*****Watford v Norwich match thread*****

[Wiz 0]

Wake up, its a manager we want!

[whoareyou? 0]

Piss poor today. Not sure why O''Neill was left out.We badly need Jarvis back too.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

jp, a "proper manager" and we''d be struggling in the championship. I have full faith in Alex Neil and he needs backing. Unfortunately our board have no ambition to be competitive at this level.

[Thecanaryfan 0]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"][quote user="Thecanaryfan"]1 win in 10. Not playing well. Not scoring goals. Time for Neil to go sadly. The players look like they have lost faith in him.[/quote]don''t agree. I think it needs a settles side rather than chopping and changing. we missed O''neill today. why was he dropped?[/quote]

He cant find a settled side though. All the chopping and changing is proof of how desperate Neil has become.

[Making Plans 936]

[quote user="gitto"]Lafferty would''ve been perfect for today.[/quote]Well he would have been better than the 3 strikers we tried - we have 3 strikers who don''t score & don''t look like scoring.

[ricardo 7,350]

Never looked like it from the first minute to the last.

[norfolkbroadslim 223]

Dreadful.  Out thought and out fought all game long.  Shocking tactics and very questionable team selection, especially in midfield.

[Syteanric 1]

[quote user="AJ"]Serious question, where does this leave the whole Rudd/Ruddy debacle?[/quote]Rudd played well today, distribution, handling, quickly off his line and made saves that a low on confidence Ruddy would not have made...he deserves a go next week.

[Herman 9,731]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"][quote user="Thecanaryfan"]1 win in 10. Not playing well. Not scoring goals. Time for Neil to go sadly. The players look like they have lost faith in him.[/quote]don''t agree. I think it needs a settles side rather than chopping and changing. we missed O''neill today. why was he dropped?[/quote]Precisely. Stop constantly tinkering with the midfield ffs. O''Neil has played well and been a good captain. Dropped,for example.

[SeattleCanary 0]

I can take losing, but not like that with a whimper. When we used to have an off game last season I knew AN wouldn''t let it happen again and woukd give the team a kick up the backside. Now though, these performances happen more and more.... He looks very deflated more often than not these days, and his team selections and tactics are baffling.

[Sing up the river end 0]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"][quote user="AJ"]Serious question, where does this leave the whole Rudd/Ruddy debacle?[/quote]Rudd played well today, distribution, handling, quickly off his line and made saves that a low on confidence Ruddy would not have made...he deserves a go next week.[/quote]

Agreed

[The Bristol Nest 513]

Relegation form today I am afraid.

AN should not have to look over his shoulder but this was not good enough. Both tactics and personnel were way below par.

We may well be missing RM as we can''t seem to create from the back . Midfield play was disjointed and shots on target stats were shocking. Howson is no Hoolahan and Redmond seems way off his game. Grabban showed what a lazy player he can be. Rudd was the only postive today.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

Championship quality from both sides

[GJP 79]

If AN had been appointed in the summer would we be impressed with him so far?

[chicken 0]

Tactical failure in my books.

Tettey selected over O''Neil was a poor decision for me. And then subbing Redmond rather than one of the other midfielders the other.

Grabban wasn''t good but then he isn''t the sort of striker you lump balls up to.

Not a good day all round.

Mbokani is IMHO our best all round striker. Why on earth is he not starting games? Tettey is poor in posession, O''Neil has just played some of his best footy for us and then he has to give way?

Dorrans is hit and miss.

After a great performance against Arsenal, why not keep the best performers in the side?

[norfolkbroadslim 223]

Take the lack of clean sheets and throw in Newcastle away, and now Alex is too scared to attack.

[Syteanric 1]

[quote user="chicken"]Tactical failure in my books.

Tettey selected over O''Neil was a poor decision for me. And then subbing Redmond rather than one of the other midfielders the other.

Grabban wasn''t good but then he isn''t the sort of striker you lump balls up to.

Not a good day all round.

Mbokani is IMHO our best all round striker. Why on earth is he not starting games? Tettey is poor in posession, O''Neil has just played some of his best footy for us and then he has to give way?

Dorrans is hit and miss.

After a great performance against Arsenal, why not keep the best performers in the side?[/quote]I agree with all of this.last weeks point was a fantastic result, why do the same side not get to go out against a "lesser" team?

[Indy 3,290]

One week genius the next needs to go! Really?

I''ve never been AN''s greatest fan but really? I don''t think playing O''Neil would have made any difference, though he didn''t deserve to be dropped.

I''m concerned by the lack of creativity and we go into these away games against these teams looking like we ve lost even before we''ve got started!

Arsenal and man Liverpool games were great in performance and effort but mean nothing without more results against these teams.

Long season not helped by the accounts, doubt we''ll be investing much in January more restructuring for another relegation.

Not being negative but we just don''t have the financial muscle or the players to stay up and push on.

[Hairy Kenneth 0]

Very disappointing result. Not sure why Mulumbu does not start-a better version of Tettey with more finesse. Bassong sounded poor today-we need a massive upgrade at CB in January.

Once bright spot was Rudd-deserves to keep his place.

[birchfest 397]

I think the lineup is a real baffling selection and played a part, if I was Oneil I''d be banging on the gaffers door wanting an explanation. Tetty has waltzed back into the team and assisted in giving away a penalty, frankly how he can push Oneil out after last week I have no idea.

[Thecanaryfan 0]

The Newcastle result kick started this awful decline. The fact we were so awful that day shook player confidence badly and Neil is struggling to shake it off. We need a big convincing win against Everton next week to regain that confidence. Another poor performance and were done. MASSIVE game.

[norfolkbroadslim 223]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"][quote user="chicken"]Tactical failure in my books.

Tettey selected over O''Neil was a poor decision for me. And then subbing Redmond rather than one of the other midfielders the other.

Grabban wasn''t good but then he isn''t the sort of striker you lump balls up to.

Not a good day all round.

Mbokani is IMHO our best all round striker. Why on earth is he not starting games? Tettey is poor in posession, O''Neil has just played some of his best footy for us and then he has to give way?

Dorrans is hit and miss.

After a great performance against Arsenal, why not keep the best performers in the side?[/quote]I agree with all of this.last weeks point was a fantastic result, why do the same side not get to go out against a "lesser" team?[/quote]I agree too. OPI think because we over analyse every team to the tiniest margins.  Look at who we have that the stats, manager, coaches, but especially the stats think would best combat the opposition, which may even mean that a player playing well gets dropped.  We then ask them to play in a system and in a way that is overly predetermined and pre-planned, where the player is constantly thinking what they should be doing according to these imposing plans.  All of this disrupts the team, places more pressure on the players and removes a lot of indvidual instinctiveness and flair.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

It looks like a 6 team relegation battle at the moment with a 5 point gap now bridging us and West Brom (ignoring Chelsea).

Let''s not get too carried away over today''s performance and just see how we bounce back with a reshuffle next week against Everton.

We''re still in a reasonable position to stay up.

I for one would be happy with AN to stay in the hot seat another season even if we go down. Can''t believe a few want him gone already - not that questions shouldn''t be asked, mind. I just trust him to learn from them as he has done already 2 or 3 times this season.

Do people honestly think a new manager would get more from this same group of players? Hopefully we can pull off something in January that will at the very least get everyone pulling the same way again.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

Mulumbu, Mbokani, O''Neil and Hoolahan, if fit, must come back in next week

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

Bassong was torn a fresh one today and he also did badly on the end of chances at the other end. He gave a poor ball to Tettey who tried to control it and that was the penalty.

I didn''t know Dorrans was playing until he took a shot towards the end of the game and I heard his name.

Grabban could be a squad player at this level but his attitude stinks. Compare his work-rate to Watford''s strikers who bullied our CB''s.

Robbie Brady always puts in a shift - and shows how many others don''t - but he was off form today. We have nothing else to offer sadly.

Alex Neil set up his side and then the weather intervened so we ended up playing the ball around deep in windy conditions constantly harassed by hard working strikers.

After weeks of constant improvement against top or good sides we took several steps back today.

I''m glad Ruddy was dropped. I hope he stays dropped next week and I also hope Declan has the balls to tell Bassong to take the blame for his own failures instead of having a go at him.

Whatever happens we are in the mire. We didn''t do the transfer business in the summer and I can''t see how we will improve on that in January because our Board by then will be budgeting for relegation.

It looks like a long hard winter and I can take it that we are not good enough. Watford are not good enough but they are putting in a shift collectively and we have several players coasting.

[chicken 0]

People saying that O''Neil for Tettey wouldn''t have made much difference - I don''t agree.

O''Neil is a proper captain, he communicates, organises and he is a much better user of the ball. He helps to dictate the tempo as a result. On top of that, he takes a mean set piece.

We missed all of those today and he gave us all of them last week. Even if he only gave us the set pieces today we may have got even against the run of play at 1-0 down.

I would have him in there over Dorrans or Tettey. Neither gave us much going forward today until the last ten minutes.

[SwindonCanary 455]

The disappointing thing for me was that last season AN said the main aim was to out work our opposition today Watford worked their socks off and we didn''t

[Making Plans 936]

[quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]Alex Neil set up his side and then the weather intervened [/quote]Goodness me, it was hardly a surprise what the weather was going to be, doesn''t AN look at the weather forecast?What you should have said was "Alex Neil set up his side and then Watford intervened"

[Jim Smith 2,314]

[quote user="Thecanaryfan"]The Newcastle result kick started this awful decline. The fact we were so awful that day shook player confidence badly and Neil is struggling to shake it off. We need a big convincing win against Everton next week to regain that confidence. Another poor performance and were done. MASSIVE game.[/quote]

The thing is though we were not awful at Newcastle. Indeed we played far better for long periods of the Newcastle game than we have in most of our recent games. some poor defending and a horrendous substitution cost us in that game. Had he not taken Tettey off I''m confident we would have got at least a draw out of it because we were bartering them. It did not need this wholesale change in style and tactics to sort out our issues that day.

[Highland Canary 76]

Jim is correct on this point. It was a much better performance at Newcastle than at the shambles that was yesterday. Sunderland will avoid the drop. Likewise Newcastle. It wasn''t the defeat yesterday, or indeed that at Newcastle, but the failure of our transfer window last Summer which never gave us a chance this season. There''s no point in throwing good money after bad in January unless that money is given to an experienced head. But no, we can''t afford that, prudence without ambition should be our club''s mantra.