Hunter106

Haven''t really seen his name mentioned on here over the weekend, but it is quite possible that we are missing his presence at the moment. Obviously there seems to be problems with the formation being used but last season we often played better with him in the team, and perhaps one of the things that was missing at Fulham was Fox''s ability to command play and pick out a pass. What are peoples opinions on this?

[quote user="GJP"][quote user="Hunter106"]Can''t understand this. I guess Hughton must have missed Ward''s masterclass in defending against Liverpool at home.[/quote] Just...really?? I mean Elliott Ward was given the run around by a £20m forward on red hot form, playing for a massive club. A player who plays for one of the best international teams around at the moment and has scored goals at the World Cup. What Hughton will look to is that Elliott Ward''s good games for Norwich far outweigh his bad games. The criticism he gets from people like you is just ridiculous. Do Sir Alex and the Utd fans want rid of Vidic because he used to get murdered by Fernando Torres? No, course not. Most of the time he is much better than that. [/quote] Elliot Ward is not a Premiership player, or at least one of quality that will help us progress forward. That is just my opinion, which from what I have seen on the pitch can be justified by his performances, in particular the one against Liverpool seemed to encompass everything that he does wrong (caught out on the ball, suicidal passes, hesitant defending). All of those things are stuff that we as a club need to progress on, as we already know, you cant give £20million strikers these sort of opportunities.

Can''t understand this. I guess Hughton must have missed Ward''s masterclass in defending against Liverpool at home.

I wouldn''t be too worried. McNally said he is relaxed with the end of season activities. This would not hint at either Lambert or Holt going. Even if they do, the comment seems to suggest he believes there are adequate people out there to replace the both of them.

From the way things are going, it seems as though it is all indeed about wanting more money.

I really cannot see Holt wanting to go. His family seem settled in the area and I think from his comments and body language both on and off the pitch you can see how much he loves it here. People have suggested the fact that because he was a tyre fitter not so long ago could hint at him wanting to make the most of any opportunity for one last big pay day. However at the same time he should also realise how lucky he is, if he is on the reported 14,000 a week that some have suggested, then that is what some people have to live off a year, I am sure he was on close to that before he came professional in football.

I think its a difficult one to pick. Was thinking during the match that the best football Norwich have played this season in my opinion has been in the earlier games, where we played Bennett and Pilkington out on the flanks. The Stoke game comes to mind where I thought we played some fantastic football at times and both wingers looked class. With Bolton down there I would certainly return to a 4-5-1 formation with: Ruddy Naughton Ayala Whitbread Tierney (or Drury) Bennett Fox Johnson Pilkington Hoolahan Morrison However if Vaughan is fit, and Lambo thinks he can play a match without risking further injury then I would be tempted to throw him in instead of Hoolahan.

I see signing big names has done QPR well so far, two points off the bottom three hardly shows how its really the way forward. The way I see it is Norwich are a work in progress, and what a mighty fine piece of work we have been so far. If our group of young and inexperienced players can get us to 10th in the league, imagine the potential in future years to come when our players have matured and grown. I think that QPR need to realise that irrespective of where we finish this year, even if we somehow manage to finish 17th, the way QPR are going is just a short term fix. I am 100% certain that no matter how much money they splash out, next season they will be forever looking up the league table at us.

I think it is also important to point out that we only had 2 of our new signings playing today, with Lambert preferring to give those who got us promoted a chance to prove themselves, which is a fair thing to do considering where they have taken us. IMO this isn''t our strongest starting 11, therefore a point against Wigan seems pretty fair.

Thats a fair point that Lambert is able to adapt, but wouldn''t we be caught out by ''slow start'' syndrome whoever we brought? By buying ''proven'' players, this dosent automatically mean that we will get off to a flying start. And I don''t believe you are correct in saying that we have had a slow start to the two previous seasons under Lambert. For starters when he first joined us, we were pretty much rock bottom. Then slowly but surely we started to climb up the table. Now im not going to delve into all of the ''Gunn'' stuff but the slow start in League One was down to him in my opinion. Last season, we lost the first game, but I was looking through a few programmes and was amazed to see that we were second around October/November time. I had always though things had started to pick up round Christmas, and was really startled at how we had been round the top 6 for pretty much the whole season. Once again I dont think you can really class this as a slow start. As for the players not being anything special, from last year you had Croft''s who had just won Brighton''s player of the year, Jackson who had been on a scoring spree in League Two and was also a Canadian International, Fox was a bit of a gem of a find and Surman was someone who had promised so much in his early years but was plagued with injuries. This year Bennett was highly rated at Brighton, so much so the management would not sell him to us in January as they saw him as vital to their promotion campaign. Pilkington is also highly regarded and Clark and their fans rate him as good enough for the premiership. De Laat is putting in the performances, Naughton comes on good feedback, Vaughan is similar to Surman, Leeds wanted to keep Johnson and Morrison has obviously impressed Lambert so much as he was in for him in January. I dont think these show that the players are individually ''nothing special''. It''s also important to note that the individuals contribute to a whole team, and that has been the ethos that Lambert has built.

I was having a similar discussion today at work, about whether the fact that Lambert was buying unproven players was the right way to go. The way I see it is, Lambert wants to survive in the Premier League as much as we do, I think he has proven over the past two years that he knows exactly what he is doing, and understands the types of players he needs to bring in to both have the talent on the pitch and have the right ethos to fit in with his team. I am pretty sure that if Lambert believed the right way to go about things was to sign these proven players, then we would have seen the likes of Bullard, Boothroyd, Dyer, Graham come into the club. I cant believe that anyone would question his decisions, when he knows the ins and outs of football probably better than the 24,000 who regularly go to Carrow Road.

I think you have misunderstood where I am coming from. I was simply saying would people view the situation differently if Cody had made the impact that Chris Martin did in league one. As Cody was not given a good chance in League One, we cannot know what impact he would have had during both that season, and the previous one. What is for sure, is when called upon, Cody always did the job asked of him. It is also hard to simply write him off, because go back 6 months and how many on here would believe that Jackson would be going into the Premiership as one of our main strikers?

Although Cody may not be good enough for the Premiership, I wonder how people would have viewed him if he had taken the place of Chris Martin in league one and mirrored his achievements (ie. scored 20 odd goals). Some people are so quick to criticise Cody, yet so protective over Martin and believe he will make some impact on the PL.

Although I don'' personally know Chris Martin and therefore cant totally pass comment on his character, my cousin used to work with children with disabilities, and took a group of kids to colney or somewhere to do some training with a few of the first team squad. Apparently Chris came across as completely arrogant, looked as though he didn''t want to be there and paid little attention to the children who would have loved to have spent time with a character who might be a big inspiration to them. Lets just say in the short time he was there, he left such a negative impact on her. Obviously he has talent, but part and parcel of being famous is to deal with any abuse that may come your way in a sensible manner.

Last year we were the divisions top scorers, so that suggests to me that in the goals department we shouldn''t struggle too much. On the other hand, at times we were a bit shaky in defence. Although Graham may have scored more than Morrison, we don''t need the extra goals in the team, we need someone who is willing to be potential back up to Holt/Jackson. This shows massive commitment for me, Morrison knows he might sit on the bench for a lot of next season, but is confident enough/willing enough to prove himself in the Premiership that he will take that chance. Anyway, as others have said, there are so many ifs and buts. Nobody on here knows what will happen, or even if we might have put a bid in for Graham ourselves. If at the end of next season Graham scores 12+ yet Morrison only manages say 5 and we get relegated, then perhaps we can say that Lambert got this decision wrong. However if the difference between these two allows us to buy a quality defender or keeper, who keeps us in many games over the season, and we survive, then I don''t think anyone can moan. Plus lets remember, Lambert looked as though he was going to get the decision to buy Jackson wrong, and look how he turned out.