Vrancic

[Big O 287]

Thought it was only fair given the amount of stick the guy has taken to post that I thought he had a really good game yesterday.

It is starting to look like he''s getting to the pace of the division and has a decent range of passing. The worry for me was the lack of runners off Olivera. Murphy was poor and whilst Watkins tried, he doesn''t have the same technical ability.

I''d quite like to see a 4-3-2-1 with trybull, Vrancic and reed central, full backs pushing on and Pritchard and Maddison freely behind Oliveria.

Thoughts?

[Rogue Baboon 0]

Best game so far from Vrancic. Playing deeper seemed to suit him, the quick attacking play was left to Maddison and Pritchard.

We played the 4-3-2-1 yesterday (according to the big screen) and it certainly gets the best out of Maddison and Pritchard, which then brings Oliveria back into the game

[Bill 1,788]

[quote user="Big O"]Thought it was only fair given the amount of stick the guy has taken to post that I thought he had a really good game yesterday.

It is starting to look like he''s getting to the pace of the division and has a decent range of passing. The worry for me was the lack of runners off Olivera. Murphy was poor and whilst Watkins tried, he doesn''t have the same technical ability.

I''d quite like to see a 4-3-2-1 with trybull, Vrancic and reed central, full backs pushing on and Pritchard and Maddison freely behind Oliveria.

Thoughts?[/quote]

I''m quite happy to see one keeper and ten outfield players.. that seems to work for most teamsI can''t say I noticed what formation the players were in for any of the goals, if you include the action that saw Reed fouled in their box

[king canary 8,754]

Yep, him playing a bit deeper worked well- made some good tackles and it allowed him a bit more time on the ball.

[Branston Pickle 4,149]

It is rather sad. People seem to fall over themselves to criticise when a player goes through a bad patch - be it Vrancic, Murphy or anyone - but very much shrug it off when they return to form. I guess we just wait until Mario has his next off day and we''ll see another 10 page moan about him....

[Hoola Han Solo 448]

Not his biggest fan but thought he was very decent yesterday and had his best performance in a City shirt. Well played, Mario.

[king canary 8,754]

@branston

As with most players, if he plays well people will praise him. He hasn''t played very well this season but did well today. More of this and people will soon come around.

[Mark .Y. 375]

Had a good game and maybe there is more to come from him

[Canarymoon 0]

He had great quality when he''s sitting deeper. Squad looking strong.

[king canary 8,754]

Him sitting deeper also helps us further up the pitch as he isn''t slowing down the play when we break.

[westcoastcanary 173]

[quote user="king canary"]@branston

As with most players, if he plays well people will praise him. He hasn''t played very well this season but did well today. More of this and people will soon come around.[/quote]This misses the point. There is a difference between criticising a player''s performances in particular matches on the one hand, and writing him off altogether. There have been many posts on here falling into the latter category, ill-informed and over-hasty jumping to conclusions without any regard to mitigating factors. 

[Gordon Bennett 914]

People on here do it all the time unfortunately, writing players and coaches off as ''rubbish'' and ''not good enough'' without waiting a sufficient time to judge.

Too many people around who don''t understand football properly.

[Red Rufus 56]

Spot on Gordon, but that is the reason browsing this site is so funny. Many of the posters on here (no need to name them) have less brain cells than we have points! Worse than sitting in the River End!

[king canary 8,754]

If you think Vrancic has been good this season make a case for it, don''t just claim others don''t understand football or are too stupid.

He''s had one good game and suddenly everyone is acting like he''s been getting criticism for nothing this season.

[Gordon Bennett 914]

I''m not saying he''s been good, in fact some games have completely passed him by but people were declaring back in September that he''s garbage when it''s impossible to say until months after that in all probability. People don''t seem to understand that players can take many games to settle into a new country.

Don''t think it''s a case of stupidity but a lack of understanding and living in an ''instant'' society nowadays.

[hogesar 10,762]

[quote user="westcoastcanary"][quote user="king canary"]@branston

As with most players, if he plays well people will praise him. He hasn''t played very well this season but did well today. More of this and people will soon come around.[/quote]This misses the point. There is a difference between criticising a player''s performances in particular matches on the one hand, and writing him off altogether. There have been many posts on here falling into the latter category, ill-informed and over-hasty jumping to conclusions without any regard to mitigating factors. [/quote]

That, and throughout the game on Saturday, quotes from those around me include:

"what does Vrankic (they can''t say his name properly) do all game?"

"Vrancic is f*cking useless get Trybull on!"

"what''s the point in Vrancic?"

"Why does farke still play him?"

"hes such a lazy player"

Etc, etc.

Which kind of disproves the claim that people will ''soon come around''. There''s plenty of examples where one or two poor performances are ingrained into the somewhat limited memory of a large percentage of our fanbase and they are unable to see anything different after that.

[king canary 8,754]

Like you and Nelson?

[CDMullins 498]

Id really like to see both Maddison and Pritchard play centrally in behind the striker.

Also believe, this would suit Vrancic playing deeper and beside Reed.

[Excited Canary 19]

It''s not just one good game, I thought he was one of our best players at Cardiff and Forest too. Much more suited to a deeper role. Pleasantly surprised by how many tackles/headers he seems to win.

[hogesar 10,762]

[quote user="king canary"]Like you and Nelson?[/quote]

No, because I said he had a good game Saturday (despite some guilt edge misses that Jerome would receive unrivalled criticism for). I caveated it with the fact he was on camera - hopefully he has a good game next weekend too and proves me wrong on that front.

[canarydan23 4,762]

Easily his best game for us.

In fairness, I and a few others have been saying for a good while that he needs to be playing deeper. His better performances have coincided with him dropping back.

As one of our three attacking midfielders, he''s been absolutely woeful, but now he''s playing in a less advanced role his performances have increased, slowly at first, until he reached the level he did on Saturday when I think he was one of the most influential players on the pitch and lay a lot of the ground work that allowed Pritchard and Maddison to have good games.

But the fact that he played well doesn''t really make all his previous performances any better, nor does it make the people baffled by his continued starts stupid. He should have been dropped, either in the sense of being benched or played more defensively, many, many, many weeks ago. I suspect if he had have been, we wouldn''t be quite so low in the table as we currently are.

So, good game and I hope for more of the same; however, once Tettey and Trybull are back and fully fit, he''ll have some work to do to justify a continued place in the line up. If when Tettey and Trybull are back and Farke sticks them in the starting 11, if he then reverts to sticking Vrancic further up the field then you can expect the bewilderment and criticism to, justifiably, return.

[Feedthewolf 5,885]

He has been largely anonymous until the last three games, in which he has looked a lot better. Jury''s still out, but he appears to be moving in the right direction. It was the same with Husband – looked awful in his first few games, then was just getting some form and consistency before he got injured. A useful squad player to have – I think he distributes better from deep, but needs two ''combatants'' alongside him to give him that freedom to play (two from Trybull, Reed and Tettey). The 4-3-2-1 is a nice idea, Murphy is due a rest and Maddison and Pritchard together have the potential to be sensational.

[king canary 8,754]

Spot on Canarydan

[westcoastcanary 173]

@canarydan23

"As one of our three attacking midfielders, he''s been absolutely woeful"

This is simply untrue, and typical of the exaggerated level of criticism handed out to him. Yes , his performances were very uneven when asked to play in a more advance role, but they included a MOM performance in the League Cup and, if you look at the complete run of games, he rates better than all but five of our regular starters. To describe him as playing "woefully" in the majority of those games is a travesty of blind mis-assessment. I referred in my post to his critic''s failure to take account mitigating factors, something you also fail to do here. -- e.g. no mention of needing time to adapt to moving abroad to play in a hugely different league in a team with a far from settled system and squad, nor to being asked to do a job making up for injured colleagues and playing out of position. 

[hogesar 10,762]

[quote user="westcoastcanary"]@canarydan23

"As one of our three attacking midfielders, he''s been absolutely woeful"

This is simply untrue, and typical of the exaggerated level of criticism handed out to him. Yes , his performances were very uneven when asked to play in a more advance role, but they included a MOM performance in the League Cup and, if you look at the complete run of games, he rates better than all but five of our regular starters. To describe him as playing "woefully" in the majority of those games is a travesty of blind mis-assessment. I referred in my post to his critic''s failure to take account mitigating factors, something you also fail to do here. -- e.g. no mention of needing time to adapt to moving abroad to play in a hugely different league in a team with a far from settled system and squad, nor to being asked to do a job making up for injured colleagues and playing out of position. 

[/quote]

Similar to what I was going to say. He''s had some poor performances and some good one''s. He''s not really been outstanding but he''s been selected for criticism over several others who have probably offered less overall. Plus anyone who can vaguely identify a capable footballer would have picked up on his passing range early on and realised that with some work he''d have something to offer.

Also, how can anyone say he should have been dropped earlier? What if he now goes on a run of performances at the same level as his last 2 games? That would suggest playing him and getting him used to the league was the right thing to do. 

The alternative, in this hypothetical scenario, would have been to drop him, at which point, when does he get used to the league? Maybe he never does and it''s a completely wasted transfer because some fans have 0 patience.

Thankfully our head coach takes a bit more into account than us everyday fans.

[canarydan23 4,762]

I''m not sure either of you read the complete sentence...

"He should have been dropped, either in the sense of being benched or played more defensively, many, many, many weeks ago."

That remains absolutely true in my opinion. When we have the likes of Murphy, Maddison, Hoolahan, Wildschut and now Pritchard, you can''t stick Vrancic in game after game to hope he gets used to the league and improved. Well, you can, we did. I''ll take you back as far as that woeful Burton draw at home and you can judge for yourself whether Vrancic criticism is unfair...

Burton (H) - Vrancic played advanced, awful 0-0

Sheff Utd (A) - Vrancic dropped, impressive 1-0 victory

Bristol City (H) - Bizarrely returns to the lineup in an advanced role, awful 0-0

Middlebrough (A) - Vrancic dropped, impressive 1-0 victory

Reading (A) - Vrancic warms the bench all game, another solid away victory, 2-1

Hull (H) - Return of Mario in his attacking role, scraped a 1-1 draw at the death

Ipswich (A) - Vrancic drops to the bench and the theme continues, a decent 1-0 away win

Derby (H) - Stays on the bench, 2-1 defeat

Wolves (H) - Returns to the starting lineup, 2-0 defeat

Bolton (A) - Vrancic comes off the bench and plays deeper. Whilst we lost 2-0 we conceded both before he came on and got a goal back with him in a more holding role. 2-1 defeat

From here, his Norwich career as an attacking midfielder has, hopefully permanently, ceased.

So, in this period, other than the Derby game, every defeat and poor draw featured Vrancic as an attacking midfielder. And every victory? You guessed it, Vrancic nowhere near the starting lineup.

But no, his stats are great, fans who criticise him don''t understand football, yadda, yadda, yadda.

As I''ve said, since he dropped back he has looked a much better player and considering I''m a Vrancic-criticiser who doesn''t understand football, it''s curious that well over 2 months ago I said on here that if he had to play it should be in one of the deeper roles. Whilst it took him a while longer, Farke now seems to have concluded the same thing.

He might have impressive heatmaps and good looking Prozone stats or whatever the cool kids are using these days, but the only stat that matters is the final score. And the fact is, that stat tended to be bad for Norwich when he featured in an attacking midfielder role.

[canarydan23 4,762]

And going forwards, despite his promise on Saturday, he has not convinced me that with Tettey and Trybull fit, our best formation is 4-2-3-1 with Tettey and Trybull as the two.

If Farke agrees with that combination, then there is absolutely no way Vrancic should be accommodated further up the field and will have to try and force Tettey or Trybull out of the team if he wants to play.

That said, if he carries on playing a deeper role and we keep winning, then all is good and Tettey and Trybull will have to enjoy a spell on the sidelines.

[king canary 8,754]

Yep, I''m with you @canarydan. He was poor in the attacking role in a way that just doesn''t show up on a stats sheet. The Hull game was the clearest example for me- foot on the ball, slowing play down constantly, sideways and backwards passes, playing into the hands of a 10 man side who just wanted to sit deep.

I don''t think the first goal on Saturday happens if Vrancic is in for one of Pritchard or Maddison- he''d either have put his foot on the ball to slow it down or not made the supporting run to drag the defenders out of position. Playing deeper he can start those attacks and allow the more dynamic players to trouble the defenders.

[Gordon Bennett 914]

I think the only person who mentioned a lack of football understanding was me, and it certainly wasn''t aimed at people who have criticised Vrancic for poor performances but instead at those people who wrote him off two months into the season, saying he wasn''t good enough and wouldn''t ever be. They are the people who don''t get it, the ones who want the moon on a stick yesterday.

[Duncan Edwards 2,424]

When I watched Vrancic pre-season I was convinced we had a helluva plaar. He used the ball intelligently, had a decent range of passing, an eye for a “splitter” and for goal.

Once the season started proper, it seemed like he wanted an extra touch or a split second longer than was available but the likelihood is that the Championship is the most frantic and pressurised style of football he has encountered. Yes, he’s played internationally but even England now play at a ridiculously pedestrian tempo.

Sitting deeper appears to suit. Gives him a bit more time, allows him to see more of the game in front of him and that enables him to use his passing ability better. I do think there’s a decent player there; Farke clearly agrees as he has been selected almost every time he’s been available. With Pritchard now fit, Maddison pulling up trees and the elder statesman Wes in the wings, it should allow him to get a run in what seems a more effective position. The energy of Reed compliments his style too and whether he’d be as effective with Tetts remains to be seen. I’d be hopeful though...but then I always am...