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lake district canary

Well? What do you want? Attack or defence?

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Well, most of you castigated an apparent defensive approach by Hughton and complained at lack of entertainment.  Well what we witnessed today was a match of enterprising football from Norwich where we attacked and took the game to Newcastle and were in the match with some good quality possession and attack.  Great stuff, except for one thing......we lost.    But on another day we could have had four or five goals ourselves and if one of our chances had gone in earlier it might have pegged back Newcastle from scoring the goals they did.  So was it so terrible today?  Imo, no.  It was unfortunate - Wes coming on for Tettey was a mistake - and I suspect it won''t happen again - but apart from that, there were a lot of good things from us.   I certainly enjoyed our attacking play and if we can outscore teams, or at least score plenty of goals, we will at least have some entertainment this season. So what is it to be?    Revert back to two solid lines of four, like Hughton, or have a go?   You can''t have it both ways.  The worst that can happen is that we are relegated, but at least we''ll have had a good go.  So rather than the ridiculing certain players, how about recognising the enterprising approach we had today and enjoy the attack and possession we had?  We all know we need to improve defensively - and will have to - but be careful before you start shouting too loudly about being too open - the alternative is to close it up and stop being so attacking - and before you know it, we might be back trying to stifle other teams and then losing anyway - like we did under Hughton.  Personally, I loved some of our attacking play and possession today - it''s what I want to see from our team.  We lost. Disappointing - but at east we had a go.  AN is still learning - and straight away recognised his mistake in taking off Tettey.  Obviously improvements to be made, but I am tempted to say sshh! at some of you because you shout out and lash out regardless.  6-2 flattered Newcastle and in an open game, we could have scored 5 or 6 ourselves.  

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I agree to a large extent but there is an element of naivity in our play. We throw far too many players forward who then don''t chase back quickly enough. Give the ball away too often and are caught ball watching. Four against four our defence isn''t good enough let alone 3 against 4.

We didn''t have much luck today, but if our two shots that hit the post, had gone in, we would still have lost 6-4.

Not enough of our players are playing well enough to affect the game. We need to drop a few to get the message across it seems.

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Theres 2 reasons we lost today. One of which is the attacking tactics, especially the Tettey switch, but the second has nothing to do with the fact we pushed people up. Its that our defenders do not know how to defend.

I watched several replays of Mitrovic''s goal trying to work out how there was so much space between Martin and Whittaker. At no point did I see Martin look to see where Mitrovic was, he got drawn across leaving the space which Whittaker didnt fill. Same happened with one of Wijnaldum''s goals. Twice Martin gets taken out of the game with crosses by completely ignoring any attackers.

On to Whittaker. Why is he never tighter on players? The amount of times and ease of which crosses (or today, shots) get past him is criminal.

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[quote user="lake district canary"]Well, most of you castigated an apparent defensive approach by Hughton and complained at lack of entertainment.  Well what we witnessed today was a match of enterprising football from Norwich where we attacked and took the game to Newcastle and were in the match with some good quality possession and attack.  Great stuff, except for one thing......we lost.    But on another day we could have had four or five goals ourselves and if one of our chances had gone in earlier it might have pegged back Newcastle from scoring the goals they did.  So was it so terrible today?  Imo, no.  It was unfortunate - Wes coming on for Tettey was a mistake - and I suspect it won''t happen again - but apart from that, there were a lot of good things from us.   I certainly enjoyed our attacking play and if we can outscore teams, or at least score plenty of goals, we will at least have some entertainment this season. So what is it to be?    Revert back to two solid lines of four, like Hughton, or have a go?   You can''t have it both ways.  The worst that can happen is that we are relegated, but at least we''ll have had a good go.  So rather than the ridiculing certain players, how about recognising the enterprising approach we had today and enjoy the attack and possession we had?  We all know we need to improve defensively - and will have to - but be careful before you start shouting too loudly about being too open - the alternative is to close it up and stop being so attacking - and before you know it, we might be back trying to stifle other teams and then losing anyway - like we did under Hughton.  Personally, I loved some of our attacking play and possession today - it''s what I want to see from our team.  We lost. Disappointing - but at east we had a go.  AN is still learning - and straight away recognised his mistake in taking off Tettey.  Obviously improvements to be made, but I am tempted to say sshh! at some of you because you shout out and lash out regardless.  6-2 flattered Newcastle and in an open game, we could have scored 5 or 6 ourselves.  [/quote]The idea is to have both, depending as to what is required at any given time in the game, its called tactical awareness.The point is that you can have it both ways, Alex Neil''s approach right now is very similar to Lambert''s first season in the Premiership. He is going to have to learn quickly. When we were 3-2 down there was no real need for ridiculous pressing, it was the time to be patient, and use your head, there was plenty left of the game.So, why exactly was Wes coming on for Tettey a mistake, when we were chasing the game, really don''t understand your logic here, in one breath you are praising creative flair, then in the next saying it was a mistake? Do you think it was one, or are you just saying it because Alex Neil said it was? What change would you have made?

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The fact is that defensivley we have been incredibly naive so far this season. Trying to play our way out of situations at the back every time is a recipe for conceding goals, we are not Barcelona. As for the statement that you can''t have attacking football and defensive soundness at the same time, I don''t think you really understand football Lakey. The whole idea of the game, on a very basic level, is to score as many goals as you can whilst restricting your opposition to as few goals as possible. Stoke managed it last season, Southampton and Swansea have been doing it on a more regular basis than the Potters. These teams are of a similar size and reputation to us, so if they can do it why can''t we? Why does it have to be kamikaze gung-ho football or park the bus? Why can''t we aspire to causing teams problems whilst keeping it tight at the back?

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You are saying attack under Alex or defend under Hughton, which do we prefer? To be honest it makes no difference as its the same defence under both regimes, and leads to the same result, relegation. The club failed big time in the summer not changing or strengthening our defence and now we are stuck with it this season yet again. I did not enjoy the negativity of the Hughton style, and i do not enjoy the gung ho suicidal openness of our  performance at Newcastle. Alex has to learn to find a good attacking style while keeping the defence much more solid and cohesive, but first and formost  we need changes at the back, but of course we are incredibly limited, with only Wisdom and Ryan Bennett as options.Having said all that, even with our current defence, we did somehow  manage to get a point at Liverpool and West Ham, so we just have to hope...but its going to be a long season. LDC you say at worst  we can only get relegated...oh please...personally ive had my fill of going up then down again, our club could and should be more than a QPR, but until the likes of Martin and Whittaker are replaced then i see us going down again, and not necessarily coming back up for awhile next time.

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Without a Tetty type player in front of the back four we are badly exposed. Taking him off was the wrong decision, we had enough on the pitch to score more goals without taking that risk.

But If AN''s decision had come off we would all be calling him a genius, with his style of play we will see more defeats like this but I am sure we will also see some amazing comebacks. Give me this over the turged style of Hughton any day.

Having said this it was very very disappointing that we failed to sign some better quality defenders in the transfer window.

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At least AN has a go & tries to win games. Sometimes it will come off & sometimes it won''t.Give me that anyday over negative tactics where the one & only objective is to stop the other team scoring.In reality we could have scored another 2 or 3 yesterday & we could have had a penalty (pull on Howson)If we had got to 3-3 we would have probably won.We just got a bit too excited & too gung-ho when we were on top at the start of the 2nd half.

 

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As Morty, Iwan and others have said, it''s not a question of EITHER/OR; if you get the balance right you can have both. AN hasn''t yet got the balance right (just as CH didn''t get it right either). People keep on about defensive deficiencies in the back four but IMO that is a misdiagnosis. The main problem is over-committing in attack with no thought to maintaining cover in case of breakdown.

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Iwan''s big toe - "as for the statement that you can''t have attacking football and defensive

soundness at the same time, I don''t think you really understand

football Lakey.""
Err...right.....show me where I said that.  Oh no, you can''t.......

Morty - "I don''t think you really understand

football Lakey [:D] "

I genuinely feel sorry for you  that you keep having to revel in such stuff.   As for your question earlier about Tettey/Wes - I don''t think there is a Norwich supporter out there who  wouldn''t have raised an eyebrow at that substitution. Tettey - the one man with the speed and pace to match the pace of the Newcastle strikers.  It was a bold move, but it didn''t work. 

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[quote user="lake district canary"]Iwan''s big toe - "as for the statement that you can''t have attacking football and defensive

soundness at the same time, I don''t think you really understand

football Lakey.""
Err...right.....show me where I said that.  Oh no, you can''t.......

Morty - "I don''t think you really understand

football Lakey [:D] "

I genuinely feel sorry for you  that you keep having to revel in such stuff.   As for your question earlier about Tettey/Wes - I don''t think there is a Norwich supporter out there who  wouldn''t have raised an eyebrow at that substitution. Tettey - the one man with the speed and pace to match the pace of the Newcastle strikers.  It was a bold move, but it didn''t work. 

[/quote]Oh shut your whining.Yes you did imply you can only have one or the other.Getting back to the point, which you didn''t really answer, Alex wanted to bring Wes into the game, so someone had to go. And if you listen to his interview he said that we were losing the game anyway, so taking off a defensive player, and bringing on an offensive one, is hardly that off the wall. And frankly, I was at the game, and didn''t see many eyebrows raised.

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It''s never as simple as how attacking or defensive we are. We look good when teams sit off us and let us enjoy lots of possession, which has meant that we''ve often flattered to deceive.I think we need to tweak things on the field and have a radical overhaul off it.

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Swapping Tettey for Wes still left imus with two central midfield players, it was hardly a suicidal move. Not as defensively sound as Tetts by any means, but still. Tettey was tiring and having a poor game anyway. None of my eyebrows were raised at the sub; indeed I thought it was a bold move to get back into the game. It''s something Chris Hughton would never have dared to do and I applaud AN for his no fear approach.

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[quote user="Wes Hooly Fan"]Swapping Tettey for Wes still left imus with two central midfield players, it was hardly a suicidal move. Not as defensively sound as Tetts by any means, but still. Tettey was tiring and having a poor game anyway. None of my eyebrows were raised at the sub; indeed I thought it was a bold move to get back into the game. It''s something Chris Hughton would never have dared to do and I applaud AN for his no fear approach.[/quote][Y]

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The game was lost before that substitution, by pressing just that bit too hard at 3-2.I think Alex underestimate Newcastle a bit, he is normally good at his homework too.He is going to have to learn to play smart, and realise that "blitzkreig" isn''t always going to work.

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[quote user="Wes Hooly Fan"]Swapping Tettey for Wes still left imus with two central midfield players, it was hardly a suicidal move. Not as defensively sound as Tetts by any means, but still. Tettey was tiring and having a poor game anyway. None of my eyebrows were raised at the sub; indeed I thought it was a bold move to get back into the game. It''s something Chris Hughton would never have dared to do and I applaud AN for his no fear approach.[/quote]

I applaud AN for his boldness too - as much as I used applaud Hughton for attempting to keep a good shape in defending.  All managers have their faults - and maybe we will get caught out more this season through being too bold than being too defensive - but in essence - the game yesterday was magnificent compared to our last two visits to Newcastle - we were attacking in style, looked good on the ball and were in the game until the fourth goal.  The team got sucker punched too many times, but at least we had a go.   The thread was to ask the question about attack and defence.  Neil attacks - and that imo is great.   I just hope that enough people appreciate that, rather than start the same old bandwagon of castigating players and the manager for what they are trying to do.   We''ve had the usual "board inept" thread, we''ve had the usual ridiculing of our defence (even though the midfield have responsibilities too) and we''ve had the AN "naive" threads.  Lets keep it real under this manager and enjoy what he is trying to do. 

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Re-The SubstitutionIt was the right change but at the wrong time.There was still 30 minutes to go, in a game we were absolutely dominating. There was no panic, we were creating chances, it was almost like Attack v Defence. We had already scored two against a fragile Newcastle defence and from 3-1 down, 3-3 would have been a perfectly respectable result. The change stank of desperation and ultimately that change and the complete lack of ability to deal with any counter attack cost us.As a team the players have to wise up, as a club we need serious investment right across the back five.

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I''m not sure AN underestimated Newcastle, I think he took the view that with their results so far this season and a very nervous crowd, by pressing them hard we could well cause their fragile confidence to shatter, as it happened it didn''t work that way!

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I still rather find it endearing how you''re still beating your Hughton drum, Lakey. 18 months after his sacking and you still manage to try and defend him.

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[quote user="Vanwink"]I''m not sure AN underestimated Newcastle, I think he took the view that with their results so far this season and a very nervous crowd, by pressing them hard we could well cause their fragile confidence to shatter, as it happened it didn''t work that way![/quote]So that really bears out the point then, doesn''t it?

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[quote user="Wes Hooly Fan"]I still rather find it endearing how you''re still beating your Hughton drum, Lakey. 18 months after his sacking and you still manage to try and defend him.[/quote]Not in the least. Just asking the question as to why some apparent Norwich fans are so self-destructive in their attitude towards their club.  Complain bitterly when we defend too much and then complain bitterly when we attack too much.   The ideal, of course is to get the balance right between attack and defence - but if we did that every week we would be top of the table.   The defence yesterday were left too exposed - that can be addressed, but if this board descends into a witch hunt resembling the Hughton era because we are attacking too much, then I will be as vociferous about that as I was about Hughton. 

The defenders looked poor yeterday at times - because of the quality and speed of the attackers combined with a lack of cover from midfield.  Not because they are bad players.

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I''ll take a win thanks. We are newly promoted and not in a position to expect results and good football. If we drew every remaining game 0-0 and stayed up, id rather that than do a Blackpool and score loads but go down

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[quote user="Tetteys Jig"]I''ll take a win thanks. We are newly promoted and not in a position to expect results and good football. If we drew every remaining game 0-0 and stayed up, id rather that than do a Blackpool and score loads but go down[/quote]You don''t think we should expect good football?As someone who spent nearly 11 hours, in total, on a coach yesterday I would expect at least a wee bit of entertainment.

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