Wot with both our defenses will your scoreboard be able to take it, mind you it will most likely be a boring 0-0
A similar thought crossed my mind earlier today - with two incredibly poor defensive displays it has 4-4 or more written all over it, so 0-0 it will be
Depends which of the 27 players Hughes signs this week starts the game......and his preferred formation of 0-9-1......
Sadly I can plus we could defend a whole lot better and still ship five or six against either Manchester club if they have an on day. Last season we let in an awful lot of avoidable goals and I don't see us being stronger at the back this season. I have said on previous posts going back to last season that I just don't see Russell Martin as a Premiership right back (although I do think he would do an excellent job at centre half). I think our loss of Naughton is going to be a huge problem unless we can replace him with soemone up to scratch. I think your repeated point of us needing a solid DM may have gained a bit more credence though! Still hopefully things can only get better as CH finds his feet and the team start to gel and get match fit (although you would have hoped that this would have happened in pre-season).
Obviously Supers. Bosingwa has won the CL with the Scum and will probably start on Saturday playing as yet another attacking midfielder
i think we may concede five goals again (its always a possibility in this league) but i don't think we'll defend as a unit as bad as that again. that was worse than anything i've seen by a norwich defence since the colchester 7-1 game. it was a collective disaster. in the past its been more down to either individual mistakes or the opposition just being too good for us - that's different.
Fair point but are you confident that the personnel we have available to us can form a cohesive defensive unit? I know that Turner/Bennett were not good but I rate them and think that they will come good if their partnership is allowed to develop. My worry is in the full-back areas. If Tierney is not match fit or capable of reaching his pre-injury heights then we have an untried Spaniard (or Lappin) coming in as left back and either Martin or the unproven and currently injured Whittaker ar right back. This does not inspire me with confidence - in this league there are any number of top wide men out there and if we have a weakness on the flanks we will end up with Pilks/Snodgrass doubling up which negates their strengths. I'd like to see Elliot Bennett given a shot at right-back as if nothing else he has the pace to keep up with the opposition which Martin doesn't and what I know of Whittaker (having seen him play in the SPL a few times) suggests that he does not exactly have rockets in his boota.
i think they are good enough players to form a unit but not one of them played well on saturday. the full backs were the main culprits - they were caught out of position with an alarming regularity. it was too easy to play over the top of us and just as easy to go through our midfield. our wingers played as secondary full backs - we certainly had enough bodies back! i agree with your concept of trying bennett at right back. i think he is 'switched on', an intelligent player. he is good defensively and can bomb forward too. garrido will almost certainly take tierney's place, so if that were to happen, we automatically have a) more pace and b) fresh personnel. what we can't do is sit so deep again. the midfield was so far back it was ridiculous. we never had an outlet. poor old holty didn't know what to do. he had absolutely nothing to go on and when he did get the ball he had nobody within 50 yards of him. we made problems for ourselves.
well i have me ticket so im looking forward to a 10 goals bonaza, sod the defence 1 keeper 6 midfielders 4 forwards thats the way to win games.
I would like to see us line up across the back 4: E.Bennett (RB) R.Bennett (CB) Turner (CB) Garrido (LB) With a possibility of playing R.Martin as a CB, should substitution/injury require. Gives us a more security, as Tierney is a million miles away from his form last season, and R.Martin is better as a CB. Honestly, I reckon E.Bennett would be a real revelation at RB, and I know a few of you agree. Commentator`s worse nightmare thought, 2 players with same name playing next to each other.
too many left backs goldeneye but i agree with you in principal. i think it would give us a bit more variety but we haven't really seen bennett tested as a right back before - he has only filled in there (very weel to be fair to the lad) *edit - bugger, you changed it before i posted
I don't know a huge amount about Garrido but assuming he is superior to Tierney then that would be my back four as well. I would cedrtainly utilise Martin at CH rather than RB.
Caught me in the act, damn. One advantage of EB at RB is that it allows us to play 2 up front, and when we break from defense, it will appear like 3-5-2.
