Right where to start, very poor performance and the players should definitely shoulder a large part of the blame, but do they look a little under cooked? Might our "its pre-season it doesn't matter" under par and in my opinion under fit side, have more issues than a few injuries at this point? look I was all for giving CH and his team a chance, but injuries or not, we went there too negative, my biggest bugbear with any manager is the playing of either; players out of form on reputation(no problems here, maybe Garrido) or out of position (now what was that selection today!). Overall, too feckin negative, where are we gonna look for points away from home if not Hull? I did not expect to roll them over but 60 mins 10 men and no ideas, no cohesion, what do we do in training preseason and between games? We surely will get better, and with the full team available perhaps this will be banished as a blip, but it was another negative, poor performance, devoid of invention and attacking quality with now undeniably CH's men. ICHWT maybe ish for now but seriously CH don't let this happen again. Bah! P.s. Ref has to give neither or both pens, and sagbo had to go. And bloody hell we weren't on last!
Just to add to previous post, once again surely Fox could of added some of the lacking qualities today, people point to him not taking his limited chances last season, but I remember long runs of poor performances last season rewarded with continued selection and no change or managerial invention, praying I won't be feeling a sense of dejavu come October! December! Or God help us May! One really bad performance will be forgotten all to soon if the players can play to the potential we all believe they have(particularly Redmond, lively again today) COYY let's start to really show our quality on Tuesday, no weakened team we need match practice and to learn a little cohesion! Bah!
And lastly, and I know I mentioned it in passing re-out of position but if he plays Howson anywhere but attacking midfield again will someone just throttle the poor deluded bugger, because surely then we will all know he hasn't a clue, last season to a man we all knew his best position, and 2 games in and 2 games started out of position! He really could be a star for us, in the right bloomin position! where's carrabuh? Tell em! Bah!
On my own, on my own, on my own! On my own, on my own, on my own! Might I just add, falcon kebabs on beverly rd, are the dog's cahonies! Bah!
Directly after the match last night, I posted that we couldn't blame Hughton for so many players performing so much below their best. With more time to think about it, I'd like to modify that a little. I think we can blame Hughton for possessing a midfield which is composed almost entirely of workhorses. RvW's movement upfront is brilliant, but we have no one who can hold the ball and then thread through that inch-perfect pass in anticipation of those runs. I know that it's easy to build up Fox (or any player) in their absence, but surely our midfield is crying out for someone with his qualities. I don't think it's fair to say that he had several chances last season and failed to take them, because a) you can't just throw a player into a game once in a while and expect him to be at his peak and b) he was played in cup games where he was generally surrounded by a kind of second eleven. But even if Fox isn't good enough, surely we need someone like him. Johnson and Tettey have qualities, but they are both poor distributors of the ball and their passing just isn't up to the standard needed to match the runs of RvW. And I know we mustn't judge on one game, but Fer didn't look the answer to our creativity problem based on this match. This was a carbon copy of so many of our away performances last season (Stoke and Wigan come to mind) when we were playing a poor side, we went with the intention of making sure we didn't lose, we went behind, and then we had no idea how to cope with it. The Everton game showed signs of a more expansive approach and I was quick to say that I was very happy with our performance that day. But judging by last night, it's already looking like it might be another long, hard, unattractive season.
A few things: It was definitely a penalty, Turner was all over him. I genuinely think we tried playing neater football. Even with them having 10 men we were generally trying to keep it on the deck and be patient, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion (granted, maybe the situation towards the end warranted much more direct play). The problem is, I'm not so sure we have the right players to play a possession game AND create a decent amount of chances - being unable to break down a 10-man Hull side perhaps supports this, however I may be jumping to conclusions as it's still very early in the season. The ref wasn't that bad. Yes it was very stop-start and he didn't let the game flow sometimes when he perhaps could of done, but I'm willing to estimate he got about 95% of the decisions correct.
This is something that bugs me. How many games did Foxy start last season? I'd say no more than half a dozen and I reckon half of those were in cup games without many regular first teamers present. How many consecutive games did he start? I'm not sure he started in two successive games all season (though I'm happy to be proven wrong). Then look at the previous season when he really did get his chance and was a regular starter. What happened then? Third place in the Barry Butler voting. I rest my case m'lud. Not saying he is going to be the answer for everything, absolutely not, but at least he knows how to pass the pissing thing, a skill all of our midfielders without exception appeared bereft of yesterday. The game was screaming out for someone to put their foot on the ball and control it as Huddlestone did so brilliantly yesterday, sadly we had nobody to do that all game and that's why we were made to look so absolutely bloody awful all from start to finish even against ten men for an hour!
Excellent post VC. I watched the match and it was so frustrating to see so many players performing well below their best. surely in training, players are told to look for team mates in a better position with a chance to score than to take a shot from outside the 18 yard box?? Redmond and Howson were both guilty yesterday - on one occasion, NR went for goal, when there were 4 white shirts in the area - WHY???????????? Let's hope CH puts out a worthwhile team on Tue and that Seb and Snoddy both start next Sat and PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE start Howson in a more forwar role, or give Fox a chance . Does anyone know when Pilks is due to start training??
i cannot agree with anyone who thinks we were negative. we started very brightly and created chances. it was when we went a goal down and they went a man down that the players failed to turn up. had the players performed better there is no question in my mind we would have won that game, against 10 or 11 men. much of the problem with the passing throughout the team was because their confidence visibly dropped when making a poor pass. players need to pick themselves up quicker and be braver when given the football. as for fox, he has been one of my favourite players of the past 10 years and although i agree it is hard to get any rhythm when in and out of the side he was pretty dire when selected, posh away excepted. his illness may have played a part, i don't know, but there seems to be a misconception about him that he is creative somehow - he isn't - he just keeps the ball well. this is something we are crying out for but we need creativity too. the manager tried to address this in the summer but unfortunately toivonen didn't happen. yesterday was a really bad day at the office but we do have the ammunition at the club already to make one or two differences and fox might just be one of those, though i'm not sure he's at the races these days.
I actually think there is often a misconception that people have a misconception about him being massively creative. He certainly is creative to a point in that a lot of our goals used to start with something he had done at the beginning of a move, but I don't think many people honestly think or suggest that he creates loads of goals with defence splitting passes or the like, which is what I think you're saying. The vast majority of comments calling for Foxy to play centre around his ability to put his foot on the ball in deep positions and make us tick by starting attacking passages of play and creating space with simple passing and movement - something we just do not have within our arsenal without him in the side. As for him perhaps not being at the races these days, none of us really know without seeing him play. I accept that Hootun has seen him in the training ground for over a year so has a better idea of this, but I just can't believe he's not been given more of a chance, particularly when Tettey starts so regularly as I honestly cannot remember the last time he had anything like a good game.
I really don't know how anyone can honestly say we went out yesterday "not to lose" the game. We were on the front foot from the start, and up until the penalty Hull hardly got a look in. We were all over them. Had Fer's header gone in, we'd have won in a canter IMO. Going behind caused several players to lose their heads, not helped by having the usual reliable Snoddy missing. When Snoddy came on at half time, it was quite clear he was holding himself back and off the necessary pace. It is easy to talk about making an incisive pass to RvW, and I agree there were times when Redmond and Howson could have done better, but far better players than ours have difficulty doing that against a massed and well organised defence. Only last weekend, Chelsea for all their WCT proved unable to break Hull down in the second half. I appreciate people being frustrated and disappointed (apart from those who had foolish over-expectations beforehand), but a lot of this reaction is way over the top. [Ooh look, it's back]
@Munky I don't think it is any good harking back two seasons to the Fox who was an established part of Lambert's League 1-to-Premiership team. He has to be catching the current manager's eye in the current set up. Fox featured during the pre-season tour in the States. He played the entire game against Dorados, was a late sub (80mins) against San Jose, and played against Portland. He was an unused sub v Brighton, and played the whole game against Cambridge. OK, that was all pre-season, and he showed some flashes of his old self at times (e.g. his pass for Pilkington's goal against Dorados), but he hasn't exactly forced himself into the starting eleven. That's what he needs to do. Some people were suggesting that he was played pre-season just to get him in the shop window. I'm not so sure. CH will be aware of his performances under Lambert, and knows that last season Fox was laid low by glandular fever; there's no hard evidence as yet that CH has given up on him.
I think I agree with those two bits and that is what is helping to make the defeat, and especially the manner of it, all the harder to swallow. The scene was set, the desire appeared to be in place and Hull looked a little nervous in the early stages. If a goal is enough to get the heads dropping is going to be the 'normal', we could have several more painful days ahead
There is a huge difference between "losing their heads" and "heads dropping". I didn't see heads drop; I saw heads being lost, then frustration and finally desperation. What was needed following the penalty was a bit of calmness. Our lack of leadership on the field was very noticeable and that disappointed me from Russ M (and JR incidentally). If Bassong had been playing I think it might have been different, but he wasn't. [Edit] IMO the only heads to have dropped are on this board, not on the field yesterday!
In my younger days, no night would be complete without stopping in at Falcon's on the way home(it used to really irritate cab drivers). A good balanced summary of the game, far better than that vicious kangaroo bloke.
I'm sorry, Robbie, but I have to disagree. I'm not trying to put Fox forward as some kind of Archangel Gabriel who will rescue Norwich from the jaws of hell, but I am saying that we need a player of his mould in the squad. All the evidence suggests that Hughton does not trust players who are not 6ft 3 inches tall and built like a brick ****house. A midfield of daleks. Being able to pass a ball is optional.. We now have a very very good striker in RvW. But for Hughton I am worried that this just means we can play exactly the same way as last season and bag a few more goals. I'm sick of it. I'd rather get relegated trying to actually win games than play the joyless, gradgrind stuff we came up with last season.
Good evening (?) vietnam. (a) Neither Redmond nor Howson fit your description in midfield. Nor does Olsson. (b) We have not played "exactly the same as last season" in either of the two games so far. We have definitely NOT bought the "tall lanky wingers" carrabuh assured us were on the way.
