DF's comment afterwards was not that Hanley and Godfrey had been left exposed, but that we should have defended the 2 on 1 situation much better, in particular Abraham's first touch on receiving the ball. What I think he means is that, in such a situation, one of the two (Hanley, given his lack of pace) should have been all over the striker as he received the ball, with the other (Godfrey, who's quick) guarding against the striker managing to turn his man. In that situation the close marking defender also has the option of committing a tactical foul, knowing that he isn't the last man. Because of his lack of pace, Hanley tends to hang back, allowing attackers too much time and space. That's a weakness opponents can deliberately seek to exploit and no amount of good work in other situations can compensate for it. I think it's fair therefore to criticise Hanley for Chelsea's third goal, but I think Aarons and Godfrey have to shoulder primary responsibility for Chelsea's first and second respectively. Regarding being at the match v watching on TV or online, the truth is that what you "see" in both cases mostly depends on you rather than where you are (in the stand or on your sofa). The main exception being appreciation of team-wide off-the-ball movement, where someone able to take in the entire pitch has the advantage. Even then the above point still holds, because most supporters at a game follow the ball every bit as assiduously as the camera!
I wasn't talking about other teams more expensive players, they all are, but about their earnings. Many earn more than our starting eleven cost to buy, and if Handley is not a starter, a lot more.
I think Godfrey was as much to blame as Hanley. It's hard to tell from the TV pictures but Chelsea appeared to have an overload on the left. Initially it looks like Abraham's is going to go outside Hanley (the left, the side of the overload) and Hanley is set up as though he's expecting this. Hanley is not close enough, when Abraham's receives the ball to make the tackle. Hanley is not marking the defender he is covering the space, Abrahams is moving towards him and Hanley is never close enough to make a tackle a realistic option Godfrey doesn't sense the danger and is moving too slowly. Abraham's takes the ball past Hanley. Abraham's first touch is excellent and into the space between Hanley & Godfrey. Hanley's recovers and his positioning denies Abraham's the opportunity to shoot at that point. Godfrey then over commits allowing Abrahams an opportunity to take the ball further to the right and shoot. Hanley still almost gets across to block the shot. Great centre forward play by Abrahams. It is far from clear that the Hanley is solely responsible for the goal. Godfrey is at least as much to blame.
Very well described Canario, and that is very much the way I see it. Hanley was defending his zone in DF's system and is ready to block a shift to the left. Godfrey's role is to block Abraham's other option to the right, which he fails to do, instead committing to where Abraham is arriving. Hopefully DF will work with both to insure that they defend such situations better in future. Credit to Abraham for taking the best option he had and getting a good shot off.
It's a bit silly allocating "blame". Goals will be scored however defenders defend. It may be more realistic to ascribe the skill to the attacker rather than blame to the defender, as indeed the implication of what has been written about the Abrahams goal. If you turn it around were not Pukki's goals the result of his skill? Could any of his hat trick goals have been defended without expecting superhuman efforts from the Newcastle defence? I notice btw that Lawro is back to his old tricks. He has W Ham down to stop us scoring. He says he had Pukki down to struggle to score ten. In fact what he said was that he wouldn't make double figures so he wasn't going to struggle, he just wasn't going to get ten. A little rewrite going on there?
Excellent posts and I'm sure DF and his coaches will be working with the defenders to counteract the equivalent of the first Abraham goal and our young full backs will improve as the season progresses. IMO, the games after the visit of Citeh are what will define our season and we need to be picking up points from those!!
These four will give a fairer indication of whether we have enough to cope. And to have played Liverpoo, Chelsea and Manchester City before then should stand us in decent stead Seven points from these twelve, please? (A) Burnley 15:00 - Saturday 21st September (A) Crystal Palace 15:00 - Saturday 28th September (H) Aston Villa 15:00 - Saturday 5th October (A) AFC Bournemouth 15:00 - Saturday 19th October
Really? Any coaching team will/should be analysing how they have conceded and work on things to prevent them happening again. This applies to how Hanley and Godfrey worked together, their individual positions and movement. But equally just as Webber identified Pukki for his specific abilities to score goals in a certain way/scenario and improved those chances by coaching the rest of the team to help create those chances. You can guarantee defences will be working on ways to counter it. Chelsea tried by limiting the supply line, but couldn't for the whole match and the defence failed on a more local level. Football is made up of a team and set of individual battles, often for one to succeed the other must fail. The better coaching and identification of the others strengths and weaknesses usually yields personal and team wins in the match. When Liverpoo only conceded 22 in the league last season I dont suppose they were thinking 'Goals will be scored however defenders defend.' Bah!
Exactly Cromer, but I wonder if any of the dates/kick-off times will remain the same by the time Sky announce their October televised fixtures!!! Edit - I'd be quite surprised if our game V Villa isn't changed.
Well self evidently 22 were scored. No you mistake the point I make. Obviously the coaching team will analyse all these things, what I am suggesting is that it's quite wrong to try to legitimately or otherwise denigrate the abilities of any player. This is the precise opposite of what Farke does in his approach to the team. If a player consistently under performs then the management will take appropriate action but the creation of whipping boys isn't good. On the fixtures I would only observe that four of our first seven home games are against top six opposition and it's home games where our points are going to be accumulated. So it would not be surprising if we didn't average more than a point a game from those opening seven.
There was no left side overload; Abrahams is completely without support; the only Chelsea player to the left of him is Mount (?), who is well behind and running directly towards Abrahams, with Aarons covering back ahead of him.
As I said it's hard to be certain from the TV images, however when the ball is played forward in addition to the ball player there are 3 other Chelsea players in our half on the right side of the pitch, Hanley's side. 2 in front of the ball player and one slightly behind. All 3 plus the ball player move froward still on the right (Hanley's) side of the pitch once the ball has been played. We have 2 defenders on that side Hanley and Aarons (I think) who is running back. In my mind this is an overload of 4 v 2, 3 v 2 if you discount the ball player, who is central and could go either way. On the left side (Godfrey's) when the ball is played there is 1 Chelsea player behind the ball player on the half way line. There are 4 Norwich players on the left (Godfrey's) side all in front of the ball player. There is another Norwich player just in front of the ball player, who should be preventing the through ball and forcing the ball to Godfrey's side where our strength is. Other than Hanley and to a lesser extent Godfrey none of our players react to the threat quick enough. The midfield players are jogging back and watching. The goal has come about as a result of excellent Chelsea play (through ball & Abrahams manipulating our defenders and creating a shooting opportunity). The thing with analysing play is that you start away from the ball and move back to it rather than starting with the ball and moving out. Unfortunately the way TV covers games actively encourages fans to do the later. I'm of a similar view to Farked19 re blame individual players, but the point was made that Hanley was solely to blame for the goal, which is far from what happened, in fact he and Godfrey are the only Norwich players that react at all. To a certain extent in a zonal marking system Hanley has done his job in that he has force the attack away from his zone and into Godfrey's. Godfrey over committed which created the shooting opportunity. Hanley still manages to get across and try's to cover for Godfrey's error almost blocking the shot. So if we are apportioning blame then Hanley's is minimal.
For me this is where Hanley failed. He has to force Abraham wide, away from goal and onto his left foot. After he has been allowed to cut across Hanley, I think both he and Godfrey are in panick mode and scrambling, but could perhaps use the fact there are two of them to better shot preventing effect. Bah!
Sorry not how I see it. If you watch the footage from the ball being played forward frame by frame you may see things differently. Hanley's body shape is set up to push Abrahams wide onto his left foot, however Abrahams excellent first touch takes the ball to Hanley's right into the gap between the 2 CB's. Abrahams would have wanted to shoot then, despite Hanley's lack of speed !!! and that he was set up to push Abrahams wide he still manages to recover well and prevent Abrahams from scoring, which pushes Abrahams right to Godfrey who should have done better. Even after Godfrey's mistake of over committing Hanley still almost block Abrahams shot. Hanley certain wasn't in panic, Godfrey possibly, but personally I think Godfrey over commiting is just a consequence of Abrahams excellent play.
Some very interesting posts here. The way I see it is if it were possible to coach defenders to perfection, every game would be a 0-0 draw. It's obvious to me that skill plays a big part in the game, Liverpool have some critically acclaimed International defenders, yet couldn't prevent Teemu from scoring an excellent goal!
Who's creating whipping boys? If any player or unit of the team make an error, it will be analysed. If a certain type of mistake is made more than once and after conversations about how to prevent it, it starts to look like a weakness. I believe that Hanley has allowed himself to be turned/wrongfooted and allow the play inside to a better shooting position 3 times already this season. If it continues then I would expect a fit again CZ to replace him. But it is good to ask, Is this his error alone or a failing of the system? It Could be either but it is not denigrating his abilities it is analysing mistakes. If he continues to make them then he will be dropped. I understand that you might conflate making observations on a forum about errors to some sort of Canary call whipping boy. But I would still start Hanley, he deserves some more time to shake off the rust from such a long haitus from the team, it also must be remembered, the caliber of the oponents will not be so high as those faced so far. But keep making mistakes and he like everyone else in the team will have to have their place scrutinised. I'm not picking on Hanley for the sake of it, I also questioned our young fullbacks, they have been caught out more than once, but as youngsters seem more immune to criticism. After the LC game their competition has not exactly heeped pressure on them. We all see different things, you only have to see our collective disagreements on just that one Abrahams goal to see one persons error, might be decent defending, one persons analysis is anothers whipping. Farke we do not know so much about regarding how he deals with underperforming players, because last season everyone did so well he could keep as was even when us fans percieved better options were available again. Could he be to bloodyminded in the face of errors or underperformance? We cannot know yet. Bah!
But Hanley has allowed that admittedly excellent touch to go the wrong side of him. If you're agreeing that he is as he should shaping to push him wide, then you are agreeing that he failed to do what he needed and intended to do. Maybe he has either stood off to far because of his fear of pace allowing the gap, or simply got his positioning slightly wrong to allow him wrong side. I don't disagree that once inside Godfrey then doesn't cover himself in glory and overcommits but if Hanley forces him outside and onto his Left foot, I fancy he won't score, no guarantees of course, Abrahams might be decent with his left or got in a cross to someone else. But for me Hanley made a fair sized error, it was compounded by Godfrey's but Godfrey isn't involved if Hanley does better in the previous phase. That's the way I see it anyway. Bah!
I don't know, but from what I've seen of Farke he almost never jumps to conclusions nor does he seem to single out individual players, in public at least. The club will have staff that are specialised in analysing games, patterns of play, individual events etc. I suspect Farke rely's less on emotion and more on analytical products before taking action. Analysing football is a skill. This link give's a brief guide on how fan can get better at it. https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/how-watch-football-analyst Point 4 relates to getting the bigger picture and why TV footage often makes fans jump to the wrong conclusions 'Typical television broadcast angles omit large chunks of the game at any one time, which can make it difficult to get an accurate picture of a team's approach and how certain players are positioning themselves in relation to one another'.
