HOW LONG DO WE GIVE HIM ?

Bristol City undefeated Duncan Donuts

 

Yeah that will be a really interesting point to assess.

They’ve had a flying start and will be expecting play-off places as a bare minimum, but will be wondering whether so far their position is down to the opposition they have played. They will no doubt be looking at their matches against Bournemouth and us and thinking they are the true litmus test for their season and whether they can be in the auto positions.

For us it will be an important game. We have for the past few seasons played better against the better teams - probably because they’re more likely to attack us. It’s breaking down thick defences we’ve not liked.

I have to confess I don’t really know how they play, but it will almost certainly define the first quarter of the season for us.

 

What exactly haven't you "seen" that leads you to think we won't make at least the play-offs? If you wind back two seasons, after 5 games you would be saying the self same thing, or even predicting a relegation battle. I don't understand the negativity that seems to have taken over. Don't look at the results and position in the table; look at performance indicators like xG and xGa, chances created v conceded, and so on. Examples of things DF has got right in the last two matches: bringing back Stiepermann, dropping McLean in favour of Rupp (though I wish Rupp was Leitner), trusting Skipp, and requiring more defensive discipline from the FBs. Fluency is returning; IMO things are looking up.

 

Lets look at the results so far this season, excluding EFL Cup:

Huddersfield away won 1-0 after a fortunate piece of luck - looked like it was going to be 0-0
PNE home daw 2-2. They have lost 3 of their matches out of 5 and are presently in 18th position with 4 points
Bournemouth away lost 1-0. Not an unexpected result as this side will probably figure in top 6 most of this season
Derby County home lost 1-0. Much has been expressed about Pukki and his missed penalty even if this had gone in a 1-1 draw was about as good as it was going to get. Derby have lost their 4 other matches and are presently in 21st position just above the bottom 3
Rotherham away won 2-1 in one of the most bizarre games for many seasons and whatever your feelings about NCFC this has got to be luckiest result so far in any league. Rotherham were in League 1 last season. Hugill started which was the first meaningful decision Farke has made. Pukki is not performing like he has done In the past for many games and should have been replaced sooner.

For me there has not been a convincing performance/result so far this season and that is why I don’t expect to be in at least the play-offs. We will differ on this and we each have our own view of the team and the season so far. Hopefully I will be proved wrong

 

From what I have heard in post-match interviews, that was by some distance, the best Rotherham have played this season.

 

Don’t get me wrong cs, I agree with you.

The only thing is, we have pretty much been two moments of composure in each match from a comprehensive win.

If we had the Pukki of our promotion season’s shooting boots, we would probably be joint top of the league right now. His movement and workrate is unchanged, but he just looks tense in front of goal.

Similarly, Stiepermann on Saturday showed glimpses of why he was the unsung hero of our promotion season too. He’s a little rusty, but time and again he turned and found space, putting in proper through balls. If he’d just had a little composure not to over hit the ball, Idah would have been through on goal and I don’t think he would have missed the second time.

Hugill is also starting to look really dangerous. And I thought Buendia was beginning to show a bit of his old guile.

So yes, our defence is shaky. But then it’s been shaky for three seasons. What’s been missing is just that ruthlessness in the final third.

It’s fine margins. If a couple of our forward players can find some form, we could be on for a great season. If they can’t, and confidence plunges, then to be honest I don’t see how Farke can get passed Christmas.

 

How about we look at the results through another lens.

Huddersfield - Managed to win a difficult away fixture against a mid championship team and bring to an end the club's worst losing run in they 118 year history. Unfortunate not to get 2 clear penalties, with the ref admitting after the game that he got both decisions wrong.

PNE - Drew against an experienced championship manager / team who were challenging for a play off space last season. Had to change our game plan very early on in the game when one of our most promising pre-season players, Dowell, went off injured. Persevered in a hard fought game and failed to convert several good chances before coming from behind to draw the game. Our key striker, Pukki, scored his first goal in 16 appearances.

Bournemouth - Put in a decent performance and were unfortunately to lose 1 - 0 away to one of only 2 teams in the league to finish above us last season. Bournemouth changed their normal game and set up very defensively to counter the threat we posed. We were very unfortunate not to get more from our 64% possession / at least one of the two decent penalty shouts.

Derby - Lost to a team that set up not to lose and a quality free kick from a top class player. Unfortunate not to score a penalty when Pukki slipped or to convert 2 excellent chances.

Rotherham - Conceded to av early defensive error (it happens) and worked hard to come from behind (something we haven't done since 2018) to beat a well organised, hard working & highly motivated newly promoted team at a difficult away ground.

Whilst we are some way off how we finished our promotion to the PL of 2 years ago, there are some good signs that we are putting behind us our extremely disappointing post lockdown performance.

Positives so far from our first 5 games (yes 5) after an extremely disappointing PL post lockdown performance include

Coming from behind to draw and win a game.

Winning a game in the final minutes, something we became well known for in our promotion season.

Pukki scoring after a barron run.

Defensively looking stronger than we have for a while with Hanley now back fit and despite an mistake having an excellent game alongside Gibson.

Krul looking like the best GK in the league and back to saving penalties.

New players appear to be settling well (i.e. Hugill, Quintella & Gibson) and loving life at the club, just listen to Hugill's interview.

Team spirit appears to be excellent despite a couple of young players being unsettled by transfer speculation. Absolutely no evidence that despite some very difficult times and decisions that DF has lost the dressing room.

Dominating possession in most games and creating some very good chances (albeit conversion rates need improving).

Regularly forcing the opposition to make risky defensive decisions in their box, resulting many good penalty shouts (averaging at least one a game) and being awarded more than average number of penalties in 5 games.

And all this on the back of a very significant incoming of players over the summer.

 

So what exactly are your measures of performance? That expression "performance/result" rather suggests you don't have any measure other than the match result itself; nor do references to luck, bizarreness (what exactly was "bizarre" about Saturday's game?), opponents' league positions or their results against other teams, tell us anything about their or our performances when we play them. The result of any particular match can be a fair reflection of the relative performances of the two teams, or an unfair reflection, e.g. team A deserved to win given the quality of their performance, but didn't, while team B didn't deserve to win but nevertheless did (Norwich 0:1 Derby was a case in point). Over a season results, and hence league position, can be expected to reflect performances overall; in the case of a single match they often bear little relation.
Far from warranting your pessimism, our performances so far should have you feeling optimistic: of the five matches played, two (Huddersfield and Rotherham) were games in which we got what we deserved; in 2 others (Bournemouth and Derby) we deserved more than we got, and in 1 (Preston) we deserved to lose but escaped with a draw. Based on our performances we should have 10 points and be occupying a playoff place.

 

Looks like DF uses carrowcanario's lens rather than Slicker's:

"We had four points from the first two games. If you hold that average over 46 games you are in the top two. Then no points from two games when we were the better side. Then a first half here [Rotherham] where we miss so many chances again...........”

 

Mike Taylor Eastern Daily Press says it all. Available on Newsnow (NCFC) website.

 

Unconvincing performances, struggling to break down stuff defences, silly defensive errors. Dominating possession and chances, but largely ineffectual.

Same old Norwich?

And yet we are in 5th, a point off the autos.

Can’t wait to see how good we are when it clicks!

 

For me, it's our lack of clinical finishing that has held us back, though we've managed 3 wins by putting away 5 chances while conceding twice. True, we should have put away more, but hopefully that will come. Brentford and Bristol City will be a test, for sure.

 

In the 2018/19 season we didn't get into a play off place until after 10 games. So at this point DF is doing better than he did when he got us promoted

 

I think that’s right. The next two games are going to be really interesting measures.

It’s nice to see that Buendia is starting to find form as well - he’s worth a shout out.

 

I'm not sure what "clinical" means exactly, but if it means that our GF is markedly lower than our xG, then I agree with you on both counts -- we've lacked clinical finishing and that's the chief reason we aren't 3 points better off and in second place in the table with a GD of +7.

If "clinical" means outscoring xG, then Reading are currently the most clinical team in the league by some margin. No wonder they sit 5 points clear at the top. (Mind you, Ipswich used regularly to top the league early on for precisely that reason, but then the goals dried up and -- well we know the story. The question is whether Reading can keep it up.)

 

From Experimental 361:

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I.E. We should have scored a lot more, and conceded a couple more.

 

So basically we should have won one more game that we have, we should have won the Derby game.

 

In effect yes, but that doesn't tell the whole story. We were fortunate to draw with AN's Preston but, conversely, deserved something out of the Bournemouth game. Huddersfield, Rotherham, Birmingham and Wycombe, we got what we deserved. This emphasises the point that we've had a pretty undemanding start to the season; the real tests lie ahead, beginning tomorrow.

 

If we are bossing possession and snatching wins with lots of attacking intent we will start thrashing a few sides that want to attack us.

The only faults I have is the lack of goals and couple of **** ups at the back .
I'm liking the new center back partnership and we seem to have enough strength in attacking positions to cope with players being sidelined.
I'm also liking that games are coming thick and fast and glad we don't have cup games to cause a fixture congestion

 

Yeah I agree with everyone here. Very interesting, thanks Robbie.

That says to me we’ve played teams who have generally parked the bus.

Reasonably encouraging, but plenty of room for improvement, as we know.