westcoastcanary

How do you decide who is best in each position without first establishing how you''re going to play? Are these "positions" somehow set in stone, or does e.g."Right Midfield" actually mean something different depending on game plan/tactical approach? What sense does it make to say e.g. that Redmond is "best" at RM and Howson second best when Howson plays a different sort of game to Redmond? What sense does it make to say M''bokani is "best" as lone striker and Jerome second best, when they don''t play the same way or offer the same to the team? If your setup required something resembling orthodox wing play, wouldn''t you pick Jarvis on the left above anyone else? In those circumstances would you ever pick Howson at RM? We hear a lot of complaints about square pegs being played in round holes, e.g. Howson at RM. He''s only a square peg in a round hole if you dig the wrong hole for him.

Some kids give their dads a Ferrari.

Tettey''s Jig wrote: "The irony there is that the arsenal match was one of the few the defence wasn''t completely hopeless in!"I imagine Ozil was referring to Ryan Bennett''s camera pit defending and Santi Cazorla ending up with a serious knee injury after what might euphemistically be called "an unfortunate coming together". Wenger was less forthright and confined himself to sarcasm in his post-match interview.

As money pours into club coffers from their millions of TV and stream-watching supporters in Asia and across the world, I don''t hear the season ticket holders of Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and other clubs with decent followings abroad ridiculing them. If our fans object to us being viewed as a small, provincial club, perhaps they should stop displaying small, provincial club attitudes.

Going by what gets posted on here, there is no discernible difference between an armchair and a seat in a Carrow Road stand when it comes to the appropriateness of the epithet "expert" [;)]

@The EngineerYes, the Golden Grail is greater defensive solidity than before, combined with greater attacking potency than currently. But that is very different from advocating a return to the approach we saw in the early part of the season. Getting the balance right defeated Hughton; if Neil can''t find it either, IMO he needs to err on the side of defensive solidity.

@norfolkbroadslimOf course I''m not including cup games, any more than I''m including pre-season friendlies. The claim is that the change of strategy was needed because to continue as we were meant almost certain relegation. You don''t get league points for winning cup games.Everyone agrees that the Newcastle game was a turning point for AN but a change of strategy can''t be fully implemented from one game to the next. If you look at WBA (h), there was in fact very little difference in terms of team selection, setup and pattern of play compared to what had gone before. That was certainly not the case for game 11, Man City (a), but that was a one-off in which we played 3 at the back. The Swansea game (game 11) was the first genuinely new-style game, with a back four, a midfield of Howson, Tettey, ONeill and Brady, and Redmond not even on the bench. If you want to compare the 9 (old-style) games up to Newcastle (a), with the first 9 genuinely new-style games -- Swansea (h) through to Southampton (h) -- the improvement is even more marked. As regards your point 4, there have been many posts claiming that the position we now find ourselves in is due primarily to AN''s change of approach post-Newcastle (a). I''m simply pointing out that the change of strategy actually led to a marked improvement in performance measured in terms of points gained. If we had simply carried on as before, the evidence is our current situation would be even more dire. This also suggests that if we are looking to explain our recent poor run of results, we need to look at factors other than the tactical change that was implemented after the Newcastle game.

@norfolkbroadslimI don''t know what stats you were looking at but the Newcastle game was game 9, not game 11, and at that point our record (over the first 8 games) was: won 2 (not 4), drawn 3, lost 3, Pts 9.

Er, not no, yes!  Here are the stats:After 11 games:   Points 9, GD -8, Points per game 0.82After 22 games:   Points 23, GD -14, Points per game 1.05So, over games 12 to 22 we gained 14 points (compared to 9 points over games 1 to 11), and our goal difference improved to -6 (compared to -8). The points gained per game (games 12-22) shot up from 0.82 (games 1 to 11) to 1.27, representing a 55% improvement on what had gone before.

In terms of points gained, performances improved radically over games 12-22, entirely vindicating the change of strategy. Factors other than change of strategy almost certainly account for the deterioration since then.

It''s called learning from experience, in this case not just the experience of Newcastle (a) but of where we were and where we were heading after 11 games. The process is on-going.

Re. psychology, two quotes, the first familiar to all Norwich fans, the second from Villa''s new chairman when appointed a few weeks ago"Relegation [from the EPL] is a fate worse than death.""We don''t fear relegation."Feed your fans with what they want to hear and heap pressure on the team; or tell the fans to wise up and take pressure off your team? I know which I think shows better leadership from the top.

Creative Midfielder wrote: "Although we went through a pretty dodgy spell after the Newcastle game we picked up points and momentum over Christmas and the holiday period, and were looking good to survive."Correct. I posted the relevant stats some days ago, showing that the change of tactics since the Newcastle game, far from being a disaster, had proved effective in improving our points gained per game and, if maintained would put us on course to survive comfortably with 42 points. People pointing the finger at AN''s change of tactics simply haven''t looked at the facts.

An "unwritten right to go"? What nonsense! The most apt way of understanding a fan who talks about "my club" is on the analogy of a religious believer who talks about "my church". He doesn''t own it, he doesn''t have to belong to it, he has no "right" guaranteeing attendance at services should he want to go, but he can, if he so chooses enjoy a kind of "membership" and even, if that way inclined, devote some, or even a large part, of his life to it.

[quote user="The Great Wall Of Tettey"]Soon as someone runs at him he just seems to run away from them and you can''t give a top forward 4/5 yards of space. Even in the brief highlights Kane did it time and time again, firmino in the Liverpool game too. What has happened to wisdom? I though he was pretty impressive at right back, would be starting at villa for me[/quote]So when you saw him backing off, was there any other Norwich defender anywhere near? Strange that exactly the same criticism is made of Martin. Maybe both actually know something about when to back off and when not?

Not to mention the fragility of composure when the stakes become consequently raised.

The problem with Pinto is that he''s used to playing in defensively literate teams.

@Ray[Y]  I''ve re-read it and yes, I misread it originally. I took you to be saying what several other posters have said, misguidedly IMO, on various recent threads.

@RayI don''t get this confidence stuff with regard to Ruddy. Are you saying he shouldn''t be dropped because his confidence, already at a low ebb, would take a further knock? My question is: what is more important right here and now: trying something that could help reduce the number of goals we are conceding with JR in the team, or giving priority to massaging his fragile confidence? If we were comfortably mid-table and producing the performances and results to keep us there, and/or Declan Rudd was a long way off being an adequate replacement, giving JR more time might make sense. But neither of those is true of our current situation.

Indeed, there was a lot of good Morty, but did you think the right side leak was plugged? Watching on my stream it didn''t look that way to me.

But does AN? Was last night against Everton an experiment to see if more power in midfield can re-balance the equation? If so I remain unconvinced (and it also involved Hoolahan playing like a man possessed for the entire game).

Lord Eddard Stark wrote: "Rudd was good, did nothing wrong, although I did notice that we were hoofing the ball up from him almost 100% of the time, very dissimilar to how we play from Ruddy''s feet- who''s distribution is generally quite a useful asset for building attacks IMO that often gets overlooked."Simple explanation -- no RM at RCB. Martin is far more comfortable than Bennett with receiving the ball from the keeper in tighter situations, moving forward and inter-passing with the midfielders ahead of him. Bennett''s instinct is first and foremost to get the ball as far up the field as he can, whether with head or boot. The only time you see Bennett building attacks is when there''s no opposition pressure on the back line. Making Plans wrote: "Redmond - busy, some nice touches but ultimately [disappointing]"You might have added "as usual", except that he was worse than usual. How many times did he waste good opportunities even with time to pick his pass or measure his cross? We don''t need to have Redmond starting to reap the benefit of what he does; giving him 20--30 minutes against a tiring defence maximises the benefit and reduces the cost.Furthermore, having clearly done their homework, Everton continually exposed us down our right side i.e. same old problem irrespective of changes at RB and RCB. If Miralles had been less wasteful the game would have been over well before extra time.

Jim Smith wrote "Should we actually be playing a [strong] team tonight and perhaps experimenting a bit on Saturday rather than the other way around?"I don''t really understand the question. Judging by what AN said yesterday, we are not going to be fielding a team half of whom are under-21s or whatever. He''s going to bring in one or two players who are anyway on the fringe of first team selection. Given the calls for change at the back and in midfield prompted by our recent poor run, what reason is there for regarding the teams we have been putting out in these first ten games as our "strongest"?

[quote user="morty"]There''s this new thing called mobile internet, not sure if you have heard of it?[/quote]Of course; just didn''t realise it had reached the Third World.

[quote user="morty"]Wow.[/quote]Don''t tell me the cabbage bus has onboard internet. I was looking forward to a few hours of  relative quiet and civility ......... [;)]