A must read as always and some great analysis of Garrido, Johnson, Fer and RvW in particular http://www.holtamania.com/2013/09/01/story-of-a-match-norwich-1-0-southampton/
Wow! He looks at everything and everyone! Excellent summary and bang on the money for me! His analysis of RvW is brilliant!
I actually read it yesterday and did agree with nearly everything on there. I actually disagree with him about Elmander, I thought he played a lot better than Holtamania seemed to think and did show why he warranted a starting place. I also liked Elmander's cool head, which he seems to have, really helped out and several times he encouraged the team to calm down. As well as that I thought one of the things we done really well was pressing Southampton high up the pitch, which Holtamania mentioned, but Elmander seemed to really help RVW out on that and told him where to go quite a few times. His close control was also brilliant in the game and I think his intelligence was evident throughout. I honestly was really impressed with him.
I'm with you on that one YellowLittle. I also disagreed with him about Tettey and Johnson against Hull - I thought Tettey was pretty dreadful whereas Johnson was ok. The substitution of Johnson reflected him being the less attack-minded of the two, rather than the poorer performer and so was the correct decision in the context of being one man up. Johnson was a little off the pace v Everton, but was by no means poor. Ergo, I think his position in the starting line-up on Saturday was justified before his good performance.
This is exactly the kind of detailed analysis needed for informed debate about CH's quality as a manager and his brand of football. Don't have to agree with everything but if you do disagree with any of it it forces you to get your grounds for disagreeing clear. Should be compulsory reading for all posters!
I think this graphic is telling: please log in to view this image Just shows how important playing out from the back is this season, the back 4 only made 2 successful long passes by my reckoning.
One thing I have noticed (and it featured in one of the pre-match stats, can't remember where) is that we are absolutely abysmal at fifty-fifty headers, especially attacking and have been for more than a year. We rarely have more than 40% success overall and barely 1/10 up front. We are not good at the long ball! This is part of the reason why when we play long ball, we are struggling, because it is virtually guaranteed to come back at us.
i agree about the appraisal of elmander - i too think he had a good game and contributed well. it was his analysis of garrido, johnson, fer and rvw that really interested me
I saw that on Saturday and I hope that changes quite soon, as it basically gifts the ball back to our opponents.
I agree with what you guys are saying about Elmander because he actually seemed to have a clue what he was doing, there are times when the player in the hole behind the striker has the tendency to hesitate, he didn't do that he held up spotted someone and knew that was his pass. Not sure on his rating for Garrido, he didn't have the best 1st half but it was a massive improvement on some of his previous games 2nd half I thought he was actually quite good. DH Canary's fair point I think a lot of that was Ruddy's kicking I can't remember it ending up with a Norwich players most of the time, Lovren and Fonte did deal with aerial side of our game well, I think that was only part of the battle those two comfortably won in the game throughout the game though.
