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westcoastcanary

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Everything posted by westcoastcanary

  1. westcoastcanary
    Yes definitely; he has done it fitfully on other occasions, but yesterday I thought in a more disciplined way. Can't argue with the results, but as DF likes to remind us, results don't tell the whole story. The McLean/Godfrey pairing produced a shift in balance between defence and attack compared to Leitner/Klose. Look at how xG has risen compared to the reverse fixtures earlier in the season, while at the same time, to begin with, xGa deteriorated. Now it looks as if, with the long run in the side and the coaching going with it, McLean and Godfrey are closing that defensive gap on the other pair. These last two matches are the first time we've recorded successive clean sheets all season.
  2. westcoastcanary
    That's a linguistic quibble; my point still applies. Less than two seasons ago, any suggestion that yo-yo status should be accepted as the peak of our ambition would have been howled down with derision, just as it was over twenty years ago when Robert Chase first enunciated it.
  3. westcoastcanary
    "Break that mindset"? Come off it Broadstairs, the mindset of taking satisfaction from being a successful yo-yo club is so recent as to need nurturing, not "breaking". The entrenched mindset of NCFC supporters is better represented by Kingsway, not Aggy.
  4. westcoastcanary
    Absolutely. My point was that it's easy to say that you are going to be content with being a yo-yo club but the proof will be in the eating. People have commented adversely on some Leeds fans' attitude of entitlement, but there has been plenty of that same attitude in evidence on here and at Carrow Road until really very recently -- well, actually, until this season.
  5. westcoastcanary
    Not for players, coaches or even sporting directors though. Or, to put it another way, ambition is satisfied only by results. Of course, a club's ambition might be limited to maintaining financial security and keeping the supporters happy by playing entertaining football. One implication of being a yo-yo club, which I don't think anyone has yet mentioned, is that your best young players are always going to move on. So, if we look with equanimity at returning swiftly to the Championship, we need to accept that the likes of Lewis, Aarons, Buendia and Godfrey will almost certainly not be turning out in yellow and green the following season. The concept of "continuity through change" to which the club are committed will likely be tested to the full at the first return to the Championship.
  6. westcoastcanary
    To me he clearly wanted to be playing out from the back, not hoofing it forward to Wells or Eze. Also, his fouls were almost always tactical -- he'd watched our "slow, slow, quick, quick, goal" pattern from the bench and, having come on, set out to try to stifle it before the "quick, quick" phase got started. On that basis, I would say he would be a good replacement for Hanley if it could be engineered. Added to which, he was useful against set pieces and obviously experienced in organising those around him.
  7. westcoastcanary
    Yes, it was Ben Godfrey. Double checked courtesy of ESPN+ replay 🙃
  8. westcoastcanary
    The definition of violent conduct I posted above is from the FA website, the section on what offences warrant red cards. Since Emi's offence was a tackle in the course of "challenging for the ball", it cannot constitute violent conduct according to that definition.
  9. westcoastcanary
    "Violent conduct is when a player uses or attempts to use excessive force or brutality against an opponent when not challenging for the ball, or against a team-mate, team official, match official, spectator or any other person, regardless of whether contact is made." So not violent conduct. May still be a three match ban but I don't know what that hinges on. A two yellow red is a one match ban, but otherwise I suspect it is three.
  10. westcoastcanary
    I don't think the linesman in the QPR half knows what offside is. I hope someone tells him at half time.
  11. westcoastcanary
    Last season Farke found a balance that saw us finish mid-table; in the first half of this season he found a balance that saw us shoot up the table from 17th to 1st; since Christmas he has found a balance that has kept us in the top three and currently in pole position. In each case the balance has been different. The question is what balance he needs to find next season to maximise our chance of at least surviving in the EPL. CirclePoint's suggestion, which I agree with, is that the balance we have with Leitner and Klose in the team is nearer to what is needed than the current one.
  12. westcoastcanary
    Nobody has said anything about having to settle for grinding out 1-0 wins. And nobody has said anything about "going all defensive". All CirclePoint was saying was that unless we improve defensively we will be punished in the EPL rather than getting away with it as currently in the Championship. Did we "go all defensive" in the great run we had from the home game against 'Boro up to Christmas? No! Were you grumbling about "grinding out 1-0 wins"? No! Did Klose and Leitner play virtually every game in that run? Yes! Were we defensively sounder than we have been without them in the team? Yes!
  13. westcoastcanary
    Yes and my old man smoked 80 a day from the age of 20 and lived to be 102. Are you going to follow his example king? 😉
  14. westcoastcanary
    Yes, it's a lot of money for a club like Norwich. But then EPL wages add up to a lot of money too, plus any promotion bonuses for the current squad and any holes in our current year finances that need filling before digging new ones.
  15. westcoastcanary
    Yes, but both Webber & Farke also know that trying to secure survival in the EPL has to be done in a way that allows for failure, and allows for it in a way that makes an immediate return to the top tier not just possible but very likely. So these "better" players have to be prepared to drop down into the Championship and buy into the reality that is the NCFC future (as spelled out by DF in that recent interview). While the incoming players will undoubtedly be more expensive, in virtue firstly of our being in the EPL, and secondly their being "better", their profiles will almost certainly be similar to those of the players we already have; and that will likely be reflected in a relatively modest outlay in comparison to the usual run of promoted clubs.
  16. westcoastcanary
    Oops! Thanks FTW. How did I miss it (as bad as a bad Wolfswinckel miss ............) 😳
  17. westcoastcanary
    Can someone (Bethnal?) remind us of the current EPL rule relating to homegrown players? Last time I read about it , the rule was a maximum of 17 non-homegrown players in the 25-strong EPL nominated squad. But a couple of years back, **** (later replaced), as I recall, wanted to change it to a minimum of 12 homegrown players.
  18. westcoastcanary
    This ^ The stats have been saying it more or less throughout the season, and it's why we have always trailed Sheffield Utd and Leeds in the performance tables despite where we sit in the league table. It's the current version of the NCFC story from Lambert to Alex Neil. It works in the Championship; it doesn't work in the EPL.
  19. westcoastcanary
    If we are going to use Huddersfield as an example, we need to look beyond what they did in their first season in the EPL and look hard at what they did this season and what they do in the summer and next season. The upside of their spending over £28m on three players last season was (arguably) that it bought them a second season in the top tier. But it didn't buy them a third season; on the contrary it saw them relegated after a miserably weak showing. And we will have to wait some time before we see how well equipped they are as regards an immediate return to the top tier. Maybe buying those players, with its short term pay off, will turn out to be the familiar story of a club throwing the promotion winning baby out with the bath water in the course of avoiding a charge of negligence for not "spending big on new players".
  20. westcoastcanary
    Wolves last season were defensively the best team in the division by some distance. Despite showing some improvement in this respect over the last month or so, we are nowhere near the same level (even disregarding the first five games). Wolves were so good that John Ruddy topped the Clean Sheets table with 24 clean sheets (52%); we currently have 12 (30%). Wolves came out best on virtually every defensive measure last season (e.g. goals conceded, xGa, shots faced per game). Their currently heading the PL table for clubs other than the big six owes far more to the quality of their defending than the quality of their attacking; the five clubs immediately below them have all scored more goals than Wolves, but have conceded significantly more. Wolves are the only team outside the top six with a positive GD (+1). Whereas last season Wolves averaged 1.8 goals per game, in the EPL that has dropped to 1.2. In sum, as you would expect, Wolves have found it a lot harder to score goals in the EPL, and harder to avoid conceding them. Any suggestion that we might match Wolves's performance if we are promoted is pie in the sky unless we improve significantly defensively. In that respect Sheffield Utd are better equipped than we are. In terms of team selection, we are, as LDC implies, better from a defensive point of view with Klose and Leitner in the side. The question is whether DF will adjust the balance from the start or whether it will take an Alex Neil-like conversion of St James's Park proportions (or Millwall 2017 for that matter) to force his hand.
  21. westcoastcanary
    So who is forcing VAR on this corrupt Premier League? I thought it was the Premier League deciding to introduce it themselves? In which case the Premier League has chosen to "level" its own playing field to its own financial detriment? And as a matter of interest, has any independent research or investigation ever produced actual evidence of officials's being biased towards the "big" clubs? Or are we actually dealing with reverse bias against the "big" clubs built on incidents like this one, which turns out to be nothing to do with a biased official but down to Willian's hair!
  22. westcoastcanary
    I haven't seen a replay of the first Chelsea goal, but going from memory what happened was that an onside Chelsea player ran forward in between the two who were clearly offside and attempted to head the ball. In the event the ball went just over the onside player's head to the offside Azpilicueta, who put it in. I suspect the linesman thought the onside player was the scorer, and hence didn't raise his flag. The still image showing the two Chelsea players clearly offside doesn't show the forward run by the onside player. The linesman's failure to flag therefore seems completely inexplicable, whereas there was more to it than that image shows. Yes, the goal should have been disallowed, but this shows how unfair selective publishing of images which tell only part of the story can be to officials tasked with doing an increasingly difficult job.
  23. westcoastcanary
    Why would anyone watching want to listen either way? I certainly don't. But some unfortunates some of the time have no option but the radio. There are plenty of chat shows available without turning football commentaries into another example of that genre!
  24. westcoastcanary
    When Heise signed, DF specifically mentioned his having played at a EPL level, by which I presume he meant Heise's time at Stuttgart. So yes, I think he is seen as able to compete at that level.
  25. westcoastcanary
    One thing is for sure, we won't bring anyone in who isn't a fit for our dressing room and the way we play. No good plucking "good players" out of thin air while ignoring questions about character, temperament, technical ability and suitability/adaptability for our style of play.
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