Positives from saturday

[Gunthorpe 0]

Why is everyone on this Board so negative, did anyone realy think that with the nucleaus of the team that got relegated 2 years ago, cast offs from other Prem Clubs and only 1 quality signing (Brady), we would take this league by storm - then you are a fool.

Plus we have owners who are unable to invest in our club (unlike 99% of Prem Clubs) and show no intentions of selling

Our scouting network is laughable none of them even have a passport

We have no spare cash because we still have very expensive playes on the payroll who Neil does not want (debris from previous managers failed transfer policies) eg. Wolf (on loan but wages not fully covered), Hooper (short term loan but will no doubt be returned to sender on 1st Jan),Lafferty (why is he still here) ,Voo (started 1 league game in 17 months) to start with (plus these 4 would have got bonus when we were promoted but would have done very little to contribute towards going up)

 

The positives are:-

We are debt free no matter what happens

After 15 games we are still out of the relegation zone

Neil must now know the following:-

Grabban & Whitaker are not Prem standard and neither should start another game unless we have an injury crisis

Martin struggles at Centre Half and should only be used as Backup for any defensive position

Bassong & Bennett are our best central partnership until we sign anyone else

Bardy & Olssen play very well together on the left (saturday accepted)

He knows he need to strength defence & attacking midfield in Jan (with regards to the latter when Holly does not play Howson is not an acceptable option)

 

Overall Neil would have learned a lot from these 15 games, he is no fool and is the right man to take us forward. Even if the unthinkable happenes and we do go down - we need to support him as he can get us back up

Talk of Neil being replaced is rubbish

 

[Number9 272]

I agree that Bardy had a tremendous game & think your suggestion of using holly would be particularly appropriate over the Xmas period!

Well done.

[Prince of Darkness 0]

We are no longer debt free lots of income little new player activity and rising debts

You couldn''t make it up!

[AJ 1,376]

Unfortunately the honest truth is there were absolutely no positives to take from Saturday. We played abysmally and got exactly what we deserved from the game - nothing.

We have the right ingredients to survive, I''m just unsure whether we''re going to pick up enough points to do ourselves justice. We deserve more points from our performances than we actually have, but sadly performances don''t gain points, we need to win games and we''re just not doing enough.

[Tumbleweed 106]

We look a long way from the side which dominated Middlesbro in May.

The team looks short of confidence and swagger. I wonder whether some of it is down to AN''s desire that the players follow his instructions. Is he inadvertently strangling the life out of the team? We saw under Hughton the effect of a stagnant and rigid tactical approach, is it repeating itself with players now afraid to take a risk, exploit a gap, make a run etc for fear of being bawled out? Redomnd now looks lost every time he gets the ball in oppo territory- does he run and take them on or stick and twist? More the latter but we aren''t good enough to pass round like Spain or Arsenal.

I see fear on the faces of players again, the confidence ebbing away.

IF we can get some of that back I think we''ll be OK, just. But we need the likes of O''Neil back in, the strong characters even if not the best players, can make a huge difference.

[The Bristol Nest 612]

There are indeed positives although not from Saturday. That was relegation form. The game against Arsenal was more indicative of our potential, however we need a settled side. I think that we may be missing RM at the back as he links well with the deeper lying midfielders to relieve the pressure. We were humping the ball out and conceding possession too easily imo not to mention the serial backpass to the keeper.

Mbokani and Jerome look like out best strikers. Let''s stick with them. We bought Mulumbu for a reason surely he must start more games. Howson is not the answer when Hooloahan is unavailable. Vadis? I don''t know. Redmond is still showing potential but is the first to be dropped when we need to be more defensive.O''Neil displys premiership class. Wisdom and Olsson are good enough as is Brady. Rudd will grow into the role.

Is AN still looking for his best team or is he suffering from a bit of Tinkerman Syndrome? 

[Lessingham Canary 108]

Good points Bristol, think that AN is tinkering as he tries to eliminate silly mistakes and also make the best of what he has his disposal.

[Barclay seats 4849 the 3rd 0]

If that was the case lessingham ,, can you explain why o''neill was dropped?

[Lessingham Canary 108]

Wish I could, said on another thread that O''Neil should consider himself unlucky, can only assume that AN considered Tettey who has been excellent this season was going to offer the back 4 better protection ? but as not part of any inner ring, cant offer any more than my opinion.

[westcoastcanary 173]

[quote user="Lessingham Canary"]Wish I could, said on another thread that O''Neil should consider himself unlucky, can only assume that AN considered Tettey who has been excellent this season was going to offer the back 4 better protection ? but as not part of any inner ring, cant offer any more than my opinion.[/quote]

Question for AN at the NCFSC on Wednesday night?

[lowlyfendweller 0]

To be fair I love all the positives listed and I''m sure there are more infact. But if you look at the positives listed in OP none of them became evident as a result of the game on Saturday. They are just general positives that should be acknowledged nontheless.

I think the only good thing from Saturday is the potential of an improved performance against Everton. Oh I guess Rudd did alright....... I''m honestly really trying to think of something else but its hard. Please anyone?

[Gunthorpe 0]

Yet another positive from Saturday

Even tho most of the posters on this forum will try to paper over the fact that Bowkett has walked, we all know that this is not how Companies operate.

Clearly all is not well at Board level and it could well be that he appreciated that to move forward there would have to be a change of policy at Board & Ownership level that may well have been resisted by the current incumbents.

To suggest that he was happy to be realected as chairman 4 weeks ago to now walk is naïve - something has happened behind the scenes at Carrow Road ?

[channonswindmill 0]

It was quite mild for December.

[Gunthorpe 0]

channonswindmill wrote the following post at 07/12/2015 9:08 PM:

It was quite mild for December.

I agree chs - why comment on current issues when talking dribble will do

[Gainer the Gopher 0]

You seem to have missed channonswindmill''s point. You asked for positives FROM SATURDAY. His was about the only one FROM SATURDAY.

[Making Plans 957]

It was only 2

[6088m canary 4]

Bosh.....

Nail, Head Making Plans.

The only positive from that performance is that we didn''t come out too badly in terms of GD.

Tinkering is not a good management strategy either. If a player gets dropped because of one mistake, there goes his confidence when back into the side.

I think a few have mentioned but he needs to stop over analysing and get back to what this group of players know....attack.WE know we cant defend either through the midfield or the back four so why not go out and try to impose ourselves on the opposition? SItting back with this XI is asking for trouble.

Have a go. No one will begrudge us going down if we gave it a go. We spent in the bottom 3, we came up with a side about as good as the bottom 3 last season and we are liekyl to invest like the bottom 3 in Jan.

Villa look gone.

Its between us, Sunderland, Toon, Bournemouth and possibly a Sawns or WBA to get pulled into it.