Adams on Tactics

Interesting to read this in the Pink'un today:

“You just have to have a look at things. What you don’t want to do is become fixed. Last season perhaps we weren’t flexible enough and then you become too easy to read and to deal with and teams know how you play,” said Adams. “If it is working well then of course you stay with it, but I also believe you need to have a plan B from game to game and during games as well. That served us well in the last five games of last season, albeit we didn’t win one of them, but certainly the Liverpool game we had to change it and the players were comfortable and we saw what happened in terms of the performance. We played the diamond at Fulham and it worked really good. It is important to get players who are comfortable with the way you want to play and if we come up against opposition who we feel are weak in the full-back areas then we can perhaps flatten out in midfield. Similarly if they are weak centrally we can look to overload in those areas and the diamond is an option.”

He also said that he'd have liked a higher tempo in the game, but that the sticky pitch made that more difficult. Sounds good to me.

http://www.pinkun.com/norwich-city/neil_adams_diamonds_are_not_forever_for_norwich_city_1_3682872

 

Sounds obvious that he is all too aware of the rigidity and reluctance / inability to make changes of the former manager and is seeking to address this. He'll be all too aware of the booing Hughton received when making a like for like substitution in the 88th minute when we were already 2/3/4 goals down

However, acknowledging these limitations is pretty straightforward - anyone who uses this forum could have told you we had no plan b at any single stage last season - implementing this 'fighting talk' is what he'll ultimately be judged on.

I sincerely hope he can get them playing with more fluidity, press teams harder and be proactive re: subs than his predecessor. On the face of it, improving the performances from last year ought to be a walk in the park - we can (surely) only get considerably better than the dirge served up last season?

 

Everything he has said and done so far suggests pacey attacking football. Bringing in Grabban and Lafferty as well as going after Callum Wilson indicates his priorities, as did playing the diamond in the first half at Dereham and a 4-4-2 in the second half. Early days, but the signs are good, IMO.