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lake district canary

Too open, yes, but unlucky too.

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Disappointed, yes - but not distraught.  We hit the post twice and should have had a penalty - and their last goal was a deflection too, so the game could have been a lot different.   AN knew he had made a mistake in putting Wes on for Tettey - he will learn from that - and the players know they deserved more goals themselves, given the balance of play.    The game was too open, but with a little more luck, we would have matched Newcastle, goal for goal.  So a poor day for us, but plenty to be postive about too - Newcastle''s day undoubtedly - but we can go away, lick our wounds and regroup for the upcoming matches. 

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Agree to a point but that''s two poorer performances on the bounce, this puts pressure on the next game as behind that comes the potential to crush our confidence with Chelsea, Arsenal & Man City to come.

We are bleeding goals which cost us last season up here, pretty much the same back 4 as then and its proved not to be up to the job. Time to gamble on Wisdom & Bennett?

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Agree to a certain extent.

Shocking defensively but they had large slice of luck for 2 goals, the last goal with the deflection and ricochet for Perez''s goal. Another goal was offside and shouldn''t have stood. And as you said, we hit the post twice and have a stone wall penalty turned down (AGAIN!!!) and would have been a red card for the defender as Howson was going to head into an empty net.

Another day could and should have been 4-4/5-5, but yeah no getting away from the defending.

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On the balance of play we were matching Newcastle.   The penalty decision - or lack of it was key - and the linesman should have seen it.  We also hit the post twice.  The Wes/Tettey decision was a mistake. It was not our day.  But it was not disastrous. Also, I wouldn''t complain if Wisdom and Bennett were given a go.

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"Plenty to be positive about too"?

Excuse me, losing 6-2 away to the team propping up the table, a team that has not, I repeat, has not won for 19 games in the EPL, in such a fashion like we did....I really see few, if any, positives.

Olsson´s crossing is a positive. Mbokani was OK.

Apart from that, it was pretty dire all around, right down from the manager all the way to John Ruddy.

Unlucky with the shots that hit the post, yes.

Also unlucky with the penalty incident.

But our real problem, and has been for ages, is our very soft spine. We have no enforcerer, not one who can tackle and do some much needed harrying.

And we need to play 2 def mids in every game due to the management not bringing in another central defender (with pace), so we need to "protect" Martin and Bassong in every game from the start.

Playing 2 def mids is OK, as most team do this, or a variant of it, but when these 2 def mids also lack pace and tackling ability, then we have little use for them.

In this game, you could see right away it was going to be open, and for me it was noticable from the start that Dorrans and Howson, in particular, were not up to speed. Olsson also looked suspect in the early skirmishes, looking rather slow to react, etc.

Whittaker is always a liability, so no news here. He was, also in this game.

For me, AN picked the wrong team by leaving Wes out. He wanted to be defensively solid, as if it was needed against a team leaking goals like Newcastle. Tactical mistake bigtime.

We should have gone for it right from the go, like we did at West Ham, and AN has been here long enouh to know that we dont have any defensive solidity in us, so we have to outscore the opposition to get something. Wes in the team at least increases the chance of outscoring the opposition.

I can understand that AN does not want to start with Wes AND Redmond always, at least not in away games. But against the team bottom of the table, shy of confidence, why does he not go for it properly from the start? Get a lead, bring the crown on the home teams backs, etc.

No, AN does pick a slightly negative setup from the start, inviting pressure, and inevitable our defences break, and we are on the backfoot.

And what does he do next? Any subs, any change of formation? No, he leaves it to the 60th (!!) minute before bringing Wes on, and in doing so, taking off our only defensively capable midfielder.

Horrible match management from AN, and he probably knows it.

I am starting to question his tactical nous now, as I have seen too many wrong starting XI´s, and also late reaction to match incidents which needs addressing. Not convinced so far.

I wonder where all the happy clappers claiming we have had a "solid start" are now? Hiding in the bush?

The fact is, we have had a poor start. 9 points from 9 games, 9 points from a possible 27, with the easiest setup of fixtures we could have wished for.

We have had some bad luck in matches, yes, but we are NOT making our own luck, by poor management, and poor selection of off-form players.

Why VOO is left out when Dorrans/Howson have been poor the last 2-3 games is beyond me.

I think AN is also partly "guilty" of not creating enough real competition for places in the team.

Is Lafferty, VOO, Wisdom getting a fair chance of challenging for a spot?

This failure of creating a competitive environment comes back to haunt us when players feel too secure of their place in the team. Howson certainly does not look like he is fearful of the drop, is he?

And Ruddy, is he really soooo much better than Rudd?

The questions are many, and we are voefully short of answers these days.

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Great point Grefstad, your point about competition for places is spot on. The only players that seen to get dropped are Redmond, Hoolahan and he changes the forward occasionally.

At least Mulumbu might get picked when he''s fit!

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Can''t agree with that I''m afraid. Had really nothing to do with luck.

Is it luck that they took their chances from our poor defending? No

Is it luck that we didn''t take all of our chances? No

Newcastle were poor but we were even worse. Our team is getting no sympathy from me after that naive display.

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[quote user="mrs miggins"]Can''t agree with that I''m afraid. Had really nothing to do with luck.

Is it luck that they took their chances from our poor defending? No

Is it luck that we didn''t take all of our chances? No

Newcastle were poor but we were even worse. Our team is getting no sympathy from me after that naive display.[/quote]Well it was certainly lucky that a couple of deflections fell nicely for them and a tug and an offside went un-penalised, but there you go, that''s they way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I''ve seen us well beaten on more occasions than I care to remember but that was never a 2-6 game. We defended poorly but everything fell for Newcastle today and nothing fell for us.

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It was one of those weird games. 6-2 didn''t reflect the game but our defenders were left so isolated it has to be ringing alarm bells.

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Also hogs are they were bloody static for three of those goals, not picking up anyone or even looking like making a challenge!

Not helped by the midfield admittedly, but heck they were poor, no communication or movement!

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Oh I agree Indy. I''m not sure we can afford to have whittaker so high up the pitch as he doesn''t have the pace to get back. But yes both centre backs were poor today too.

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As far aa I''m concerned hitting the woodwork is not unlucky at all, it''s not on target...

The truth Is second half we were very poor and overall did not do enough to win any points.

The result flatters Newcastle but highlights a number of our flaws coupled by a few bad performances. Not good enough.

I also question AN retraction of Tettey which led to us imploding - what was that about?!

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Very Very naive approach today we was very shaky every time when wining less Newcastle go in to attack.

Tettey subbed by Hoolahan with 30 min to play was joke of the year!

Great game for betting during live proudly sponsored by Alex Neil lol

Only positive from today is that Newcastle will not changed Mclaren

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[quote user="lake district canary"]Disappointed, yes - but not distraught.  We hit the post twice and should have had a penalty - and their last goal was a deflection too, so the game could have been a lot different.   AN knew he had made a mistake in putting Wes on for Tettey - he will learn from that - and the players know they deserved more goals themselves, given the balance of play.    The game was too open, but with a little more luck, we would have matched Newcastle, goal for goal.  So a poor day for us, but plenty to be postive about too - Newcastle''s day undoubtedly - but we can go away, lick our wounds and regroup for the upcoming matches. 

[/quote]Absolutely

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Going back to the OP our forward play was generally good and at 60 minutes we looked like getting at least a draw, we were creating openings and the crowd was beginning to get on edge big time. In hindsight we did not need to make the substitution of taking off Tettey so soon if at all and our boss has admitted that. I just hope that he can learn quickly as this league is so unforgiving on any mistake made.

Everything did seem to fall for the toon but we cannot continue to defend as badly as that. That is not unlucky. The two shots that hit the post going in and gaining a penalty that if you were a big team you would probably get given could certainly have changed the outcome.

I''ve seen us play a lot worse and win a game but in the PL forwards rarely let you get away with bad defending. The only way that we are going to stay up is to out score the teams around us, especially West Brom which is already looking massive and also the Watford game in the next six games.

I''m still confident that we have enough to stay up but the appointment of Sam potentially gets Sunderland out of the mire and Newcastle are probably in a false position.

How costly does conceding that late goal at West Ham look like now and not beating Stoke when we outplayed them? With those extra four points we could ride out today''s result but it will not be long until we are playing under pressure after playing some of the bigger and better teams shortly and that will not be helpful.

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Yep, failing to beat Stoke and see out West Ham will haunt us, and after a tough set of fixtures we could well be in the relegation zone sometime in November.

All this was ofcourse adressed by forum members with a minimum of footie knowledge, but the usual happy clappers was so sure "we have made a great start", so nothing could possibly go wrong, could it? Did not matter not beating Stoke, because we "played so well"...

The ignorance of many in this forum, the failings in seeing how poor and sometimes disjointed this Norwich team often is, continues to baffle me. Blind optimism, but little realism seems to be the norm.

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