Norwich - back from the game

[Ian Royal]

and were unlucky that we werent more clinical when we got on the end of them.

One observation I made on Saturday.. when is the last time a player connected properly with a corner? It seems we're always just under them and so they're skied, the closest we've had for a while I guess was Morro and he hit the bar to set up Gorkss.

Gorkss has connected well several times in different games. Unfortunately the headers haven't troubled the goal.

[Get Carter]

Norwich had played a premier league record of 38 consecutive away games without keeping a clean sheet, so I would have thought a draw was a very poor result.

[Royal Rother]

Do you seriously consider a bunch of games that were played by a wholly different set of players, 7 YEARS AGO, are of some relevance?

I've seen it mentioned before but that 38 away games nonsense really is the crap stat of the week.

[Ian Royal]

Do you seriously consider a bunch of games that were played by a wholly different set of players, 7 YEARS AGO, are of some relevance?

I've seen it mentioned before but that 38 away games nonsense really is the crap stat of the week.

RR. They weren't promoted with us. That's still about 23/24/25 games.

[RoyalBlue]

and were unlucky that we werent more clinical when we got on the end of them.

One observation I made on Saturday.. when is the last time a player connected properly with a corner? It seems we're always just under them and so they're skied, the closest we've had for a while I guess was Morro and he hit the bar to set up Gorkss.

Gorkss has connected well several times in different games. Unfortunately the headers haven't troubled the goal.

All of our centre backs this season have been guilty of some dreadful misses with virtually free headers from our corners. Not really good enough at this level.

Also, now Pearce has been frozen out (another cut off nose to spite face - accomplishing what?), we no longer have a tall man coming in on corners from outside the far post. Not only does this reduce our options but it also means that any corners that are overhit go wasted - poor coaching and management.

[Ian Royal]

Morrison's done alright from corners and is plenty tall enough. He's certainly got nearer the target with his headers than Gorkss.

Our corner routine seems to be a bit lacking at the moment compared to last season, although it may just be a little form problem and being up against better defences.

[CayeneMatt]

Morrison's done alright from corners and is plenty tall enough. He's certainly got nearer the target with his headers than Gorkss.

Our corner routine seems to be a bit lacking at the moment compared to last season, although it may just be a little form problem and being up against better defences.

Thats cos Harte and Pearce have been dropped ....

[Ian Royal]

Morrison's done alright from corners and is plenty tall enough. He's certainly got nearer the target with his headers than Gorkss.

Our corner routine seems to be a bit lacking at the moment compared to last season, although it may just be a little form problem and being up against better defences.

Thats cos Harte and Pearce have been dropped ....

Agree on Pearce, he's always been good at corners and fks. But Harte's not a great deal better at corners than Shorey. He certainly put in his fair share of poor balls.

[Royal Rother]

Do you seriously consider a bunch of games that were played by a wholly different set of players, 7 YEARS AGO, are of some relevance?

I've seen it mentioned before but that 38 away games nonsense really is the crap stat of the week.

RR. They weren't promoted with us. That's still about 23/24/25 games.

[Wax Jacket]

not sure what you're LOL at - basically they haven't kept a clean sheet away for YONKS and terrible old RFC let them

[Ian Royal]

Yeah, didn't really understand that either.

[Snowball]

not sure what you're LOL at - basically they haven't kept a clean sheet away for YONKS and terrible old RFC let them

and RFC hadn't had a clean sheet for 12+2 games either

so two sides, desperately trying to get a clean sheet, got a clean sheet.

What is surprising about that?

Norwich had a couple of bad hammerings early on so would surely be trying to develop a tighter set up.

RFC ditto.

[Royal Rother]

Yeah, didn't really understand that either.

Hmm, not sure.... I was vary aware they didn't come up with us and 23+ games is a long long way off 38 games.

Dunno why it just struck me as amusing. Doesn't look funny this morning!

[Esteban]

FWIW, four days after the event, I think McDermott is fully aware that we lack quality and said as much in the interviews I’ve seen; but he’s not going to publically criticise his players and never will. In fact, not many managers do, because it is unprofessional. Save perhaps for Warnock and Di Canio.

Some people on here have suggested that we have a Championship side and squad. Which is true. But so were QPR and Norwich last season and they both stayed up, so it’s not all to do with spending vast sums of money. Speaking of which, had we spent out on Shorey, McLeary, Pogrebnyak and Guthrie, I guess we’d have spent somewhere in the region of £10-£12m in total. Southampton are below us, yet have spent massively, are conceding goals like there’s no tomorrow and have only scored three goals more than us, by comparison.

Brian has only been a league manager for three years (!) and has dragged a team looking likely of relegation to League 1 when he started, to a play-off final and a Championship medal. He loves the club and has earned the right to manage in the PL and in 10 games, he’s lost away to Liverpool, Chelsea and West Brom and at home to Spurs. At the start of the season, with the possible exception of West Brom, who really expected us to get much from those games? He’s not resting on his laurels, he’s changing the team up and trying to find a winning formula and the players are still giving him everything they’ve got. And there have been some bright spots. Chelsea away for a long period, coming from behind against Stoke and Fulham late on shouldn’t be ignored and we’ve led in half our games.

That’s not to gloss over the problems. The reality is, we are in the bottom three and we do obviously lack quality. There are reports of disquiet within the squad and our owner, if you take as read what has been translated (which isn’t always wise), is scouting his own players. In short, there is plenty for Brian to work on if he is to justifiably keep his job past Christmas.

As for the game itself, I don’t think either team can take much out of it, apart from the point. There’ll be plenty of other games like that up and down the league this season. They had 10 men behind the ball most of the game and tried to hit us on the counter, where as we were trying to get at them, even if we weren’t very good at it. Frankly, the only thing worth doing is to take the positive of a clean sheet and move on to Everton. Why bother wasting time and energy, dwelling on a poor performance?

[maffff]

Four days later and the more I look at the league table and results / teams played the more confident I'm feeling that we will be there or thereabouts for survival. At least we aren't cut adrift, yet.

[Hoop Blah]

He loves the club and has earned the right to manage in the PL and in 10 games, he’s lost away to Liverpool, Chelsea and West Brom and at home to Spurs. At the start of the season, with the possible exception of West Brom, who really expected us to get much from those games? He’s not resting on his laurels, he’s changing the team up and trying to find a winning formula and the players are still giving him everything they’ve got. And there have been some bright spots. Chelsea away for a long period, coming from behind against Stoke and Fulham late on shouldn’t be ignored and we’ve led in half our games.

Losing those games isn't really the problem, it's the lack of success elsewhere to balance out the expected defeats. Furthermore it's the way we've played and, 20 minutes against Newcastle and the QPR game aside, the lack of quality and threat we've shown against most teams we've played. Somehow our goals scored record isn't too bad though, which is a real positive at the moment.

[melonhead]

Somehow our goals scored record isn't too bad though, which is a real positive at the moment

you make it sound like its totally random, nothing to do with our tactics, players or manager

[mr_number]

Somehow our goals scored record isn't too bad though, which is a real positive at the moment

you make it sound like its totally random, nothing to do with our tactics, players or manager

Only bad things are related to Brian's work, Brendy, thought you would have been aware of that.

[Hoop Blah]

Somehow our goals scored record isn't too bad though, which is a real positive at the moment

you make it sound like its totally random, nothing to do with our tactics, players or manager

No, if you bother to read the rest of my post, I say it's surprising, IMO, because generally we've looked so toothless and lacking in attacking quality.

Usually, those teams that score goals look like quite a threat going forward. I've not really seen that from us so far this season.

[melonhead]

i read it, i saw you were surprised, and simply assumed its surprising to you cos you h8 the team, the players and the manager, and refuse to see anything good in any of it
or something





1 loss since west brom, away to liverpool, scoring enough goals,playing effective fast attacking football when we get the ball
accepting its likely we wont have the ball as much as better teams than us.

throwing away leads. being shaky defensively due to lack of confidence and unsettled back 5, having a midfield that can be over run, and a lack of a plan B, mainly due to a lack of guthrie
these are our problems


but to me, its clear that we arent far off. imo