Petriix

The irony is that Farke had that first win and could well have turned the corner. We'll obviously never know, but I find it hard to imagine that we would have done worse under Farke.

Dowell wasn't the problem. Gilmour and McLean are, by some distance, the worst midfield pairing I've seen in the Premier League.

I've seen nothing from Smith since the second half against Southampton to show that he can get more than Farke could out of this squad. He initially looked like he could at least organise the defence, but that has gone out of the window. We look amateur.

The comparative records over 7 games are now almost identical: both 1 win, 2 draws and 4 losses; under Farke we scored 4 and conceded 15, under Smith its 3 for and 13 against. However you want to dress it up, whatever excuses you want to make, we are no better under Smith. If anything, we're getting worse. The midfield problems are identical and we simply don't look like we can create chances.

Totally agree about the bat bridges. I made a website for an ecologist who explained just how pointless they are. It just proves that you can spend a lot of money on ticking a box while gaining precisely zero. That pretty much sums up our last transfer window. But I don't agree that we shouldn't spend in January. We could do with assembling a team which might compete for 2nd in next season's Championship.

Gilmour lost the ball on the right wing, deep in the Villa half. That's where he should have put in a foul to prevent the counter. He needs to realise that, if he's committed that high up the pitch, there's a hole he's left behind him. A simple foul to prevent an overload, it's hardly rocket surgery. The second goal, Gilmour makes a weak attempt to win the ball but doesn't commit. If he takes man and ball, he might get booked, but it might just be a free kick which we can defend. Instead he leaves his man a free run into the box. It's this side of his game that makes him a liability. Less of a problem with a solid defence behind him, but we're fragile and have to rely on everyone doing their job for it to work. It almost wouldn't matter if he was making up for it at the other end of pitch with goals assists, but he's not.

You've picked out the defence, which I can understand. But I'd blame the midfield. Gilmour should be putting in a robust challenge for both and either winning the ball or fouling his man. It's amateur.

Because Farke was improving and ended with a win whereas Smith started with a win before drawing and then losing. The records across those 6 games are almost identical in both goals for and against with the exception of the 4 more goals we conceded against Chelsea than the 3 we conceded against Spurs. Hardly massively better in defence. Farke actually had one more clean sheet in that time (2 vs Smith's 1) and only conceded 4 vs Smith's 5 in the other 5 games. In any case I'm not blaming Smith so much as looking at the overall squad and thinking it's simply not good enough. Smith hasn't improved things so far and has gone backwards after his positive start. Let's review it again after his next 5 games when they've had 11 each. Hopefully Smith will do better in these than the 0 points Farke mustered.

Just like we could have been 17th if we'd beaten Man Utd 14-0. Hypothetically possible, but about as likely as dropping a ball bearing out of a jumbo jet and it landing on an egg sandwich.

I wish we would do something a bit more creative with our corners. We're so bad at attacking headers direct from crosses that I think we should take lots more short corners or try drilling it low to the edge of the box etc. But no, it's the same every time.

Interesting that you see it that way. I like your optimism, but I'm struggling to see it. I think the squad is weaker now than even three seasons ago. We're missing the key creative players as well as any kind of defensive midfield. I'm probably just feeling miserable rather than looking with any degree of objectivity. It was simply a reflection that they had a near identical record rather than anything else; that and how we ended on the up under Farke and appear to be getting worse under Smith. I accept it's not a massive sample, but we're running out of 'winnable' games - where do you think the 8 wins and 6 draws we need to reach 40 points will come from? We only have 21 games left. I didn't claim that, just asked the question. Aside from the Chelsea drubbing in comparison to the 3-0 loss to Spurs, the results have been basically the same, just those 4 extra goals conceded by Farke's team. There is a reasonable argument that Smith's fixtures have been marginally easier, certainly in terms of the top sides faced. Ultimately I'm not jumping to conclusions, just stating my alarm at how we haven't actually built on those early signs of improvement under Smith and have reverted to the same patterns that saw Farke get sacked. If you can reassure me that this is just a blip due to injuries/Covid then that's great. I'm feeling pessimistic, that's all.

There's a remarkable similarly (or symmetry even) between Farke's last 6 games and Smith's first 6. One win, two draws, three goals scored, a couple of games where we could or should have got more. The differences are there, but not enormous. It's impossible to know whether Farke had just about turned the corner and was getting more out of the team, but it's pointless to speculate. We can't ignore the rest of his Premier League record. Smith has stopped us conceding so many, but that might be down to the opposition rather than his coaching. The initial signs were good in that we were giving it a go, playing with more intensity and creating chances. But it has descended right back to the same situation as under Farke. The midfield issues have returned in identical form. The lack of attacking intent combined with hoofing it long has resurfaced. It's all very well to keep Man Utd at bay for 80 minutes or to start brightly against Spurs, but those games won't define our season. It's Newcastle away against 10 men and Villa at home where we need to pick up the points. If the managers are so similar then you need to look at the squad. Ok, we're suddenly missing a bunch of players, but where are the exciting young prospects champing at the bit ready to take the chance? Where are the leaders in the dressing room? It's pretty clear that the squad has been mismanaged. I'm not so worried about this season because it's been a lost cause for a while now. It's next year that I'm worried about. We've gone backwards while spending record amounts on poor players. It would be pretty miraculous if Smith could repeat Farke's Championship success with this squad (minus the loanees). Not impossible, but I'm struggling to imagine it right now. I keep telling myself that the bad times in football are what mak the good times good. I just fear we're going to realise over the next couple of years just how good the recent good times have been.

Like a steaming pile of **** right now.

Absolutely this. Vrancic would be a massive improvement. I don't think Gilmour has even attempted a throughball. And don't get me started on committing a proper foul to prevent a dangerous attack.

I started a very similarly titled thread a couple of months ago, ironically while Farke was still at the helm. I was gutted that Farke had abandoned his style with fairly catastrophic consequences. Smith brought a semblance of order to the chaos, but we're ultimately no further forward. The dream of survival is masking the deeper issues. The squad has been totally mismanaged to the extent that I can't see us being competitive in the Championship next season. We've lost the two best players from our last promotion in Skipp and Buendia , and our remaining best player, Cantwell, has become a shadow of his previous self. We've lost Vrancic and Stiepermann too. That's a lot of goals we're going to struggle to replicate, and a seriously weakened defensive unit to boot. The players we've signed are nowhere near the level of those we've moved on. Rashica is no better than Placheta or Hernandez, Tzolis has shown nothing and Sargent is pretty similar to Hugill but without the goal threat. So, now there's no real chance of playing that dynamic, attacking transition play where we swiftly work through the phases. We just don't have the quality on the pitch, let alone the cohesive collective understanding of what we are trying to do. It's a shambles. Now it's possible that Smith has his own style which might get the team working together in a way that we've not yet seen. There have been some good signs. But it's lacking the final bit where we kick it into the goal. We've scored exactly 3 times in his tenure: all from crosses. I'm struggling to see where the goals are coming from.

'Within' has always included the whole of the line. It may have been clarified, but it wasn't changed in 1997. The ball still has to be placed within the quadrant.

'On the line' means intersecting the vertical plane of the line, just like any other line on the pitch. It's not rocket science.

I've never questioned his work on the ball. Although he played a number of slightly dubious passes backwards into dangerous positions, I'm more in favour than most of passing sideways and backwards where necessary. I also tend to agree that taking up good positions without actually touching the ball is important, but this is where our views diverge: it's not about what a player generally does, it's about the frequency and severity of when they get it wrong. There were several occasions in the first half where Gilmour got caught out of position, allowing players to drive into the space in the middle of the pitch. Thankfully these came to nothing as the defence were very good at covering off the danger. Gilmour was by far the worst offender in our midfield while Rupp was pretty much faultless and McLean had just one headless chicken moment that I can recall. There was a marked improvement in the second half, as if he'd had a bit of a bollocking at halftime. Suddenly he was tracking runs with real energy and generally working much harder defensively. He still needs to learn when to put the boot in and risk giving away a minor foul in a safe area to prevent a more dangerous overload from playing out. You're not wrong that he's the first name in the team, but that's more an unfortunate reflection of our poor summer transfer business than credit to Billy. He's still a liability and yet to show any significant attacking contribution. I want to see him at least attempting a few early through-balls for Pukki.

I agree that Rupp was excellent. McLean had some good and some bad moments. Gilmour was pretty poor in the first half and grew into the game at the beginning of the second half, but I'd hardly call his performance 'good'. In my opinion he was our worst player on the pitch until PLM came on. Sorensen would come in for Gilmour for me.

Yes, I totally think Sorensen could be the closest thing to a Skipp replacement that we have. It's baffling how he hasn't appeared in midfield for us.

17m is about 30% of the country. I wonder how many of them would vote differently if given the chance now that the reality is starting to bite?

Right, here's our chance to get out of the bottom 3. We just need to win by (checks table...) 14 goals. Shame this is probably the lowest quality Norwich team we've put out in the last 3 seasons.

I've not heard anyone suggest that Gilmour lacks in his passing ability. He mostly looks great when we have the ball. But it's his lack of awareness, positional discipline and general failure to track his man when out of possession that makes him a liability for us.

Conditions are so much better for batting today. It was an awful toss to win.

Yeah, not much apart from actually closing down the ball, getting goal side of your man or, heaven forbid, putting in a tackle. Shocking.