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Clean sheet

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One point home against Burton is not good enough, but it is now 180 minutes without conceding.

The midfield is much better balanced with Tettey and Trybull. Harrison Reed is to lightweight compared to for example Tettey.

And it will be interesting to Stiepermann at the left back in the coming games. Is left back is peeferred position and where he always have played?

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I disagree about the midfield being better balanced. We played with 6 defenders last night. Against a team that were not interested in attacking. We were so over indulged with rear guard personnel we probaby could have played Delia herself and kept a clean sheet.

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The team is so deep in trouble that this actually was the right thing to do. I.e.be so tight at the back as possible and try not to lose.

The system has earlier been to naive and lightweight.

It is right to go back to square one and try to tighten up the team as a defensive unit. Until the Birmingham game the team had relegation written all over. Not many periods I have seen the team been so rubbish at the back and conceding that amont of soft goals against mediocre teams who rolled over Norwich. In the Championship you get beaten without muscles. You have to have a system who can win games when you don''t nessesary play at your best every game. To win games with lightweight players with great technique and dribbling you have to perform on a very high level in every game and that does not happen. With this kind of players/system you get a few big wins the days when everything clicks and then get beaten against aggressive teams using muscles.

Of course the team is far from recovered yet, I do have a feeling it can be a very hard afternoon away at Sheffield Utd the next game. With players like for example Vrancic in the side it will be very difficult to pick points

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I wish we''d have won 5-4.

Even so a clean sheet at home against two of the league''s weakest teams is nothing to write home about.

This coming Saturday will be a sterner test and the tactics that were mistakenly utilised against Burton might prove to be necessary at Bramall Lane.

On a positive note Klose''s return seems to have made a massive difference for the better, Zimmermann''s contribution along side him has to be pleasing and the omission of Husband for now seems to be a necessity.

With Steirpermann seemingly adequate, a settled unit at the back for a while is vital, although this one will surely meet more potent attackers and a Klose/Hanley central pairing will presumably and eventually be the preference.

What happened to three at the back, btw?

Is Franke now reduced to back up?

Will Husband eventually become the defender he was reported to be when we signed him?

How long until Lewis is back in contention?

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Husband is rubbish. He will end up Playing lower divisions for the rest of his career- with or without us.

Franke will return at some point. Probably after we get spanked next and Zimmerman is dropped and Klose has one of his injuries.

Three at the back was dropped because we were being ripped to shreds.

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You start a game with a clean sheet, so keeping it against a team that offers very little attacking threat whilst not scoring yourself isn''t a particularly great achievement

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[quote user="Rogue Baboon"]You start a game with a clean sheet, so keeping it against a team that offers very little attacking threat whilst not scoring yourself isn''t a particularly great achievement[/quote]I''ve seen us fail to keep a clean sheet against teams with little attacking threat many times, especially over the last couple of years! We will get nowhere until we are able to do it.Very early days yet, but some encouraging signs defensively at least. The test will be away from home....

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Clean sheets are always a good sign. It gives you a base to build upon. Teams that concede an average of less than a goal a game have a chance of promotion. Teams that concede an average of two goals a game. Are almost certain to go down.

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Yet in the last 3 games we have only scored 1 goal, including playing 2 of the leagues weakest teams. I''m sure that avaerage will not see us promoted.

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[quote user="Rogue Baboon"]Yet in the last 3 games we have only scored 1 goal, including playing 2 of the leagues weakest teams. I''m sure that avaerage will not see us promoted.[/quote]But still a better points return than the previous 3 games where we scored 5 and conceded 7.[Y]Good teams don''t concede many goals.

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Clean Sheet has become another football cliche just like sick as a parrot.

It is just a statistic, as Ricardo points out, from a game. It doesn''t tell us how it was achieved and who it was achieved against.

As I pointed out on the match thread, statistically, 46 0-0 draws would relegate you.

If we pick up four points every two games though, who are we to complain. But it has to work away from home as well.

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[quote user="ricardo"][quote user="Rogue Baboon"]Yet in the last 3 games we have only scored 1 goal, including playing 2 of the leagues weakest teams. I''m sure that avaerage will not see us promoted.[/quote]But still a better points return than the previous 3 games where we scored 5 and conceded 7.[Y]Good teams don''t concede many goals.[/quote]
It''s a fair point. I mean the balance isn''t right at the moment but despite a terribly boring coma-inducing performance had Olivier or more pertinently I suppose Murphy had their shooting boots on we would have nicked a 1-0. 

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I know there has to be a balance but you always have a chance at 0-0. It cannot be denied that all decent sides have a reliable back line. Without that you have an uphill task to win anything.

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Bravo he 👍

Criticism has come because Farke remained defensive, made substitutions late and didn''t radically alter the ''rhythm'' of the game as he called it.

The reason that all of these criticisms are connected - and fully understood and appreciated by Farke - is that he did it all knowingly.

As Ricardo and Badger point out Norwich have had a serious defensive weakness for far too long and it has been far too systemic and destructive to any real hopes of balance or progression.

Under pressure Coaches resort - quite understandably and often correctly - to the controllable. You cannot control scoring goals, you can control defending, shutting spaces and keeping them out.

We have long failed to do this, not really because of personnel or ''mistakes'', but because of the tactical and structural way we have set up the team over an extended period.

Farke - particularly after the seismic shock of Millwall and subsequent emergency purchase of Hanley - has set about addressing this fundamental, recurring and endemic problem. Not a moment too soon.

The reasons that the 3 opening criticisms are correct on paper, but equally correctly overridden by the coach on grass, is that the green shoots of resolving such a fundamental, long-standing issue cannot be jeopardised by short term requirements over single results.

After Millwall we could have been relegation candidates. If we learn to structurally defend as a team, we won''t be.

Parma

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You can put lipstick on a pig, but it''s still a pig.

A home game against very lowly Burton that resulted in a draw and a poor spectacle is an awful result whatever smokescreen is used to disguise it.

Never in a million years this squad likely to be a relegation candidate. I''m pretty well un-enthused by our start to the season thus far but that view is stretching it somewhat.

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We played seven defensive players, at home, against a team who have so far conceded an average of over two goals per game, and had managed to score just four goals in six games.

We now play a style of possession football that anybody who purports to be a professional footballer, should be capable of. Passing sideways to one of your own teammates shouldn''t even be beyond the capability of Tettey.

0 - 0 offers nothing to be proud of.

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[quote user="BroadstairsR"]You can put lipstick on a pig, but it''s still a pig.[/quote]
Yeah but cook a pig and you have bacon. Who doesn''t like bacon?

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[quote user="hogesar"][quote user="BroadstairsR"]You can put lipstick on a pig, but it''s still a pig.[/quote]
Yeah but cook a pig and you have bacon. Who doesn''t like bacon?
[/quote] My preference though is Parma ham, even when mouldy ........ [;)]

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[quote user="Nuff Said"]Me. I''m vegetarian.[/quote]
And therefore immediately are discounted. [:D]

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When is the time for thinking beyond the immediate?

England have smashed small teams with flat-track-bully tactics for centuries, only to get immediately knocked out by anybody any good at the real event.

You can play it long to Crouchy (who I like and respect), beat Malta 6-1 instead of playing a tighter structure, lower risk, more technically correct system, relying on your weapons that can eventually beat a Germany or a Spain, but today ''only'' wins 1-0 or 2-0 against Malta.

Sound familiar?

So it is with Norwich. Coaches do not have the luxury of instant switchingbof mentality and technique - particularly when it is in no way natural to start with.

There is no PlayStation L2 button, where tricks, changes and new skills can be immediately applied. Creating repeating patterns can be worked on in training, but it only really emerges in fragile form in matches after extended exposure to pressure in real-world scenarios.

In this case getting it wrong was getting it right.

Parma

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"In this case getting it wrong was getting it right."

What skewed logic.

Burton won''t visit many grounds in the league this season and come away with a point. In fact, they are probably such weak opponents that any supposed ''tactical'' necessity employed against them our our own patch is likely to prove very little but more suggest above any other result so far this season that the team are in fact no better than mid-table after all.

The Doomsday scenario of a defense worthy of nothing but relegation on the back of two four goal submissions is also extreme and manages to overlook all the mitigating factors, of which there are quite a few.

Our best defender, Klose and kingpin at the centre, had been missing for the beginning of the campaign through injury. Our right-back had similar problems and faced the need to get back to his best. Husband was proving a disaster and needed to be dropped earlier. The two German defenders were still in need of time to come to terms with their new environment and the jury is probably still out on both of them. I won''t mention Russell Martin for fear of instigating another two hundred posts going around in ever decreasing circles. We also have Hanley chomping at the bit as well.

All in all the defense needed some urgent remedial attention; a complete blood transfusion of our entire tactical approach, a la Alex Neil, against two weak visitors was over egging the pudding to the point of naivety .... especially on Tuesday night.

That it was a good idea to add Alexander Tettey to protect the defense after the two drubbings was clearly good sense, but hardly a move endowed with tactical nous, and it was an overdue in any case. To persist with the player, who by all accounts needs using sparingly nowadays against the mighty Burton Albion, was less than clever, imo.

Besides all this, the priority of the night was to get three points not to keep a clean sheet or even prove that we had the set-up to achieve one. Burton kept a clean sheet as well remember.

Tettey, like Hoolahan, needs to be utilised wisely this season. The former mostly a must for many away games, the latter for many at home.

This seems fairy clear to me, although admittedly highly superficial. If Daniel Farke interprets their respective roles with any more depth than that at this stage then I fear we have another coach suffering from tactical constipation. mistake

The loss of two points on Tuesday night was the most distinct indicator so far this season that we could well be in for a season of disappointment.

Like many, I now fear that this demise has be hastened by too much change too soon and if this is the case then our problems extend further than the need to effect drab 0-0 stalemate at Carrow Road.

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Had we seen a few more drab 0-0''s at the appropriate time in recent seasons, AN might not have lost his job and we might still be in the higher league. His inability in this respect was his greatest failing.

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Yes Mr. R., but Alex Neil lost his mojo against Premier League teams, not against teams who were battling it out in League 1 last season.

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As Parma rightly comments, if you have a football philosophy you enact it the same way against Malta as against Germany. The first lesson has to be a solid rearguard, it doesn''t matter who you play. Yes the balance could be better and naturally there will be more possession and chances against weaker sides but the beauty of the game is that better sides don''t always win. As long as they win the majority of the time then the philosophy is correct.

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@Ricardo

I don''t think that is true necessarily. Moruinho for instance plays very differently against the likes of Swansea that vs the likes of Chelsea.

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