robbie - everyone knows my stance on the JR scene, terrific keeper and improving all the time! I rate him second, behind Hart, and Hart is NOT a World class keeper!
I think that shot was unstoppable. Not saying we should go out and sign Pique, I would just like to see a bit more quality if we didn't suffer bad injuries in this area we wouldn't be speaking about this but we've not been lucky in that department and I would like to see better coverage. Never whinge or moan about players during a match only state my opinion them after, no-one can argue about that. Perhaps we want to speak to the people who audibly sigh whenever Hoolahan gets the ball at Carrow Road that's what I call off putting. Yet no-one has the bollocks to challenge people near them who do it. My cousin has a season ticket in the Jarrold and told the couple who sit behind him to shut the **** up a couple of weeks ago and had a big argument with them, only because the whole season his had to put up with them moaning and having a go at our players, those are the type of fans you want to have a go at.
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I wasn't insinuating that you maoned about the players Northants. Sorry if it came across that way. Totally agree with the unnecessary moaning by some fans at the ground though and thats also what I was getting at - we need to stay behind the team and help them because as soon as enough of those idiots get vocal enough it puts extra pressure on the backs of the players and thats the last thing we need! I was also trying to point out that sometimes the defense get unfairly lambasted for ultimately an error that has occured somewhere else on the field of play. Some of the opposition players are so clinical at spotting a defense cutting pass that they do not need any extra help from midfielders giving the ball away in positions when our back line is not set because they are quite rightly trying to provide options for a pass back. Before you know it the ball is in the back of the net. You see that first Tevez goal was preventable - Johnson should not have lost possession which led to Silva slipping in Tevez who did hit an unstoppable shot but he wouldn't have hit it had Johnson not allowed himself to get caught in possession! That doesn't mean that Johnson has turned into the world's worst midfielder - its something he will learn from hopefully. To my mind taking him off was a very brave move as it left our backline very exposed with nobody marshalling in front of them giving them extra protection. It was 4 on 4 for most of the last 25 minutes and I'm sorry to say that their four forwards were far superior to our four defenders!!!
No worries mate I'm on defenisive today so to speak. I agree there is horrible atmosphere at Carrow Road sometimes I remember when Chris Martin closely missed the goal whilst having a one to one with the Tranmere keeper and you could literally feel about 50% of the stadium sigh every time he touched the ball, he comes across as quite a strong willed character but it was evident by his body language that was getting to him. I wish a lot of the fans would get behind the team more I'd like them to sing or just cheer. During the Bolton game my other cousin came up from London and was sat in the Riverend and had a massive argument with someone sat in front of him about Surman a lot of people around him got involved it got very heated I think someone got the Stewards to move my cousin elsewhere. I'm proud of them both as they challenge people who annoy me. I didn't think Johnson was that bad when he went off and they brought on Yaya Toure they bossed the midfield it looked like we were trying to play the diamond poor Howson was chasing about three players it was impossible for us. The ball is often lost in midfield it's part of the creativity, defensively I agree that there is some goals which you cannot prevent e.g. balls deflecting into peoples paths etc. What gets me is things like positioning and people falling asleep I accept it happens but it could happen a lot less. On a couple of occasions they drew our defenders in brought in runners from midfield we lost shape we were playing a class team no doubt about that but you could see what they were doing.
I think this is a bit of an overreaction, Northampton. We almost matched them until they got the third goal, and the game looked just as likely (more likely?) to go to 2-2 than 1-3. Admittedly, once we let in the third, we did collapse - badly - and they took full advantage. But that can happen in this kind of freak game - look at the United-City game. My only hope is that this doesn't hit Bennett's confidence. He has looked terrific until this game. Arm around the shoulder please, Lambert.
Refereeing decisions have cost a few clean sheets. For instance Stoke home and away, Wigan away and Spurs away. And it has always been our style to score more than the opposition. If we are winning games I care not a dot!
In my view the bottom line is this, we are trying to compete with world teams and obviously this is a mountain to climb and yet our expectations have risen beyond te reasonable. If you look on paper who we have played this year, and what we have achieved we have done exceptionally well and yet some of us are still not satisfied. We were always one day going to get thumped by somebody, it could have been Spurs last week but we actaully went to WHL and won which was the result of the year for us IMO. We have to accept certain things loving the club as we do, let us not forget, that we are not going down and there are at least 6 teams at the bottom who would willingly swap places with us, that is the reality and we should be celebrating.
Thank you for the most sensible comment to date. We have got to have a bit of realism here and accept that we are really punching above our weight. No defence would have coped with Man City on Saturday and certainly the front two who were the most impressive strike force I have ever seen in my 60 years at Carrow Road. We didn't make silly errors - we were forced into making mistakes by their constant pressing. Their entire team was packed with quality - we are a team of well organised triers who couldn't cope with them on the day. When they needed to tighten up in midfield they brought on Toure - £200000 a week and how much in transfer fee? How can we expect to compete with that? Somebody was going to give us a hiding sometime this year and it happened on Saturday. Put it down to experience and move on. Man City were on a mission following the defeat of Man Utd and then took advantage of the chance to improve their goal difference. We were safe and, quite bluntly, for the first this season gave up when it got to 3-1 and this was part of the reason it ended up 6-1. Had we given up against Spurs or Arsenal earlier in the season at Carrow Road the score could well have been similar but at that stage of the season we were fighting for our own survival and trying to protect our goal difference. We might get the odd excellent result in this league as we did at Spurs but with our resources we are NEVER going to be able to compete on a regular basis with the top Clubs. My two long lasting memories of last Saturday will be the wonderful performance I saw from Man City and my pride in the fact that we managed to live with them for 71 mins.
i have absolutely no problem at all with our defence. we haven't been able to play our first choice four AT ALL this season, if our first choice is, as i predicted, tierney, bennett, ayala, naughton. now i realise naughton isn't ours but that is easily our best defence. not once has it lined up together. too much has been made of our defence. it is not poor - our style of play makes it harder for them because we are so attack-minded, we are bound to leave ourselves open at the back. i fully believe in ryan bennett we have a future star centre half so i struggle to see who we could bring in outside those four, on budget, who would make any difference...
Supers - assuming we can't get Naughton for next season, we have R. Bennett, but who would be rb out of that quartet?
i don't believe we need to sign any defender other than a right back - hopefully naughton, if not, who knows. there aren't a huge amount of right backs to choose from! russell martin has done much better in his usual position since christmas after a shaky start so i'm not against him staying there. i literally cannot think of any centre backs i'd rather have at the moment who wouldn't cost £8m+. and thats the problem isn't it - plus, the two young kids ayala and bennett both have enormous potential - go with them, assuming they remain injury free and keep ward and whitbread as back up. i would believe, if tierney is fit and we could get naughton, that is a top half premier league defence.
