I live 15mins from Blackburn now and the rain has been heavy but I’d have thought the drainage could deal with it. Apparently the Ipswich manager wanted the game suspsended due to the pitch - couldn’t have been anything to do with his team being 1-0 down and a player down with 10mins left to play. How do they work this out? A replay surely isn’t a justifiable outcome for Blackburn
Wouldn't say it was massively anti Manning but a lot of frustration and anger at what we were having to watch on the pitch. So laboured and we couldn't deal with Wrexham's press. Why is it we don't press teams ourselves? On the few occasions we did, we managed to force errors. We looked half a yard slower all over the pitch. Little passion and commitment. On a personal level, what riles me most, is most of these players earn more in a week than I do in a year. I expect more effort. I've always been very positive and patient over many years through the ups and downs but today I have to confess my patience has been severely tried.
Manning firing shots at the players, quite justifiably, but maybe that could further backfire. Could he lose the dressing room......if he hasn't already! Bah!
"By this stage of the Championship tour under new management it is not unreasonable to expect ............... a discernible pattern of play, a structure, and a cohesive template to progress the ball from back to front" (Paddy Davitt, from his post-match "Pointers" column in the Pink'Un today). Er, Paddy, we have a coach who doesn't believe in patterns, structures or templates; what he believes in apparently is "offering solutions".
Reading this, I feel I realise why Manning got the job. He's full of the same empty, meaningless management babble that Knapper and Zoe Webber come out with. It's an alternative to thought.
What a load of arse! I honestly believe we have the most promising squad as whole in years, but clearly there's no plan on how to play them
I'm really depressed by that result, but it wasn't all bad. We were well on top in the first half but suddenly imploded to concede 3 goals in a 12 minute passage of play and lost our way after that until Makama's goal. Mattsson had an impressive debut and Jurásek had a good assist but others had a shocking second half. We missed McLean's leadership and hopefully he'll be back to replace Topić against Stoke.
A question we must ask is why the second halves of our games this season have been so much poorer than the first. Is it fitness? The fact that other teams suss us out and start to get bolder and put more pressure on and the weaknesses start to show? Poor game management by the players? Poor in-game analysis by Manning and pre-planned substitutions at 60 minutes rather than responding to what is happening on the pitch? A mental weakness that means we collapse as soon as we concede (e.g. yesterday, but a problem that has plagued us almost since we last came down to the Championship)?
Good questions. I don't think it's fitness now except a few like Jurásek, who hasn't got much game time. I agree with the 60 minute subs. Topić had a poor game and Gibbs did well replacing him and the same for Crnac replaced by Schwartau. Jurásek was fitness based and Makama was a good replacement. As for the breakdown, I think the first goal raised their confidence and lowered ours and the second increased that. The players went flat and many lost their way. The substitutions were Manning's response and brought an improvement, at least at those positions. Schwartau is a battler, which Crnac is not and Makama scored and almost got another, as did Marcondes. My answer would be to drop both Topić and Crnac next game and replace them with McLean or Wright and Schwartau or Marcondes.
I think there are several things that have been wrong with Norwich for a while: 1: For years the fitness has been poor especially at the start of seasons, we are always playing catch up 2: Massive changes each season mean the first few games the players are trying to work out how they play with each other 3: No spine, no character shouting orders to drag the team up when it gets behind and I think 3 is related to 2 4: Why oh why each season do we have such a large injury list especially month 2 or 3 into the season. I think it is related to 1, we start unfit, get injuries either through play or trying to get fitness up - a further issue I raided in this thread was the absolute passiveness of Manning when Norwich had scored their second and the players had come over for a drink. He didn't even seem to talk to them, he should be shouting encouragement, geeing them up for a final tilt. Imagine the atmosphere for a last minute 2 goal comeback. Though it would not be the hoped for win, it would have been better than what we got. - There were lots of attempts at link-up play, but most of these seemed to be with players who appeared never to have seen each other before and therefore were on different wavelengths - I am happy to give him a bit more time, but the game was awful to watch and I think that there are more underlying problems at NCFC than 'the manager'.
I think McLean was a big miss yesterday. As Captain he's the natural leader at the centre of the action. That's much harder for Sargent to do from up front.
"This is the sort of pressing ‘tension’ City failed to generate, which, combined with their reluctance to play higher-risk progressive passes, gave their in-possession phases a predictable and somewhat monotonous feel" (Ben Lee). "Predictable"? "Monotonous"? Now where have I recently heard that accusation levelled at someone's tactics before?
