I fully understand everything you're saying and agree with most of it, but my point is surely Fox would have either gone back with the rest of the midfield or been isolated in a higher position. I wanted to see us stretch them a bit, you know Pilks and Bennet wide that would have eased the midfield a bit. I just don't like to see my team playing like that. ILD OTBC
with all due respect, we do not have to play teams of that calibre week in, week out. we play about five teams who can play like that and these are games from which we try to gain bonus points. there has been a total over reaction from some on here. we didn't play very well yet we still got a result against an evidently better side than ourselves!
me neither, but we can't say it didn't work cos it did! we got a draw. football isn't always pretty, sometimes results have to be ground out like the one last night. i think hughton intends to use more width than we did under lambert so that can be viewed that we will be more direct (not long ball) by getting it out wide and stretching teams. hughton certainly seems to want to tighten us up at the back, something many called for all last season, but to do so we will be slightly less offensive - we don't have the players to play the perfect game so you may have to get used to us being a little more pragmatic in our approach if it means surviving in the league again
What I'm saying is that it is ridiculous to attach so much significance to a single pre-season game -- or any single game for that matter. To take up ILD's comment that these same players outplayed Manchester United at Carrow Road. Quite so, so why not take THAT game as a truer indication of what we are about rather than last night's pre-season game against Ajax? People are like leaves blown this way and that by the wind of the latest match.
Yes, sometimes we need to defend more than we attack and I'm sure CH has seen that from watching DVDs of last season's games. I do hope we are going to use width more, as I thought we always looked more likely to score when using wingers - they seemed to have the beating of most of the defences last season (especially Pilks against Chelsea!!). Roll on 18th Aug!!
One point about Tierney - sure, he was ripped apart by the winger to start with but I think he adapted & really improved as the game went on, so a great learning experience for him. We defended better second half as a team so I think the general experience of this friendly was certainly beneficial. Ryan Bennett was the pick for me - great game, I thought. Whatever the make-up of the Ajax team, they were a great test with their passing, possession play and technical skills - I thought we did really well to get the draw.
Robbie, you were making the comparisons!!!!!! I was just pointing out that we DO play the top teams in Europe, it's our right now, and we didn't gain that right by playing Hoofball!!! If that was a one off, fair enough, but I don't like to watch that type of game, I can't see what was learned by Houghton by playing that way. We had the chance at half time to change it, to give them a game, but we didn't, we just waited until they lost the ball on the edge of our penalty area then hoofed it up field. IT WAS A VERY POOR GAME! I could become a Stoke supporter if I wanted to see that sort of thing. ILD OTBC
total over reaction ILD. hughton did change it at half time by bringing hoolahan in to the hole to bridge the gap between midfield and striker, its just it didn't work as we couldn't get the ball to hoolahan! sometimes you just have to credit the opposition and tuesday was one such occasion. they pressed us so deep in our half that the only real option we had was to bypass midfield. quite often its a tactic that will work for us in such circumstances but we didn't do it well enough - you need to be able to adapt to differing styles - thats something we did very well last year. as i've said throughout this thread, a holding player would have helped our shape in that match and given our creative midfield players more space to use but it was hardly a disaster of a match. we didn't attack well but we certainly defended very well and so there can be positives to take, not least the performance of ward and bennett who both did extremely well.
Something to talk about, thank god. I didn't watch the match but will just remind everyone looking into the result too much that we lost to Palace last pre season and ended up having a great season. Also it's a time for experimenting and by the sounds of things it didn't work. Hughton is no mug and will definitely learn from it and know more about our players.
good article here about the match... http://norwichcity.myfootballwriter...ever-learn-to-the-same-remains-a-moot-point/?
If Hughton was experimenting then I'm all for it, he may have set the team up to allow Ajax to play to assess our defensive resolve. I'm all for this, I cannot see the point in friendlies if you just play for a result, the result is irrelevent. You need to learn from friendlies (particularly with a new manager) and gain sharpness. Hughton may have learned that a rigid formation doesn't work for this team, or he may think its a tactic we can resort to with 10 mins to go in an away match to gain a point. The thumping the ball upfield isn't right though, particularly in friendlies as this is the time to dig in and try and play your football, I'd rather we give the ball away trying to do something difficult than smash it upfield and score a lucky goal, you don't get ready for a season by doing the easy things.
I agree with your assessment of Tuesday night's game and from the 30 minutes or so of the 2nd half that I watched, it did seem as though the team was set up more to prevent Ajax from scoring than trying to score oursleves. When you consider a lot of the goals that we scored last season were as a result of passing from defence to attack and I'm hopeful that we'll revert to that for the majority of our games that we play next season. As Rick Waghorn says - the way Stoke play may be effective, but is not good to watch, give me Swansea or Norwich any day.
well that's not true at all. we're a joy to watch most of the time - indeed we out-swansea'd swansea on their own patch. some of the football we played last season was fantastic to watch. you seem to confuse being direct with playing long ball. our first route is to play short but get forward quickly, therefore we are direct. we aren't afraid to go longer if necessary but we are nothing like stoke in our approach. man utd have the ability to play like stoke and sometimes do - would you compare the two of them?
Once again I agree with most of what you saying, but the changes didn't make a difference, if anything it was worse in the second half. When Vaughan went off we had absolutely NO attacking outlet! I still can't see what was learned by playing 8 in defence?? I think they had so much time on the ball simply because our midfield just stood and watched them, no one closed them down no width etc. I agree we defended quite well and that area needed to be addressed, it was a positive, but I will say again I don't like that negative tactic, plus I don't think it's an over reaction on my part, I know what I like and I didn't like that!!!!! I can't go the MK Dons game, I would if I could, so my next game is against the Munchengladbach I just hope I'm not dissappointed again! ILD OTBC
Absolutely Supers and I remember that our 2nd and 3rd goals at the Liberty were as a direct result of slick passing with Bennett filling the 'Hoolahan' roleand providing the pass that led to both goals.
Yes, Man U play direct, they are just a heck of alot better at it. They don't play possesion football because they don't need to use it to defend. Direct to me is looking to score as soon as you gain possession which is how United play. Its why English players can't keep the ball, they don't have the patient mindset (or skills for that matter). I think Swansea were the only possesion based team in the Premiership last year. We don't play possesion based football, we are closer to Man U than Swansea interms of how we play if you prefer that comparison.
