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Christoph Stiepermann

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Posts posted by Christoph Stiepermann

  3. Posted

    It's more to do with the bottom half teams being harder to beat than ever before. The gap between the top (Liverpool/City most seasons excluded) and bottom teams is closing, we'll get more teams in the mix for a European place and the League is as hard as it's ever been to survive in. 

     

    Most bottom 14 or so teams aren't easy on the eyes, but with a few exceptions it's like they're all cynically managed by Sam Allardyce with a big budget so getting results in this league is tough, even for the bigger clubs. Fair play to Liverpool though for being a significant cut above the rest this year.

  5. Posted

    Unless we establish ourselves in the PL he'll be a NCFC player again at some point, didn't he buy a house here?. If we're in the Championship when his one year option runs out would be most likely. He could play at that level until he's 34/35 given the type of player he is so I'd definitely take him on a free. I'd be surprised if it isn't his plan to let his lucrative contract run down then sign for us. 

    • Like 1

  6. Posted · Edited by Christoph Stiepermann

    On 12/01/2020 at 15:09, TeemuVanBasten said:

    He's a good man manager, good at fostering team spirit and togetherness.

    But is he really anything special tactically? Seems to just have one way of playing, no plan B, never rotates the squad unless forced, and I don't think he really anticipates the opposition getting on top when fans can 'feel it' so is reactive with his substitutions after we go behind rather than proactive.

    According to Norwich fans at the moment we have 7 x £30m+ youngsters and a future world class manager. Yet we're rock bottom of the league, on course for our poorest ever season in the top flight.

    It doesn't really add up, either Farke isn't top class, or several of our players are massively over rated by our fans. Its probably somewhere in between that, a bit of both. 

    People have bought too much into the Webber hype train, instigated by the man himself, and they keep talking about a 'model' that they don't understand, that doesn't really exist, and they draw parallels with various European greats.

    Recently it feels like Norwich fans are more deluded than Leeds fans. 

    They're rated at that price because of their potential. All of our highly rated young players also play in defence or in positions where you need to create regularly with consistency. If I could pick a position to blood young players in it wouldn't be defence or as our main attacking outlet, it's far less than ideal but it is where we're at right now. 

    If none of our young players improved anymore they wouldn't even be £5m players let alone 30m. Those ratings are all based on potential and resale value, as it is in the moment I'd say Farke has only 3 players who are PL class every game to work with in Krul, Tettey and Pukki. He's doing very well given the circumstances. 

    No manager is faultless and expecting a long term coach of NCFC to have no flaws is laughable. He's a great manager, one of the best in our history, enjoy him while he's here.

  7. Posted

    As much as I enjoyed last season i admit I've checked out a bit this year. It's not been remotely enjoyable except for the odd game. I really like this team and it's gutting to watch them sink almost every week, I'm not sure Delia is the one to blame though, as far as I'm aware nobody has offered to buy the club since last May, we did try to spend a bit of money but lost out on 2 targets on deadline day and physically we are all wrong for this league. I don't see where Delia comes into it tbh. 

  9. Posted

    This is like when we bid 2m for Robbie Brady except even more of a joke and waste of everybody's time. 25m + loan back with add ons eventually totalling 40m as a bare minimum. Tottenham will not be the only game in town and we could easily hold onto him till the end of next season given his age and contract. 

  10. Posted

    It is very hard to take. It's simply just not been our year in terms of luck. We always have and always will get screwed by the officials in this league but some of our bad luck this year has been farcical. 

    We've also chosen to play a certain way in an era when McCarthy/Allardyce etc-ball has come back into fashion and effectiveness, there isn't one weak team in the league this year, the price of Championship/L1 stars has gone through the roof and way beyond our budget and we've had a pretty awful injury crisis.

     

    I hate it, I'm sick of football but it's just the way things are at the moment and it's no one at the club's fault, we've just come up at a bad time. Instead of looking for blame we need to just take it on the chin and look towards next season. Hopefully next time we get promoted we won't be so hideously unlucky. 

  11. Posted

    Can we talk for a second about what a ***t football team Palace are? 

     

    Give it to the fast lads to run at their defence...that's it, that's all they have, except maybe their captain banging one in from 30 yards. The tactics of the man who was once given the England job, shocking really. Their team sums up everything wrong with the PL.

  12. Posted

    We were soft on the Maddison transfer because we had to sell and other clubs knew that, he was a 30m player but it was either accept Leicesters offer, delay and not be able to strengthen that summer or keep him and go bankrupt. With the Murphey's and Pritchard we got a good price, theres no reason to believe going forwards this set up won't be able to get good prices for our players.

     

    In that past though yeah, we've been soft touches and I'm glad that's behind us. 

  13. Posted

    3 minutes ago, sonyc said:

    You often never quite know what he will do, which is exciting to watch. Sometimes though I wonder if Onel knows himself what he will do.

    His play gives us a different dimention though and opens up defences for our other more technical players. He's not really suited for a game like this where palace will defend with 10 men for most of the game but other games he can be very useful even if individually he doesn't contribute much

  14. Posted · Edited by Christoph Stiepermann

    Lewis and Hernandez did enough to retain their places, but Farke is being smart here, he knows we'll have a lot of the ball high up and not a lot of space to work into and will need to be switched on at the back so Byram and Cantwell are clever changes imo. McLean for Stiepermann is a more debatable change as Marco had a decent game last week, I assume that's for fitness reasons. 

  15. Posted

    Do they play with an explosive device inside the ball at that level? Why is everyone on the pitch so scared of being near the football? Also god help the poor soul trying to keep track of possession statistics in this game, the ball seems to change sides every second or so that it's not out of play. 

  16. Posted

    The type of team that causes us real problems. I'd be more confident going into a game against a top 6 team than Palace because of their strengths v our weakness'. I can see us totally dominating in every aspect but losing or drawing because of a couple of fast counters, set piece goals, poor refereeing decisions or penalties. 

    Heart says 2-1 win, head says a very frustrating 2-1 loss with us feeling very hard done by again. 

     

    The key today is getting in front early and taking our half chances, we cannot be chasing the game or playing a high line against this team for extended period or they will punish us.

  21. Posted · Edited by Christoph Stiepermann

    I'm a happy clapper. I'm content with our owners and our place in the footballing hierarchy at this moment in time, but i also live in the real world. We're almost certain to get relegated, we can't keep the ball out of our net, we have to work too hard to score at this level, we're weak on set pieces and most of our best talent is very young and very raw. I still support the team/club regardless. Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say there's a problem, but there also isn't a quick or simple solution to it. We are where we are at the moment. I hate losing as well, but Pep Guardiola with a 100m budget couldn't save us this season. We're not dropping down to L1 or going to have to endure a fire sale, next season should be very interesting given the budget we'll have. 

     

    And who knows what will happen in the future. The bottom half of the PL went from very strong to very, very weak between our promotion in 2004 and 2010. We could get promoted again in a few years, adopt the same strategy but find ourselves competing with less intense competition next time round. This is the strongest PL I have ever seen, we've been quite unlucky to be a promoted club this year but circumstance could change in the future. 

    • Like 3

  22. Posted

    One or two players isn't going to make a difference. The whole squad and playing style isn't built for surviving in this league, we're good at things that don't make a difference at this level and awfully weak at things that are crucial.  

     

    For all the money and exotic names in this league the playing style and squad composition in this league is incredibly cynical and rudimentary. Every team relies primarily on pace, height, power, set pieces, counter attacking and defending deep in numbers. Villa at times today for example had 10 men behind the ball for huge patches of the game at home, against a smaller club with a team assembled on a shoestring. 10 years ago that would have been seen as farcical, but it's the norm nowadays. Every bottom 14 club apart from ours in this league is run and managed ruthlessly for a singular purpose of results and survival at this level, we're being managed differently, less ideally for this particular challenge and on a very challenging budget. 

    Adding a few players in January won't make the slightest bit of difference come the end of the season so I'd rather we kept our powder dry, saved the cash and build a more solid base this summer going into next seasons Championship campaign. This season is a write off, there's enjoyment to be had watching our underdog team competing against massive odds every game, but we're going down regardless. I really hope we don't panic buy. 

  23. Posted

    First time I've ever not voted. Couldn't care less anymore, I don't believe any of those parties are fit to lead the country. Any political system is going to deliberately make things better for one group of people while making it worse for others, all the potential PM's are blithering idiots and 90% of the populace in this country hasn't got a clue about anything. Bored of it all now, I wish everyone else would tire of it as well, turn off the news, put down their papers and get on with their life without worrying about bloody politics. 

    If voting actually mattered or could change anything they wouldn't let you do it.

  24. Posted · Edited by Christoph Stiepermann

    On 08/12/2019 at 21:24, Jim Smith said:

    I just don’t accept that. There have been times, including this season where I think we would have been extremely attractive to potential purchasers. Really all they need to do infrastructure wise is find a new stand. 
     

    That is if our owners are not looking to make a big profit out of selling the club!

     

    It's just reality I'm afraid. Areas like the midlands, south coast, London suburbs ect are very attractive to potential investors, Norfolk and Norwich aren't. 

     

    If any of them had been fortunate enough to grow up in Norwich they would see and understand what an amazing place it is to live filled with brilliant people and with near unlimited potential. But you have to live or have lived here to know that. It's why so many of our staff and players grow attached to the place but we sometimes have to literally throw money at players (ie Naismith) to uproot and come here if they're not familiar with the place. 

     

    To a foreign billionaire, we're just like the Nebraska or Minnesota of England. a backwards nowheresville with no money, little potential and no global exposure. The only kinds of owners who would be interested in us are marcus Evans type shysters just looking for a quick profit or fans like Delia and MWJ, that's just how it is atm.

     

    If this model succeeds however and we become a well known conveyor belt for globally recognised talent that always makes money this could change  and we could become investable. But this model is in it's infancy, we're not all that well known for producing talent apart from Maddison (Who was developed at Coventry) yet so as it stands no one wants to invest. But if we sell a few players for 20/30/40 Million over the next few years they'll soon be callers. My advice for these tough times is just to support and know that if we succeed it will give us a chance to get lucrative investment in the future. But yes, we're 99% likely to go down this year, which sucks, but we are where we are and we have no other choice atm. 

  25. Posted

    On 09/12/2019 at 18:24, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:


    Nash Game Theory assumes that self-interest encourages competitors to find and use the optimum strategy in any given scenario. 

    There is criticism - common when results are negative - of tactics, substitutions, Board, philosophy, strategy, lack of Plan B* and quality. 

    There are pages of quick-fire simplistic solutions all over this board implying that ‘if only we did x, or if only we did y’ we’d be better off, surviving, thriving, competing better. 

    In that context - and to make an empirical judgment - the only meaningful question is: ‘Are we doing the best we can with the parameters we have?’

    The painful Nashian evaluation might well be that this is ‘as good as it gets’. *Plan B does not need to exist if Plan A is already the best you can do with what you have. Which is not the same as winning every (or in fact any) week.

    Farke’s defence - and by extension the Club’s unless contradicted - is that the limits of the finances (ergo the limits of the self-sustaining model) ensure that we have a ‘youthful’ (trans: naive, inexperienced as well as ‘young in age’) team that is learning on the job, increasing in education and increasing in value as an asset, further sustaining the model. 

    The concentration of youth in defence (and conversely age in attack), can be observed to be the photo-negative of the typical approach whereby (to exaggerate to make the point) old sweats - battle-hardened, scarred and negative - have the appropriate, fearful, danger-lurks-around-every-corner mindset to keep goals out, whilst young, fearless, carefree, try-anything-once, zippy-footed youngsters bear down spontaneously on goal, making it hard to determine their next move and increasing the chances of scoring. 

    That teams and players are significantly better en bloc at Premier level can be clearly noted. Systems are as strong as their weakest point and teams have the funds, depth of resources and analysis to minimise, amortise and prioritise their weaknesses. 

    The optimum strategy to disturb Norwich’s tactics philosophy might be observed to be a well-coordinated high press, with dynamic physicality and a particular focus on the dedicated tempo-playmaker (vid the targeting of Leitner).

    But wait. That’s not exactly news is it? Didn’t everyone know to do that last year in the Championship? 

    A clear example of how and why it is greater quality, finer coordination - not Norwich failing in some way - that sees our negative outcomes repeating can be seen in the intelligence, unity and coordination of the high press against us. A press that contains 6 players moving in synch not 3 makes a fundamental difference. Players that can mentally repeat this process better, for longer and can then do something penetrative and meaningful with the ball after they have achieved a turnover  (perhaps at the fourth time of trying). They then do it all again after making an assist or scoring. Do not underestimate how impressive this is. It just doesn’t exist to anything like this level in the Championship. And all Premier teams can do it. 

    Pukki’s exceptional goalscoring of course bailed us out multiple times from some average performances last season, he now gets less space, less chances and the increased pressure on defending inevitably leads to more exposure to danger and less creation. In the Championship other teams miss and waste a far higher percentage of chances, encouraging and rewarding more open strategies (to the point of cavalier: vid Alex Neil). It can be observed that you simply don’t have to focus so hard on defending and minimising chance creation against you under these parameters. That you may not be mentally, tactically or physically equipped to amend this failing at a later date at a higher level can also be observed. 

    Buendia -  arguably second in influence over outcomes last season behind Pukki - has been less able to exploit a half second of time and space than he was a full second of it in the Championship. Conversely Cantwell, statistically far less effect in the Championship than Buendia (and others) - indeed he was arguably peripheral for much of the Championship campaign - has shown himself well able to replicate what he can do at the top level with comparatively much less time to do it in. This does not inevitably meant that he will dominate - or even succeed - if returned to the Championship. 

    This is what scouts and Coaches really look for. Not really FM2019 style stats on who has done what - anybody can find and filter those - but rather ‘does what he does translate to a higher level? Will he be able to do the same thing with less time, under greater pressure, when he has to think faster, when his mistakes cost him more, when he is exposed to brighter lights?’
    You might note that England has typically dominated smaller teams - often beating them far more heavily in qualifying than other major nations - only to regularly come up short when in the latter stages of a tournament. This is why. The style of play and methodology  (until recently) dominated at lower levels and was conversely ill-suited to higher levels. One does not prove the other. 

    In the Championship goals are often scored by a relatively limited number of players. Often not lots of midfielders or defenders score repeatedly (we were an exception) and coaching dangers can be reasonably targeted on limited areas. In the Premier it is far less the case that you can discount some areas, players and possibilities as nearly all players are capable of causing problems if left unattended. 

    Norwich have also made a stylistic decision that has implications for the type of player they recruit and play as Farke has repeatedly stressed. The approach of our contemporaries is instructive here to counterpoint our philosophy. Villa and Sheffield United have followed the tried-and-tested received wisdom of the ‘winning the mini-League’ and adopting defensive-minded strategies with high physicality and athleticism to spoil, disrupt and compete with similar sides and restrict chances of big beatings - with the hope of the odd ‘cup win’ style victory against an off-colour superior. Heightened physicality -  often (outside of very high prices) with a corollary of less fluid technicality - can thus be observed as an advance acceptance of mini-league membership. We decided to do different, aware of the risks. 

    We can be observed to have attempted (actually ‘be copying’) the style of top level clubs in a desire to dominate possession and win games by ‘being better’ than the opposition. This is an ambitious and attractive approach that - let us not forget - was well able to dominate the Championship where ‘spoilers’ abound. It can be observed - currently - to be a style of play suited to playing better teams ( Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, even Liverpool) who have a similar approach, albeit with far greater resources. 

    The sit-tight-and-counter-attack approach is far safer tactically (disclaimer: it might be observed that this is actually what we de-facto did vs Man City) and whilst it concedes possession, it does not threaten your own defensive shape in the way that fluid attacking and brave chance-creation often does. 

    The apparent bete-noire for Norwich of weak set-piece defending via zonal marking is true and not true. Zonal marking exists in man-to-man marking systems too. Putting men on the posts is a zone no? The perceived danger of an opponent ‘getting a run on you’ via Zonal should be negated by simply filling the area they want to run into by having lots of strategically-placed bodies there (which we do). Opponents can’t often (if ever) score from headers from the penalty spot outwards, so we are not talking about a huge strip of zonal land here. Zonal can encourage the keeper to come more, which can equally be  good or bad. The truth is that lots of goals are scored by set pieces and good delivery is hard for anyone - and any system - to defend. Players switching off is switching off, zonal or not. If you defend a lot, you will logically have to defend more set pieces. If you defend more of them, you’ll concede more from them. Concessions from zonal do look awful though, so they may imprint deeper as a negative image on all. I would be lying if I said I thought all Norwich defenders looked comfortable with the current set piece defensive set up however. 

    Money cannot be excluded in the margins of a game either. Many Premier clubs pay high sums for game-changing Plan B subs. A Crouch, Fellaini, Carroll,  a set piece specialist (throws, direct free kicks, sharp delivery). We have a good, balanced squad with interchangeable players. We cannot buy top end weapons to sit on the bench ‘just in case’ as others can.

    As Nash knows, there is no point in Plan B if the odds still favour Plan A (even if ‘pub’ humans like change for change’s sake in the mistaken belief that it must inherently be better). There will be plenty of flaws in a 6/10 strategy and this board is full of some of them. Unfortunately too often the ‘solutions’ are simply anything and everything that the current strategy isn’t. This is easy to prescribe, though it in no way proves that any such change would derive a better outcome. It is Farke and Webber’s raison d’etre, their life’s work to achieve the best outcome, the maximum output from the resources available. Racing a Fiat against a Ferrari takes more than a good driver however. 

    We have a clear identity. A clear methodology and style of play. It is now well-drilled and established in the minds of the players. There is no confusion, no lack of cohesion, no misunderstanding of what is required individually and collectively. The players purchased fit the model well, the players grown and nurtured are well-schooled in what the coach needs and wants to achieve. This has and will create a good ‘floor’ to outcomes. Our clarity and consistency of message should and will ensure that performance levels - over an extended period (including perhaps the Championship) remain above the ‘floor’ level. 

    It would be naive and disingenuous to imagine that no corollary ‘ceiling’ exists under a self-sustaining model however. Over time - in theory - there are no limits to the model, though a 2020 Championship team without Pukki might well not repeat the surprising and wonderful victory of last season. Goals are much harder to replace than anything else - regardless of the elegant construction of any model - and they can cover a multitude of sins. If buying goals is hard, growing them is harder. 

    If the ruthless approach to transfers this season is due to a long-term infrastructure plan that included not only the training ground, but also the stadium itself, this might be a vote-winner. Giving those who earned success a fair chance is fair-minded, though perhaps romantic in professional sport. Providing an educational platform for young, ascending assets should be economically sound and admirably advertises the model to tomorrow’s candidates, though is quite possibly compromising in immediate sporting terms. 

    There is of course an issue with long-term vision and golden promises of jam tomorrow. Like it or not in our Football world there is the Premier League and far, far behind - in media, money, global interest, exposure, excitement - there is everything else. 

    There is no linear progression, football has changed. Money has changed it dramatically. Small teams historically are now strong economic entities with rich (maybe distant) owners, huge historic clubs floundering - despite maintaining gates at turnstiles - because it pales into insignificance versus TV revenues. Conversely you need a bigger stadium out of the Premier League when you no longer have guaranteed demand to fill it and - horribly - you could shut the stadium and show all your games online via Amazon and make a fortune while at the top tier. Our model is a good one, an elegant one, one to be proud of and support, much of it of eternal good sense regardless of means. Though in truth it was born out of necessity, dressed as choice. It is retrospective justification for what needs to be. We would spend more if we had it. 

    We are doing as well as we can - the manager, the players, the sporting team, the board - with what we have. Nash would be proud. 

    Parma

    Read this, enjoyed it and immediately thought of the casting pearls at swine metaphor, wcorkcanary beat me to it though. I have one follow up question Parma, I understand and enjoy our style of play for the most part, but why do we almost never switch the play horizontally? We seem to always favour playing ourselves into trouble in tight areas to concede possession or a throw in whereas most other possession based teams like to switch the play from one side to the other when they run into congested areas which often leaves the opposition exposed when they're pressing and creates a chance, i look at Leeds and Derby last year as an example. I feel this is one area of our game that we could improve on, exploit and I can't for the life of me understand why we don't especially as we often have a full back in space, unmarked on the other side of the pitch to where the ball is in most instances. It frustrates the hell out of me and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on this from a coaching perspective? Thanks. 

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