IMO, if the first 'double deflection' goal hadn't gone in, we'd quite likely have won the game. It gave them a huge boost and they went on to score another. The second goal was too soft, but I'm not sure RyBen would have made a difference really. For me, Martin has more mobility and offers more going forward but can get caught out at times because of that. With Lambert we said that as long as we were scoring enough goals defensive foibles mattered less and for me that is still generally true as it produces more entertaining football. As for Brady, I think we are using a different style this season which suits the league but not perhaps Brady. I think there's a good chance we'll use both Pritchard and Wes on Saturday with Brady on the bench. Pritchard's weakness though is he offers little defensively. That is less of a problem if he's playing in the 'hole' rather than out wide but in away games that weakness would be magnified. Naismith would be the better option then, IMO.
Klose is a right-sided CB General, but he can also play on the left, so your suggestion isn't that 'crackers' really. Klose is the key as we haven't lost a single game when he has been playing. IMO, we'd have stayed up last season if he and Tettey hadn't been injured.
Martin is the team captain. AN had the chance to change this in the summer but chose to keep the status quo. The outcome is, when available, Martin will always be selected.
"Defensively we need to do better as a team". Alex Neil stating the bloody obvious! Last week it was individual errors! I wonder what the next excuse or reason will be?
I don't see it as an excuse but a reason it could be. This issue goes back a long way and has to do with the balance between attack and defence. Like Lambert and Neil Adams, AN believes in attacking football as the priority, but also that attacking players need to track back when the ball is lost. Redmond was a very good attacking player, but never really accepted his secondary role. Jacob already does a better job at that and uses his pace to cause problems for defenders like when he drew the first penalty last night. For defenders, the same problem exists. They could stay back and defend in depth but that would be at the expense of our attacking strength to overload defences. The key lies in individual decision making to achieve that balance. Klose is probably our best defender in that regard, but even he gets it wrong sometimes. As a CB/RB Martin is encouraged to get forward more to support the attack which, IMO, he does very well, but it makes him more liable to getting caught out as he was for their second goal. The alternative would be for the defence to sit back, which would invite opposition attacks. When we did that against Newcastle it failed and AN was heavily criticised for that when, IMO, the fault lay with the players who failed to defend the box for the final 2 minutes, RyBen included. I like the emphasis on attack and am willing to accept the occasional blip as long as we keep racking up an average of 2 points per game, which we are doing.
Isn't it strange, when defenders play badly many among us blame the manager but when we win comfortably the same people praise the players? Poor sod doesn't stand a chance with a lot of you!
It's not about wrong or right, ILD, but for me it's also about the analysis of the actual football. The manager and individual players are often easy targets but it's seldom quite that simple, IMO.
If by doing quite well you mean that we get ourselves into a position where we can stamp our authority on the league, only to fall at the final hurdle then, yes, I guess we're doing quite well, not that will get us promoted at the end of the season.
Not all of us do, irrespective of whether we win or not, the inherent problems with AN / the squad remain.
Second having thrown away a chance to go top and stamp our authority on the league. Newcastle top but only 1 point ahead so all is not lost. If only we hadn’t snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against Newcastle and not switched off for 20 minutes against Fulham then we could have been top in a much more convincing position. At the start of the season I would have been more than happy with our current position, however I continue to maintain doubts about AN and the character of the team. Do we have the bottle to win the league, I doubt it. 6/8 Blackburn 1 (21st) Norwich 4 13/8 Norwich 0 Sheffield Wed 0 (7th) 16/8 Norwich 1 Bristol City 0 (6th) 21/8 Ipswich 1 (12th) Norwich 1 27/8 Birmingham 3 (5th) Norwich 0 10/9 Cardiff 2 (23st) Norwich 3 13/9 Norwich 2 Wigan 1 (22nd) 17/9 Nottingham Forrest 1 (16th) Norwich 2 24/9 Norwich 3 Burton Albion 1 (18th) 28/9 Newcastle 4 (1st) Norwich 3 1/10 Wolves 1 (15th) Norwich 2 15/10 Norwich 3 Rotherham 1 (24th) 18/10 Fulham 2 (11th) Norwich 2 The highest placed team we’ve beat is Bristol in 6th. Of the 13 games we’ve played 6 are in the top half of the league. Of these we’ve won 1, drew 3 and lost 2. We’ve played 3 teams in, the top 6 (lost 2, won 1), so against what would appear to be our main competitors we are not doing particularly well in potential 6 pointer games We’ve beat all of the 7 teams we’ve played in the bottom half of the table. At the moment it looks like we’re going to beat teams in the lower half of the table but struggle against teams in the top 6. The next 3 Championship game are against Preston (19th), Leeds (13th) & Brighton (3rd), so looking at past performance I would expect 6 or 7 points. December & January fixtures look particularly difficult and for me we never seem to get good results over Christmas.
All I mean is you have to be consistent. If you praise players for doing well, then you must blame players for playing badly! You surely don't believe the manager tells them to defend poorly?
I agree it's irrational to pretend everything is fantastic just cause we win, equally when we lose it doesn't mean there aren't positives.
