual errors!
I wonder what the next excuse or reason will be?
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I don't see it as an excuse but a reason it could be. This issue goes back a long way and has to do with the balance between attack and defence. Like Lambert and Neil Adams, AN believes in attacking football as the priority, but also that attacking players need to track back when the ball is lost. Redmond was a very good attacking player, but never really accepted his secondary role. Jacob already does a better job at that and uses his pace to cause problems for defenders like when he drew the first penalty last night.

For defenders, the same problem exists. They could stay back and defend in depth but that would be at the expense of our attacking strength to overload defences. The key lies in individual decision making to achieve that balance. Klose is probably our best defender in that regard, but even he gets it wrong sometimes. As a CB/RB Martin is encouraged to get forward more to support the attack which, IMO, he does very well, but it makes him more liable to getting caught out as he was for their second goal.

The alternative would be for the defence to sit back, which would invite opposition attacks. When we did that against Newcastle it failed and AN was heavily criticised for that when, IMO, the fault lay with the players who failed to defend the box for the final 2 minutes, RyBen included. I like the emphasis on attack and am willing to accept the occasional blip as long as we keep racking up an average of 2 points per game, which we are doing.
 
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RiverEndRick said:
I don't see it as an excuse but a reason it could be. This issue goes back a long way and has to do with the balance between attack and defence. Like Lambert and Neil Adams, AN believes in attacking football as the priority, but also that attacking players need to track back when the ball is lost. Redmond was a very good attacking player, but never really accepted his secondary role. Jacob already does a better job at that and uses his pace to cause problems for defenders like when he drew the first penalty last night.

For defenders, the same problem exists. They could stay back and defend in depth but that would be at the expense of our attacking strength to overload defences. The key lies in individual decision making to achieve that balance. Klose is probably our best defender in that regard, but even he gets it wrong sometimes. As a CB/RB Martin is encouraged to get forward more to support the attack which, IMO, he does very well, but it makes him more liable to getting caught out as he was for their second goal.

The alternative would be for the defence to sit back, which would invite opposition attacks. When we did that against Newcastle it failed and AN was heavily criticised for that when, IMO, the fault lay with the players who failed to defend the box for the final 2 minutes, RyBen included. I like the emphasis on attack and am willing to accept the occasional blip as long as we keep racking up an average of 2 points per game, which we are doing.
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That's a long reply to say I'm wrong!!
 
mike555 said:
We are doing quite well for a team of "bottlers"". don't you think ?
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If by doing quite well you mean that we get ourselves into a position where we can stamp our authority on the league, only to fall at the final hurdle then, yes, I guess we're doing quite well, not that will get us promoted at the end of the season.
 
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Second having thrown away a chance to go top and stamp our authority on the league. Newcastle top but only 1 point ahead so all is not lost. If only we hadn’t snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against Newcastle and not switched off for 20 minutes against Fulham then we could have been top in a much more convincing position. At the start of the season I would have been more than happy with our current position, however I continue to maintain doubts about AN and the character of the team. Do we have the bottle to win the league, I doubt it.

6/8 Blackburn 1 (21st) Norwich 4

13/8 Norwich 0 Sheffield Wed 0 (7th)

16/8 Norwich 1 Bristol City 0 (6th)

21/8 Ipswich 1 (12th) Norwich 1

27/8 Birmingham 3 (5th) Norwich 0

10/9 Cardiff 2 (23st) Norwich 3

13/9 Norwich 2 Wigan 1 (22nd)

17/9 Nottingham Forrest 1 (16th) Norwich 2

24/9 Norwich 3 Burton Albion 1 (18th)

28/9 Newcastle 4 (1st) Norwich 3

1/10 Wolves 1 (15th) Norwich 2

15/10 Norwich 3 Rotherham 1 (24th)

18/10 Fulham 2 (11th) Norwich 2

The highest placed team we’ve beat is Bristol in 6th.

Of the 13 games we’ve played 6 are in the top half of the league. Of these we’ve won 1, drew 3 and lost 2.

We’ve played 3 teams in, the top 6 (lost 2, won 1), so against what would appear to be our main competitors we are not doing particularly well in potential 6 pointer games

We’ve beat all of the 7 teams we’ve played in the bottom half of the table.

At the moment it looks like we’re going to beat teams in the lower half of the table but struggle against teams in the top 6.

The next 3 Championship game are against Preston (19th), Leeds (13th) & Brighton (3rd), so looking at past performance I would expect 6 or 7 points. December & January fixtures look particularly difficult and for me we never seem to get good results over Christmas.
 
carrowcanario said:
Not all of us do, irrespective of whether we win or not, the inherent problems with AN / the squad remain.
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All I mean is you have to be consistent. If you praise players for doing well, then you must blame players for playing badly! You surely don't believe the manager tells them to defend poorly?
 
canary-dave said:
All I mean is you have to be consistent. If you praise players for doing well, then you must blame players for playing badly! You surely don't believe the manager tells them to defend poorly?
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I agree it's irrational to pretend everything is fantastic just cause we win, equally when we lose it doesn't mean there aren't positives.
 
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