The 2019-2020 season.

[QUOTE="RiverEndRick, post: 13383672, member: 1001529"} ........ The effect of Stiepermann was less telling, IMO ......[/QUOTE]
On the contrary Rick, IMO the effect of Stiepermann was highly telling, because his introduction meant a reversion to the short passing style that was so manifestly lacking in the first half. There's a nice irony therefore in Pukki's goal relying on a long pass assist from Tettey, but you have to ask how come the space opened up to allow Tettey to make that pass through a formerly impenetrable Saints defence, i.e. what were we doing differently that caused gaps to appear in their defence. The answer lies not just in Farke's replacement of Amadou with Tettey, but with his introduction of Stiepermann also. (I thought DF's post-match interview laid it all out very clearly.)

 

I think we may need to agree to disagree on this one, Robbie. The short passing game could have been established with Buendia rather than Stiepermann and our chances of scoring would have been greater with Cantwell in the centre rather than Stiepermann, who yet again blasted a good chance high over the goal. I'm not anti Stiepermann, I just think that Emi is too good a player to be left on the bench. The short passing tactics were achieved by McLean and Tettey replacing Amadou and Trybull in midfield. Spaces always open up late in the match and Tettey's through ball happened at around 65 minutes. We were certainly better in the second half, but not enough to actually earn a point. I think we might have done so with Emi rather than Stiepermann.

 

IMO the Norwich machine runs at its smoothest when Stiepermann plays. He's not alone in taking time to adjust to the higher quality opposition; I'd say every player, with the exception of Krul and Tettey who have been here before, and Cantwell who has improved enormously on last season, is having similar problems. I'm sure you aren't "anti Stiepermann" Rick, but I think calling his chance on Sunday "a good chance", rather than just "a chance", exhibits a degree of discrimination against him! If his chance was "good", what were Byram's three?
I'm hoping DF will persist with Marco now. As well as oiling the gears of our short passing game, he is tall and strong, assets in relatively short supply in our squad.

 

Marco is only 1.5 inches taller than McLean and he does have his attributes, but the key for me is his average WhoScored ratings so far in his 10 starts (6.44). Buendia is 7.1 over 13 starts, McLean is 6.75 over 12 starts and Cantwell is 6.7 over 13 starts. Those to me are significant differences.

Marco and Byram both had good chances, IMO, and both have had similar misses in previous games where a goal could have made a telling difference. Byram is a defender though and I expect more from an AM. The Blades will bring both height and physicality so I expect that both Marco and Kenny will start along with Onel and Todd.

The question about how many of our players have achieved PL standard so far is an interesting one. I would include Pukki, Krul, Tettey and Klose as definites and Fährmann is a probable. Then there are those with potential but lacking experience like Aarons, Lewis, Byram, Godfrey and Cantwell. Those with experience but not yet there would be most of the others, but for me McLean, Buendia, Zimmerman and Hernandez are the closest and we have yet to see what Vrančić can do. Stiepermann may we'll get there eventually, but for me he isn't close yet.

 

But McLean can jump

 

As witnessed by his headed goal against ManCity!

 

Is Daniel Farke turning out to be Alex Neil in disguise? Both professed admirers of Guardiola's possession-greedy football, both committed to a full-on attacking style of play, both believe defending more or less takes care of itself if the back four simply do their job, both bolstered in their beliefs by successful campaigns in the Championship, neither able to come up with an answer when it turns out not to work at the top level.

 

I see very few similarities between Farke & Neil and the club is a million miles away from the mess Neil & others got us into. I don't believe for one moment that Farke has the view of defending that you attribute to him. I would suggest however that Farke probably takes the view that defending doesn't start with the back 4, but with the striker and possible that the best form of defence is attack. Personally I'm getting fed up with the constant moaning and simplistic view of why things are not always working out for us. Keeping clean sheets is not going to keep us up unless we score as well and very few of us want to see the team play the negative Houghton type football that the road you constantly advocate will ultimately lead to. I would also suggest if we do get relegated we will arrive in the championship in a much better position than we did under Neil

Looking at the last 4 games overall we have done ok a win, a draw & 2 close loses. We have scored in all 4 games and with the exception of spells the first half against Southampton & the second half against Sheffield Utd we have played pretty well. Southampton never looked like scoring from open play and if we'd defend set pieces a bit better we could well have come away with 3 points. Chris Wilder in his post match interview was very complementary about us and said coming to Carrow Road was as hard as any away game they'd had this season and harder than most.

So lets be realistic, stick to our style of play and see where it takes us, if it's to the championship so be it. At least if we go down with these players playing a style of football that we know can get us out of the championship we could well be in the PL the season after next, if not next season.

 

Well I'm fed up with the constant repetition of the claim that defending soundly means resorting to Hughtonesque, boring, unambitious football. Fact is, that, as I said on another thread, Newcastle apart, the games where we have come away with points have all been games where DF made no attempt to have us dominate through possession, instead ceding possession to the opposition, sitting back, soaking up the pressure and scoring on the counter. Were any of those games -- Man City, Bournemouth, Arsenal, Everton -- lacking in excitement and entertainment?

Chris Wilder can afford to be complimentary, as could Jurgen Klopp after Liverpool thrashed us, and Pellegrini, and Potter, and whoever. I'm sure our players take enormous satisfaction in hearing that we gave them all a hard game -- along with the 3 points.

As for your final paragraph, unless greater priority is given to defensive solidity, even if we get back up the season after next, we will just encounter the same old problems and suffer the same fate. It's in DF's hands, as it was in Alex Neil's. Treat every game as if it's against Man City.

 

Over the last 6 games we have scored 6 and conceded 6. I see no evidence to support the narrative of your original post.

Just because stats say we didn't dominate possession doesn't mean we didn't try to. The point is we virtually have the same squad as we had in the championship, that squad was built to play a particular way. To try and substantially change the way we play without significantly changing our squad will do nothing to ensure our PL survival, and in my view it will almost certainly guarantee championship football at Carrow Road next year, at which point we will have to change our style again to get back up. Financially we're better off sticking with our style of play and either developing our existing players or buying in players that are better at playing the style we want to play. The club clearly has a long term plan and we should stick with it and not change just because we overachieved last year.

 

But we aren't talking about "substantially changing the way we play". We are simply talking about doing what we have done in four of the five games this season which have produced points. As for reading a change of approach into the the game stats, that isn't necessary when DF says that that's the approach he thinks we need in this particular game, as he did in his pre-match interviews before e.g. the Man City and Arsenal games. And there's a further clue to the intent in who he selects to play in front of the back four. Our current players are perfectly capable of playing good counter-attacking football; all that's needed is for DF to send them out to do it -- every game.

 

And similar thoughts have even flashed through the mind of Dave Freezer

https://www.edp24.co.uk/sport/norwich-city/norwich-v-sheff-utd-freezer-column-1-6412495

To quote: "Is possession the enemy in the battle for Premier League survival? Norwich City certainly seem to be making a strong case for that statement……………. Yet possession seems to be a problem. Last season when City dominated teams it usually led to a win because they had the superior ability. At Southampton it was 60pc of possession. The 2-0 home loss to Watford was the season high so far of 66pc, the 5-1 loss to Villa was 58pc, the 2-0 defeat at Burnley was 59pc.

Then look at two good results last week, winning 2-0 at Everton with 43pc and drawing 2-2 with Arsenal on 40pc, as well as September's 3-2 win over Manchester City with just 31pc, all matches in which the Canaries looked dangerous and clinical on the counter-attack.

So is it time to acknowledge that City are better without the ball at the moment, to change the mindset? Farke wants an underdog spirit, well, you don't see many underdogs dominate possession in the Premier League."

 

I agree (again) that substantial changes aren't necessary, just a tweak in our normal style of play like that used in our most successful games this season. Possession football only works if you keep possession. Too often we lose the ball in our own half and concede goals as a result. This doesn't mean long punts up the pitch, but rather quick passing to cut through a press or intermediate passes over the midfield to our attacking players on the flanks. This allows the CBs and CMs to keep their shape while the FBs move forward. IMO this is more exciting football than passing the ball around in our own half trying to keep possession.

 

My excuse for my otherwise sinful, occasional viewing of the Pinkun forum, is the hope of finding the latest obiter dictum in the series of posts by Parma Ham's gone mouldy entitled "Parma's Tactical Masterclass". I was duly rewarded this morning by the appearance of Masterclass 19, containing observations on the current season, where we are and why, and putting up a defence of SW and DF against the swelling volume of criticism. In case anyone is tempted to think that claiming to post a "Masterclass" reeks of pretension, let me just say that Parma is an ex-professional footballer who has played at the highest level, a qualified coach who has worked abroad under some of the best in the business, and a successful business man with a professional interest in cutting edge sports psychology and mental health generally. His Masterclasses aim primarily to offer a coach's, as opposed to a fan's, eye view of Norwich City on and off the field, and in my experience, are always balanced and illuminating, often illustrating the point I keep re-iterating that what you see from your seat in the stand is a function, not just of your eyesight, but crucially, of the breadth and depth of your knowledge and understanding of the game in all its aspects. If the posts sometimes appear less than transparent from a linguistic point of view, keep in mind that they are the work of a non-native speaker expressing himself on the go via the limiting medium of his iPhone. For anyone interested, here is the link to Masterclass 19:

https://forum.pinkun.com/index.php?/topic/134575-parma’s-tactics-masterclass-19/&page=1

 

I'm also a regular reader of Parma's masterclasses, which are usually more tactical than strategic. This one is more the latter, emphasizing SW's long-term development plan based around possession football.

Most people accept this plan as a long-term aim, but also worry about the way it's not working in the PL, for the reasons Parma points out. Increasingly lately, the players are sticking with that but also using other tactics such as the intermediate pass over midfield to attacking players to negate the opposition high press as we did effectively against Everton and Arsenal.

Against the Blades, however, this degenerated into low percentage, long, often aimless kicks which were easily intercepted and turned into attacks against us. Intermediate passes will also fail at times, but they have a higher success percentage and when they work they allow attacking players to create scoring chances. They also put doubts into opposition minds and often help to make our possession tactics more effective by being less predictable as well as allowing our defence to keep its shape. It seems clear that possession tactics alone are not going to succeed in the PL with these players, but if we can continue to develop the intermediate pass alternative, we might still have a chance to survive.

 

Why would the plan work this season, it wasn't created with the intention of us being in the PL this season. We over achieved last year. Do we change the plan like we did last time we got to the PL before we expected and risk financial ruining or do we just stick with the plan and enjoy the ride this season ?

 

Question: What is there in the plan aimed at ensuring that, having returned to the Championship, we become better suited to survive at the top level next time we get promoted? As was pointed out in the Masterclass, we have committed to a style of football which is successfully implemented only by the very best (and suitably well-funded) teams in the EPL. We have eschewed embracing the more pragmatic, less ambitious, "hold our own in the mini-league within the league" tactics characteristic of the lower 3/5ths of the EPL. Another year or two in the Championship, involving building a new team incorporating replacements for those who leave, isn't going to magically transform us into candidates for a top four finish in the EPL. Unless the plan contains an answer to this conundrum, the only answer is, once promoted, to adapt the football sufficiently to survive.

 

When SW arrived, he said that it would take two years to achieve the restructuring. That proved to be true by the end of last year. Many of us felt that winning the Championship showed that we have a good squad, needing a few additions. I still feel that, but I agree with Parma and Robbie that we are attempting a very advanced style of play and not always succeeding. It's not the players - it's the demanding tactics. Against ManCity DF showed that we could lower the demand levels and gain an unlikely win. We did that against Bournemouth, Everton and Arsenal but then failed in our last two matches. Consistency is the key to survival and we haven't been able to achieve that.

The players are still learning and adapting to the PL and that shows at times. Much will depend on how they achieve that (or not) but their chances would improve if the tactics are not set at a continuously high level. To beat a high press you need to pass through it or over it. The key word is pass, not a long punt and hope. We have the players to do both those, and by doing both we become more effective and less predictable. Fitting the tactics to the players is far more likely to succeed than trying to fit the players to the tactics. Lambert did that when he changed to a diamond formation to suit Hoolahan's skills and we survived. DF needs something similar.

 

Sure, it requires consistency from the players; but it also requires consistency from DF. The message from him seems to be that tactical adaptation of anything other than a very minor sort is only necessary in certain circumstances, e.g. if you are facing Man City, or playing away from home trying to halt a losing run. IMO we need the Man City, Bournemouth, Everton, Arsenal approach every game, not just selectively. The evidence is that we cannot outplay other teams in this league as we did in the Championship without opening the back door too wide -- and as Parma pointed out, we often relied on Pukki in the Championship to take points from teams we didn't really manage to outplay.