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Peanuts

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Posts posted by Peanuts

  1. Posted

    I watched the game and Blades were well organised and played with confidence and although Spurs were fairly poor the individual quality of players like Son and Delle Ali was above anything that either of us have. I don't think there's a lot between us as evidenced last season and although Blades spent more in the Summer the core of their squad is unchanged.

    I think fundamentally they have a style that is better suited to survival than ours based on the quality of the players that they have. That said, as we have found out it only takes a few injuries and bad results for confidence to dip and then they may find their lack of quality an issue.

     

  2. Posted · Edited by Peanuts
    spelling

    I think a lot of the recent poor attacking play has been because the players have lost confidence in the defence and are anxious not to lose possession for fear of conceding.

    So yes, while Zimbo is no Virgil Van Dijk, he's at least a proper centre half who will allow Amadou/Tettey to play in midfield and that's got to make us better not just defensively but going forward too.

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    The ambition is to secure the financial future of the club, have modern training facilities, maintain a strong presence in the community, develop young players and put out an exciting young team that play attractive football.

    Now the football in the last few games hasn't exactly been great, but we're doing pretty well on the rest of it and nobody can argue we haven't seen some fantastic football at times this season, and of course last season.

    There was a time when the ambition was to stay in the premier league at all costs (remember McNally declaring relegation would be "worse than death"?) but the owners clearly feel other things take priority now.

    It is what it is, and even if we had a money bags owner it's no guarantee of success. There are plenty of far bigger clubs with far far richer owners than ours where the fans are complaining about poor results, not enough investment and lack of ambition.

    • Like 2

  6. Posted

    I'd be more worried if there weren't any signs of dissent given how poor results have been. The players should be frustrated with their own and others performances, including the coaching staff. No idea on the Leitner rumour but he did come to us with a bit of a reputation for being difficult.

  8. Posted

    Never in a million years were we the better side. They let us have the ball in non threatening areas and time and again we came forward and failed to create a decent chance. In contrast practically every time Watford countered they could have had it in the net. Against better finishing we’d have been on the end of another thrashing.

  10. Posted

    The really miserable thing about last night wasn’t that the tactics or team selection were necessarily wrong, or that the players weren’t  working hard enough, but that individually we just didn’t look good enough. Yes you can point to errors for the goals, but for most of the game we were second best all over the pitch. We had plenty of the ball but rarely threatened and for the most part Watford were fairly comfortable at the back.

    I thought Watford were poor and before the game I said to my wife that their players didn’t look up for it but as soon as we kicked off it became obvious that man for man they were just that little bit stronger, that little bit quicker and that little bit better on the ball than us. It wasn’t that they were all big lumps and even their smaller players had a physicality about their game that ours lacked.

    The reality is that we probably only have a couple of premier league quality players with a few more that are young and have potential, but we’re asking too much for them to step up all at once. Last season we did something special and somehow became greater than the sum of our parts, but with confidence gone it’s obvious we don’t have enough quality to be competitive in this league. Here’s hoping for another miracle.

  11. Posted · Edited by Peanuts

    The promise of VAR was that the disruption would be a price worth paying for better accuracy and consistency but it just seems like we have the same haphazard refereeing as before just with it taking longer.

    The Son penalty incident wasn’t given despite there being clear contact and then no penalty at the other end despite the ball clearly hitting Delle Ali’s arm when it was above his head. Not to mention the ref showing Son a yellow card for a trip on Gomes before going back and showing him a red once he saw Gomes had broken his ankle. Not sure if that was a VAR decision or not.

  13. Posted · Edited by Peanuts

    There was a feeling last year that the squad was greater than the sum of its parts with us consistently performing better than clubs with much bigger budgets and stronger sides on paper.

    You could say that this season we've been 'found out' and the big step up in quality has made some of our players look more like the lower league also-rans they were before they came here.

    Last season it all came together in such a beautiful way with wonderful football and amazing results but it's looking like it was too much to ask the same players to perform another miracle against much much stronger opposition.

  14. Posted

    Some of the defending was truly awful yesterday and had Brighton not been so wasteful they could have had plenty more. I don't know what the answer is; we're constantly told that 3 out of 4 of our defenders are worth millions and some of the best young defenders around (and I don't necessarily disagree with this) and yet we continue to ship goals. Maybe it's tactical or maybe we need better protection from midfield (Amadou/Tettey?)

     

    • Like 2

  15. Posted · Edited by Peanuts

    30 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

    As long as we have our current owners imposing the "self funding"  model on us in order to retain ownership of their trainset for ever more then we are unlikely to be able to compete at this level. Some of our fans appear happy with/accepting of that, others amongst us find it a bit depressing on days like today.

    It's all relative though isn't it.

    Take Spurs as an example. They are a big club by any measure and have been a permanent fixture in the Premier League yet have one league cup win in the last 20 years. Do their fans wish they could be more competitive? Do they blame the owners for the lack of success?

    I bet many of us would love our club to be in Tottenham's position - established in the premier league, European football, fantastic stadium and a squad full of stars, but I bet there'd still be plenty complaining we can't compete, we don't invest, the manager has no clue etc etc.

  16. Posted · Edited by Peanuts

    Well if we play like this every week we'll do well to win another game. Being positive though, at least with such a young and inexperienced side they have a greater potential to improve as the season goes on.

  17. Posted

    1 minute ago, kirku said:

    With a fully fit squad, you wouldn't expect Tettey to start. And he's always been perfectly serviceable as a midfield screen. 

    Sure, and I'm not knocking Tettey either by the way - he's been a great servant to the club and I love him as a player. But it's undeniable that the standard of the premier league has increased in the last 6 years and the fact we're still relying on Tettey two relegations and promotions later suggests our squad is nowhere near good enough.

  18. Posted

    I think it's worse. I just re-read my earlier post in the thread and I don't recognise that style of play from the last few games. Whether that's due to injuries, lack of confidence or a deliberate change from the manager I don't know. It feels like we've been playing it longer far far more often lately.

  19. Posted

    4 minutes ago, Samwam27 said:

    We seem to be more solid with Tettey in defence than anyone else.

     

    2 minutes ago, kirku said:

    Zimmerman at CB would've allowed Tettey to play in midfield - surely making our midfield "combative".

    It says a lot about the quality of our squad when a player who arguably wasn't good enough for the premier league 6 years ago is one of our better performers.

  21. Posted

    I think there are reasonable points being made on both sides. Given that we don't have owners who are willing/able to bankroll the club we can't risk spending beyond our means, but at the same time I can't help but feel we'd be more competitive having spent a bit more in the Summer.

    I suspect there's a bit of succession planning going on with Delia and Michael wanting to ensure that they leave the club in as healthy a financial position as possible with infrastructure upgrades judged more important longer term than potentially risky spending on the squad for this season.

    It does feel like the owners/Webber didn't expect us to stay in the Premier League this season and have planned accordingly. Whether that is 'little ole Norwich' or just the reality for a club of our size and financial might I guess depends on your point of view.

    • Like 3

  22. Posted · Edited by Peanuts

    2 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

    What happened to “if we go down, so be it. We’ll have broken even, have some money to invest in the foundations of the club and be better placed for another run at promotion and the PL”? One season of success and suddenly it’s “why aren’t we Leicester?” after a few defeats to mid to lower table PREMIER LEAGUE clubs. Webber always said this was a long-term project and we are still over-achieving on that. 

    Big picture guys!

    I'm curious what people think the long-term project is though? I know Webber said they didn't expect promotion this soon, but does that mean we'd have had more money to spend upon promotion if we'd been in the Championship another couple of seasons?

    Personally I think the long term project is a club that at least breaks even and can compete in the Championship with the odd promotion season if we have a bit of luck. I know I should be satisfied with that given that quite a few Championship owners bankroll their clubs to a far greater extent than ours, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed that having done the hard work with recruitment, training and building a team to win the Championship we haven't pushed on and tried to be more competitive this season.

  23. Posted

    I think it just goes to show the huge gulf in ability between the divisions. The binners didn't suddenly become a good side they are just playing in a much lower quality league. It's the same with us, we didn't become a bad side we are just facing much better quality opposition. So called average premier league sides are still way ahead of the championship and light years above league one.

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    I thought both penalty shouts were pretty soft, it's just bad luck the one against us was the only one given. Yes Amadou lunges in, but it's pretty clear their player takes a tumble once Amadou is on the deck. Just like the handball, his arm's above his head but he would argue he's just protecting himself and if his arm wasn't there it would have hit him in the head most probably.

    As to VAR, what happened to the ref reviewing the replay on a screen by the pitch? I know it increases the delay but I rather thought it added to the excitement too. Too slow for our world renowned high intensity league? With a happy side effect that refs don't have to admit getting it wrong.

  25. Posted

    Webber made the point in a recent interview that if a team plays it long and it doesn't work nobody expects them to have a plan B of quick short passing. There's nothing wrong with our style of play. If you make mistakes at the back and fail to take your chances up front, this is what happens. They were another big strong physical side and unfortunately we didn't really have the strength to match them or the quality to brush them aside. The biggest disappointment for me was that despite having a decent amount of possession around their box in the second half I don't think their keeper made a save.

    As to the point about us not liking being pressed, well sure but on recent evidence neither do Man City or Arsenal. It's a calculated risk for both sides as the more numbers they commit to pressing us the more space they leave if we break through. Presumably if we weren't prepared for teams to press us at the back we wouldn't play quite so much tikka takka in our own box so it must all be part of the plan.

    • Like 2
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