westcoastcanary

[Y] Well said TGD

Seems a number of people haven''t digested the implications of the structural change and what Stuart Webber''s arrival as Director of Football actually means. The club has shown a readiness to change; some posters are clearly struggling to do the same.

Only two of the top seven clubs in the Championship are managed by British managers. Of those two, Monk is the product of a succession of continental managers at Swansea, leaving Hughton the only truly home-bred one. Football in this country is changing and Stuart Webber''s arrival signals to me that NCFC is embracing it. I can''t imagine that we will appoint another traditional British-style manager; on that basis alone Rosler is a possibility, though I suspect his being connected with us is based on nothing more than that. I''m not expecting a "big name" appointment, but I''ll be very surprised if whoever comes in doesn''t have experience of managing on the continent or somewhere else other than the British Isles.

I''m hoping for a win tonight, but I''m not expecting it. All this talk of corners turned is premature. Beating Wigan will add credibility to it since, being second bottom in the league, this game does invite the "we only have to turn up to win" team mentality that is so often our undoing. Furthermore Wigan strengthened considerably in the transfer window, with Obertan and Bruce among those who joined. I think they''ll quite fancy their chances of doing a Rotherham against us.

@Ginja"You''d play Whittaker? f*cking hell... If we''ve any hope of promotion Whittaker''s main contribution will be keeping the bench warm."Whitts has played only a couple of games for us at left back, but one of those was the Neil Adams 0:0 draw at Stamford Bridge, when he was outstanding. I can''t remember whether he got MOM that day, but his performance rated high enough to make him a candidate. And in point of fact, my suggestion is playing him at left wing back in the 3:5:2 if Dijks is unavailable, not at left back in a back four.

[quote user="morty"]But back on topic, yes, I encounter a lot of folks who know next to nothing about football, both on here, and sat near me at Carrow road / away games.[/quote]How would you know morty? [:P]

[quote user="Ginja"][quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="Ginja"]We are not going to play two up front, Jarvis is going to be on the bench (unfit) and also is RM! Murphy is young and has the energy to play (won''t be rested unless injured) Bennett is very unlikely to start and this is also a formation that will never feature as a starting lineup, we have a tried and tested 4-2-3-1 that is currently putting us top of the form table why would you make such significant changes?[/quote] We have used three at the back this season and two up front this season - at Brentford - and Oliveira and Jerome started that match (which on chances we should have won, so it could well work again).  In fact my team has 9 of the Brentford away match in it.  The other 2 - Tettey and Brady.  [/quote]A match we didn''t win and didn''t score any goals in, brilliant idea [Y][/quote]The main reason we didn''t score several goals and win the game comfortably was Cameron Jerome''s rustiness, having come into the starting eleven after a run of games out. The other reason was Brentford making quite sure that Pritchard couldn''t reproduce his MOM performance against them at Carrow Road. Despite Pritchard being shackled, the scoreline could easily have been 0:4 to us. Since then Cameron Jerome has sharpened up. Jarvis apart, I see nothing wrong with LDC''s suggested lineup; I''d play Whittaker at left wing back if playing Dijks is deemed a risk. That said, I doubt if AN will go three at the back; I think he did it against Brentford specifically to arrest the losing streak playing away.

A lot of talk of corners being turned and renewed optimism on here, but I see Tuesday as a real test of whether it''s anything more than words. Wigan will go into the game with a similar mindset and tactics to Rotherham; are we going to turn up and keep our heads against second bottom in the league in a game we  no doubt expect to win?

[quote user="Ray"]westcoast, Couldn''t comment on the price?[/quote]Hi, Ray. When he signed for Wigan, Caldwell described him as far from the finished article, but with great potential. Doesn''t appear to have progressed that much since then, so I''d say £7M was way over the odds. Maybe another case of buying club wanting to appear ambitious and selling club as appearing to drive a hard bargain (as Parma commented when ''Boro signed Bamford, reportedly for £10M).

[quote user="Ray"]I think this is probably a done deal.[/quote]Not at £7M though, surely.

[quote user="morty"]The club is set to increase the capacity this summer from 27,244 to 28,332. They will do this by installing seats 30 cm narrower. Bad news for fatties?[/quote]Someone as well-travelled as you morty should know that it''s the folks in the next seat that suffer ..........

You guys are fretting about plugging a hole in the dyke when the problem is water flooding over the top, due in part to the government''s refusal to close the flood barrier.

[quote user="morty"][quote user="hogesar"][quote user="morty"][quote user="hogesar"]Yeah Morty, I thought generally Tettey done well upsetting BIrminghams passing rhythm and getting stuck in. He does, particularly this season, have a tendency to not track runners properly and that was evident for the free headers Birmingham had.[/quote]I would see his job to screen the defence though, they have to take responsibility for runners![/quote]To an extent yeah, but it was his man running from deep, it has to be his job to track him - defenders can''t shift across and follow one who''s got the run on them, particularly when they already had players to deal with themselves.It''s been a weakness of Tettey''s on several occasions. I think I remember AN actually mentioning it in public last season? Against West Ham maybe?[/quote]It depends how many are in the attack, and where you think the line between defensive midfielder and him basically just being another defender is. I think tracking runners also leaves a big hole where Tettey should be sometimes, that can also be exploited.Down to individual situations, but I prefer to see a DM a good ten yards in front of the CB''s screening and linking.[/quote]There''s a simple rule here: if the number of attackers equals or exceeds the number of defenders then the defending side is basically fkd. That was the overload which our midfield allowed Birmingham to create in the run up to both chances. We should/could easily have conceded both times. The same situation is allowed to develop game after game. AN''s comment quoted in the EDP:"We conceded chances maybe a bit too easy in the first-half but if you play an open, expansive brand of football that is going to happen."Yes, it is going to happen and will continue to happen with the same results as before -- goals conceded at a rate of 1.43 per game; only 5 teams in the division have a worse defensive record. It doesn''t matter who is in the back four if the midfield expose them all the time.

[quote user="BroadstairsR"]Oops![/quote][:D] Was just trying to help with your homesickness Broadstairs!

Well The Times really ought to research things better. They might then have discovered that Norwich is desperately trying to stop living in splendid isolation and get itself connected to everywhere, just like everyone else; also that the ever busier airport, sorry INTERNATIONAL airport, has such difficulty making ends meet that it has to charge passengers a special airport tax of £10 per departure; and as for the commendably community-orientated football club, large numbers of said club''s REAL supporters want to get rid of its community-minded owners and see it taken over by somebody, anybody, with real wealth, i.e. sufficient to satisfy said supporters'' thirst for self-gratification. Typical superficial weekend journalism.

[quote user="king canary"]@Westcoast So what you''re saying is the squad was so bad that this was the only way he could play? Then how on earth did said squad finish 11th the year before? And how did us spending our biggest transfer budget ever make it so much worse?[/quote]Rather than "so bad", a squad with serious shortcomings. The problem was less to do with Hughton being unable to produce a team playing any other way (compare his teams at Newcastle, Birmingham and now Brighton); it was more a matter of our players being limited in how they could play. So why didn''t Hughton just have them play they way they could? Same question as why Alex Neil changed direction last season after Newcastle (A). Answer: because both realised we would end up relegated unless the tactics changed. To which one might reply: "Well at least we would have been relegated entertainingly".Re. the transfer spending, "our biggest transfer budget ever" while true was nevertheless misleading (as Bowkett must have known when he said it). Because in terms of what has to be spent just to stay still in the EPL, never mind improve, it was still a relatively small amount -- not helped of course by so much of it being spent on RvW.Re. the 11th place finish, it was a combination of a long unbeaten run pre-Christmas, and a late rally (when our opponents were almost universally said to be already "on the beach"). Rather like many of our wins earlier this season, results during the unbeaten run were frequently said to misrepresent the performances, i.e. we got away with not actually playing very well. I actually thought that was somewhat unjust; what it boiled down to was an EPL season developing in the usual way, when weaker teams flatter to deceive in the first half before sinking to their proper level in the second.

In this post-truth world there are no longer any newspapers.

I wasn''t aware he at any stage denied the rumours about Dijks and Zeegelaar. Could that possibly have been because, in those cases, the rumours were true? Oh, of course not, silly me [:$]

WBA are a good example of how, if enough patience is exercised, yo-yoing can lead to becoming as established in the top tier as any team of comparable size to us can expect to be:2003-4: promoted (Megson)2004-5: survived via "The Great Escape", having been bottom at Christmas (B. Robson)2005-6: relegated (B. Robson)2006-7: lost the Championship p/o final to Derby (Mowbray)2007-8: promoted (Mowbray)2008-9: relegated (Mowbray)2009-10: promoted (Di Matteo)Despite the yo-yoing and managerial changes, the key to this successful strategy was stability allied to patience, the former provided by a clear vision at board level of the strategy to be followed, including the club''s style of play, and putting responsibility for applying that vision consistently in the hands of a first-class Director of Football. I think I''m right in saying that, despite Pearce''s wealth, at no time did their patience waver leading to recklessly gambling big sums in an attempt cut the corners of slow but steady club and team building.

@PurpleCanaryI was replying specifically to your complaint that I had omitted to say anything about Hughton''s first half-season at Brighton, and had ignored or misunderstood your view, repeated and highlighted in red, that "in a tricky league position his default position is ultra-caution", which doesn''t exactly refer specifically to when "drawing or being behind in a game".To summarise, you agree on the soundness of prioritising defence as a policy;  you don''t disagree about Hughton''s policy being the best, "as a starting plan", to take something from a game (even, it now appears, when in a "tricky league position", such as we were in, and Brighton were in when he took over); and finally, Hughton "has some talent as a manager" (which, though appearing to me somewhat grudging, I nevertheless don''t read as damning with faint praise).So the only point of contention is Hughton''s failure, in your view, to adjust to "a slightly more attacking approach" when the game had developed in a way requiring it, such as when we were drawing "a key game" (e.g. a game against opponents in the mini-league of which we were part?) or had fallen behind.Quote: "His belief was that it was better at 0-0 or1-0 down to carry on playing in that fashion and hope to go ahead or equalise, rather than push for a winner or an equaliser and risk conceding/conceding again. What that didn''t factor in was that we were limp in attack and far from watertight in defence, so it was a fatal combination.""Push for a winner or an equaliser and risk conceding/conceding again", and "[switch to] a slightly more attacking approach", are somewhat different, but the reality is that you can identify games when we did without question "push for a winner or equaliser" and many others when we did without question switch to "a more attacking approach" when it was needed (two obvious examples being Hull (A) and WBA (H)).You cite the fact that we only managed to recover the situation in three games, all at home; but that doesn''t actually support your point; the most it shows is that, in all but three cases, our attempts to find a winner or equaliser failed (as also in the final five games under Neil Adams, the one point gained being the result of a staunch defensive display ending in a goalless draw).What relegated us was indeed a "fatal combination" of being "limp in attack and far from watertight in defence". But rather than resulting from Hughton''s tactics, as Carrow Road orthodoxy would have us believe, the shortcomings in our squad exemplified in that "fatal combination" were actually the reasons why Hughton approached things as he did.

That''s true kc, but as I pointed out in my original post, AN started out on the very track everyone thought Hughton should have followed, or at least switched to, and was soon (after just 10 games)  forced to adopt a strategy eerily reminiscent of Hughton''s.

@PurpleCanaryI neither failed to understand, nor chose to ignore, the sentence you highlight. Our disagreement is over how best to explain Hughton''s decision making. I was drawing a contrast between, on the one hand focussing on characteristics such as caution or adventurousness, and on the other on the consistent application of a statistically well-founded and widely accepted strategy.I''m quite happy to quote stats for Hughton''s part-season at Brighton (2014-15) but they simply raise the same issue. You say they provide a further illustration of how "in a tricky league position his default position is ultra-caution", while I say they provide a further illustration of Hughton consistently applying a statistically well-founded and widely accepted strategy (of prioritising conceding fewer goals per game irrespective of the effect on number of goals for).Brighton 2014-15:Dec 31 2014:  P24  GF26  GA32  Goals scored per game:  1.08  Goals conceded per game 1.33  Position 20th   Final Table:     P46  GF44  GA54  Goals scored per game:  0.96  Goals conceded per game 1.17  Position 20thHughton:         P22  GF18  GA22  Goals scored per game:  0.81  Goals conceded per game 1.00The upshot of pursuing this strategy was that, whereas Brighton had been on a steady downward trajectory from the start of the season and had been in the relegation places for several weeks prior to Hyypia''s sacking, Hughton stabilised them just above the relegation places for the rest of the season. Your opinion is that, in our case, Hughton should have abandoned his strategy rather than sticking to it. I don''t see any need to explain the fact that he didn''t (and according to Mick Dennis explicitly refused to) by focussing on personal characteristics such as caution, lack of adventure, obstinacy or whatever. It is perfectly well explained simply by his believing that consistently following the strategy that maximises your chances of taking something from each game was the best option. We will never know whether he would have been proved right. What we do know is that changing the strategy didn''t keep us up, and that the view from outside Carrow Road was, almost without exception, that sacking Hughton was utter madness. And what we now also know is that Hughton''s following exactly the same strategy at Brighton in 2014-15 kept them out of the relegation zone and paved the way to where they are now.

[quote user="Hoola Han Solo"]And sometimes you have to accept a manager is failing and is maybe not the right fit. Baseless optimism that a manager can turn a team''s fortunes around would surely mean we would never have sacked Worthy, Roeder and Gunn amongst others.[/quote]Yes you do sometimes have to admit that. And equally, you do sometimes have to admit that the real problems lie elsewhere. The question is, which applies in the particular case (and of course in many cases it''s a bit of both). Man Utd are onto their third manager since SAF retired; Sunderland are onto their sixth full-time manager in five years; we are onto our third since Lambert walked out. I think everyone accepts in hindsight that the seeds of Man Utd''s problems were laid before SAF retired; even allowing for Allardyce''s jumping ship to take the England job, Sunderland''s managerial turnover is surely evidence that the problem is deeper than just a succession of "poor" managers; my view is that, similar to the cases of Man Utd and Sunderland, the causes of our difficulties predate our current run of so-called "poor" managers and can be traced back, paradoxically, to the Lambert years; the turnover in managers indicates there''s more to it than just a succession of managerial failures.

@Purple CanaryBrighton 2015-16    GF 72 (equal highest in the league) , GA  42,  GD +30Brighton 2016-17    GF 42,  GA 18), GD +24Are you seriously suggesting that these stats support your view of "a naturally cautious manager" who, having spent a bit of money, is "being somewhat more adventurous"? Don''t they rather suggest a manager who, since taking over in December 2014, has built a team embodying his belief in prioritising sound defence, and having done so is now able to produce the type of football to which he has always aspired (more accurately reflected not just at Brighton but also at Newcastle and (under huge financial and other constraints) at Birmingham rather than at Norwich)?

[quote user="king canary"]I can''t really see what your point is there Westcoast - that both Hughton and Neil have been trying to make us more solid defensively? If that is the case then both failed pretty miserably.[/quote]Indeed, but my point is that the answer may not be as simple as "somebody else would have done/would do better". IMO the board made a big mistake in sacking Hughton; it looks though as if they have at least learned that lesson and are going to continue backing Neil. But if I had to choose between Hughton and Neil, myself I''d rather have still had Hughton.