Resigned

Excellent posts by both carabuh yesterday and Supers earlier giving both points of view and both perfectly valid - I gues it all comes down to which 'camp you're in'.

Whlst I haven't always been impressed by CH's team selections etc, IMO he's better than some of the options available. I have NO DOUBT that McNally will make the correct decisions to hopefully keep this fantastic club in the Premier League and as Supers said the fans MUST get behind the team at CR. There was little or no atmosphere there on Sat -even before the saved penalty or Villa's goal.

The match at Vicarage Road tomorrow evening could have massive implications - let's hope we have a strong team and I would certainly drop Snodgrass for a a couple of games at least.

Cromercanary said:

But why would you sign the most expensive - and probably expansive player we've ever had at the club but not alter your playing ethos to accommodate him. We're still set up to pump crosses in to the box (never from the byline as with inverted wingers we never get close enough to it) just as we did when Morison or Holt were playing.

Well, Ricky is not that type striker, so there's no point at all him being selected if we're still playing balls in to a fictitious Holt figure.

Somebody said (Carrabuh, I think) that Lambert moulded his team round Holt, Hoolers and Martin. Well, that's exactly what Hughton should be doing after spending a vast amount, for NCFC, on RvW and Hooper. But it's bloody obvious he hasn't adapted to our new found strengths one iota and is just blundering on with his 'must not concede (even though we always do) mantra, with no suggestion that WE determine the pace of the game, how high we press the opposing back line and squeeze play, etc.

Sometimes it's an asset to be proactive, rather than reactive. That's an asset in short supply within our current management regime.

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the players we have aren't good enough at this level to play balls into rvw's feet and his runs, and we didn't but those players to build around him as you say cromer.
the wide men just pumping balls in high for him rather than wipped in lower at pace, well that's just down to either poor tactics (ch is telling them to do it) or poor choice on the pitch.

You look at what happened with Benitez at Chelsea and you think 'why?' But then some fans just have it in for Hughton here too. Some fans just need to get over Paul Lambert already.

canary_max said:

the players we have aren't good enough at this level to play balls into rvw's feet and his runs, and we didn't but those players to build around him as you say cromer.
the wide men just pumping balls in high for him rather than wipped in lower at pace, well that's just down to either poor tactics (ch is telling them to do it) or poor choice on the pitch.

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Well, they play in the best league in the world and earn around £20k a week so they fecking well should be. Poor decision making and even poorer execution is what's costing us so far this season. It's all very well talking about 'upgrading the midfield areas' next summer, but unless we start shaping up soon, we could well have to cut our cloth a bit differently, as there'll be no guarantees we'll still be in this division if we still fail to score goals.

always think you have a far more realistic but optimistic slant on things Supers which i do relate to more than a lot of the negative slants.
On facebook during the summer i was enjoying the fans comments on NCFC fan page during transfer window, all that has now turned to stupid negativity often back up with a senseless argument (so i unliked the page). At least the anti-hughton fans on here have some reasonable debate even if i do disagree with it.
To cheer myself up i had a look at our first 7 fixtures last season, after 7 games we had 3 points. I know he was given more of a chance last year because he was a new manager, but at least this time around in the first 7 games there are still signs of improvement. But last season it was after a 4-1 defeat to Chelsea that things turned around. I see signs that is going to happen again this season, WE WILL BE OK! We may not go on a 10 match unbeaten run but we will be ok.
It took until October for our 1st win last year, do people forget this? We've already beat Southampton who just beat Liverpool at Anfield. Surely we're not as doomed as our fans claim we are?????

If we sack CH after 7 games or so, we then arguably have to give the next manager another 5-10 games to get settled. He may not hit the ground running, then all of a sudden its halfway through the season. Surely people must see there is more danger sacking the manager and getting a new one during a season???? Wolves, QPR, Reading......... need i go on?
Especially as no one is giving any suitable replacement suggestions. All the managers i have seen suggested are RISKY!!!! if we change the manager it has to be for a safe bet.
Our fans need to realise we are a mid table club, which means we will win 30-38% of our games, draw abt 15-20% and lose the rest.

Personally, i think a win tomorrow and/or Mcnally coming out and backing the manager would settle the nerves. If you dont trust CH trust Mcnally!

But i also agree, we do appear to be at the point of no return. Once the crowd turn its just inevitable. I just hope DM has more nerve than that.

Superman wears Grant Holt pyjamas in bed said:

how much of it is down to the lambert effect? i think initially it was all down to it. surely it can't be now? the treatment of benitez was scandalous and thankfully we haven't seen it get as bad as that. at least there is some substance to the criticism of hughton!

edit. just to add to that, i wonder how much of this is down to the swansea effect?! i think some fans are jealous. they've seen us come up together but seen them progress quicker and with more style.

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Do you think the criticism would be this bad if we'd lost to, say, Southampton instead of Villa? Some people here view it as absolutely essential that we humiliate Paul Lambert (or at least unthinkable we should lose) everytime we play him, and because we didn't it is therefore Hughton's fault.

Cromercanary said:

Well, they play in the best league in the world and earn around £20k a week so they fecking well should be.

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of course you are correct cromer, for whatever reason we don't seem to do it enough or at all

scottish-canary said:

always think you have a far more realistic but optimistic slant on things Supers which i do relate to more than a lot of the negative slants.
On facebook during the summer i was enjoying the fans comments on NCFC fan page during transfer window, all that has now turned to stupid negativity often back up with a senseless argument (so i unliked the page). At least the anti-hughton fans on here have some reasonable debate even if i do disagree with it.
To cheer myself up i had a look at our first 7 fixtures last season, after 7 games we had 3 points. I know he was given more of a chance last year because he was a new manager, but at least this time around in the first 7 games there are still signs of improvement. But last season it was after a 4-1 defeat to Chelsea that things turned around. I see signs that is going to happen again this season, WE WILL BE OK! We may not go on a 10 match unbeaten run but we will be ok.
It took until October for our 1st win last year, do people forget this? We've already beat Southampton who just beat Liverpool at Anfield. Surely we're not as doomed as our fans claim we are?????

If we sack CH after 7 games or so, we then arguably have to give the next manager another 5-10 games to get settled. He may not hit the ground running, then all of a sudden its halfway through the season. Surely people must see there is more danger sacking the manager and getting a new one during a season???? Wolves, QPR, Reading......... need i go on?
Especially as no one is giving any suitable replacement suggestions. All the managers i have seen suggested are RISKY!!!! if we change the manager it has to be for a safe bet.
Our fans need to realise we are a mid table club, which means we will win 30-38% of our games, draw abt 15-20% and lose the rest.

Personally, i think a win tomorrow and/or Mcnally coming out and backing the manager would settle the nerves. If you dont trust CH trust Mcnally!

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The dreaded 'vote of confidence', that's the last thing Hughton needs !

kickitoff-throwitin said:

The dreaded 'vote of confidence', that's the last thing Hughton needs !

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Then again, if McNally did do that it would mean he agrees something is wrong. But if anyone can see the bigger picture it would DM.

Just think it may settle some of the fans nerves, people have a lot of faith in DM. If DM didnt think CH was up to it, we'd know by now.

I think what CH really needs is for certain players to turn up on the day, why is it we can play brilliantly against Saints then be totally pants for the next two games, what's going on?!

The thing of it is for all the positives you believe there to be and I can see some, but can CH actually get this side scoring goals? Against a lower league side in the cup, yes. But last season was charactorised by defending with practically the whole team, set piece goals and sweet fanny addams from open play. Has this changed? In all of preseason and the season so far, has he developed a way of getting the ball to RvW in dangerous positions. As most have said, the lad has the movement and the talent to bag goals, why after the expenditure over the summer have we not seemingly developed any way of utilising him? You could build a team to feed him or Hooper for that matter. They are not getting anything but scraps. Same as Holt last year.


Bah!

Maybe I should go and join carrabuh's thread, I am just finding it rather difficult to believe in CH. In DMWT.

Cromercanary said:

But why would you sign the most expensive - and probably expansive player we've ever had at the club but not alter your playing ethos to accommodate him. We're still set up to pump crosses in to the box (never from the byline as with inverted wingers we never get close enough to it) just as we did when Morison or Holt were playing. ......

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The answer is that we are NOT actually set up to pump crosses into the box. The whole point about inverted wingers is that they are not there to perform the traditional wide player's role of taking on the full back, getting to the by-line and crossing. They are NOT there to hug the touchline and cross TO the strikers in the middle; they are there to move into the middle and play WITH the central forward players. By moving in and drawing the defenders with them, space is created for the full back to run past and onto a through ball, or receive a pass out wide and cross from the by-line. This is not rocket science to understand, or strange or novel; inverted wingers are pretty much the norm in top leagues. Yet on here we have people constantly calling for Snodgrass to be played on the left and Redmond or Pilkington on the right. The irony of this is that on Saturday we actually saw this beginning to take shape, albeit imperfectly. Russ Martin's terrific run onto a straight ball played inside the full back, which he collected on the by-line and fired in a great cross (which in three games out of four would probably have produced a goal and very nearly did but for two strokes of luck on Villa's part), was exactly the type of play intended. The further irony is that we are being set up in fact to play more as carrabuh wants, as opposed to what he fears. Even he has has noticed a change, but puts it down solely to better players. That is nonsense. It is the product of a slow but definitely intended change of approach plus the arrival of players better equipped to realise it. If you look at the pattern of Norwich passing in the second half, the entire pitch forward of our penalty spot is a criss-crossing mass of blue lines; it shows just how false it is to say that Hughton's strategy is to get the ball out wide early, play up the touchlines and throw long crosses in to the traditional two strikers. That is a travesty of what actually went on on the pitch on Saturday afternoon. Villa were extremely lucky to go away with a win; they would have been lucky to go away with a draw. As Dangerous Marsupial posted yesterday, on our play we deserved to win that game. But as anyone who studies the game seriously knows, football teams get their just deserts only 50% of the time. The other 50% of games are decided by the balance of fortune, which yesterday fell on Villa's side. Most independant observers reporting on the game said as much; and Paul Lambert definitely knew it.