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YankeeCanary

The Run For The Finish

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I know we are all excited happy to be where we are right now and, hopefully we will take full points against Bradford to exert more pressure on those chasing. However, if we are fair and objective regarding our standing, we are fortunate to have benefited by the inconsistency of almost everyone below us...to date. As we get toward the end of January we will enter a period of 7 or 8 games that will be key to the season. Other contenders will know that time is getting short to make their run and undoubtedly be pulling out all the stops. There is one concern that I have in the quest for promotion. It has appeared to me from afar that there have been too many occasions this season, in spite of our good standing, where we just don''t seem ready to play the game, at least for 90 minutes. We were probably fortunate to win some of the games that we did. That good fortune will be fully tested if one or two others can start to string a few wins together ( like we just did ). I have read comments from some other posters that the team can''t be "on" all the time. When we are having such a great opportunity to cement first place, however, every player should be pumped coming into a game. Am I hearing the reports from afar correctly ( or not ) and, if so, does anyone else have thoughts on what contributes to this apparent inconsistency?
I know today''s game at Everton could be looked at differently because of the opposition and people can say we were a little overwhelmed in the first half but again, it should not have been difficult to be as pumped in the first half as we were in the second.

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Several points arise from your posting Yankee.

1) "We are fortunate to have benefited by the inconsistency of almost everyone below us...to date." WHY ARE WE FORTUNATE? I''d say WBA were fortunate we didn''t go top earlier. We had three opportunities to overtake them before going top at Portman Road. It is the very consistancy of results that have seen us to where we are now.

2) "Too many occasions this season, in spite of our good standing, where we just don''t seem ready to play the game, at least for 90 minutes." TOO MANY OCCASIONS? How come City average two points from every game so far? How come we''ve won the most number of games in the league? How come our goal difference is best in the league? How come we have the meanest defence in the league? That doesn''t sound like a team ''not ready to play the game''. Which team (even Manchester United) dominates week in, week out for 90 minutes? The answer is none. There are always going to be periods of the game where the opposition have the upper hand. That doesn''t mean Norwich aren''t playing for goodness sake. The crucial difference this season, is that even when City haven''t played well they still pick up points (Forest being the most recent example).

3) "Other contenders will know that time is getting short to make their run and undoubtedly be pulling out all the stops." PULLING OUT ALL THE STOPS? And judging from your post you don''t think City have been doing that enough this season! Well as long as we continue to do what we''ve done for over half the season already, other contenders can pull out all the stops they like, but they still won''t be able to catch us. The pressure is on them to perform as consistantly as we have!

4) "When we are having such a great opportunity to cement first place, however, every player should be pumped coming into a game." EVERY PLAYER PUMPED? I would say that preety much every player has been pumped. Look at our league record since the begining of September: P 21 W 13 D 6 L 2 Goals Scored 34 Points 45. Looks like excellent consistant form to me! So how can we achieve those results without players being pumped.

5) "Everton could be looked at differently because of the opposition and people can say we were a little overwhelmed in the first half but again, it should not have been difficult to be as pumped in the first half as we were in the second." We WERE pumped. It''s just Thomas Gravesson ran things for them, and Everton enjoyed the majority of the posession and play in the first half. It had nothing to do with the fact we weren''t pumped. If you can''t get pumped for games like that, then you shouldn''t be playing football at all!! Anyway, what does the cup matter? A few extra quid in the bank? Nice little run to the 5th Round? We were never going to win the FA Cup, so what difference does it make.

6) "It has appeared to me from afar.." Yankee, I''m delighted you follow our fortunes from across the pond, and of course you''re entitled to your opinions...but! Take it from someone who''s actually watched us play at Forest, Walsall, West Brom, Stoke, Bradford (couldn''t make Derby unfortunately), and from what I''ve seen on Sky, we''re a more balanced, commited, adventurous side than we''ve been for a decade. Whether we make automatic promotion or not. Whether we make the play-offs or not (heaven forbid), we have never been in better shape. Of course there''s always room for improvement...but Worthy and the boys are on a roll. One that''s going to be tough for other teams to halt now.

Let''s hope it''s a very Happy 2004.

OTBC

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Thanks for your reassurance Nottingham Canary...you make some excellent points. I have an Ipswich acqaintance on this side of the water and, of course, we are regularly firing shots at each other. I will use some of your points for such warfare.

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Yankee, I think that in many of your assumptions I can agree with your assessments of the reports read and heard. I feel that we have been lucky enough to have had a season that has seen the ingress from the premier division of mediocrity. In the terms of consistant effort put in by players throughout the division, there has been a fair bit of huffing a puffing but not too much quality. Huckerby has raised the expectations, but he, for all his efforts does not seem to have great vision, he has great pace and a prolific work rate but unfortunately does not notice always when other players are better placed than him. This is something I hope will be addressed sooner rather than later if we are to progress. That we are riding high in the first division is great. For me we need a Gravesson in the mid-field. Nottingham Canary, it was our lot who gave him the chance to run the game as effectively as he did in the first half. It was his speed and his awareness that got him to the ball ahead of our lads and we stood off as we still do to our detrement and gave ground right to our penalty area where havoc was wreeked and it will continue to be so if we do not take charge of the mid-field more effectively. Like most of our contributors I want the best from our team and think how good it is to be riding on the crest of a wave as indeed we are. The one viewing commodity that I am pleased to lack are rose tinted glasses. OTBC.

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Question: Can some of the posters forget, for a moment, who this message is coming from and just give some constructive input to the original message here. Remember, people like me do not have the benefit of seeing the game, only listening and reading. Do most match attendees agree with the observations of Nottingham Canary or, in fact, is there a problem with the team readiness level coming into too many matches this season. If some people think there is a problem, why do you think that''s the case?



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Yankee Canary! Your original message basically said that our boys were lucky to be in the position we are at the moment due to some inept performances to take advantage of the mistakes that we make. Your interpretation of the media news,as i said in the last post I made, is fair. My reference to the Nottingham Canarys'' post is that he is allowing his enthusiasm for our boys to colour his vision somewhat. I have made many posts about our lack of committment for the full period, and the last game has shown once again that we are off the pace too often. The winning goal was a blatant defensive error that occurs time and time again in the matches we play. Mc Veigh in this case was attempting to run Francis along the touch line, hoping to run him out of ground, not one of our other defensive players came to cover Pauls back to take the ball if he was beaten, as in this case he was, allowing Francis a free ball into the danger area, as usual our defenders were all packed on or in the eighteen yard area. I am sure that due to the congestion of the area we do not pick up the opposition well enough, because no one knows who is marking who. Before some of you get carried away, this form of defensive play has been the reason that we have not secured a much greater gap between us and the runners up. It is also our lack of a more assertive player in mid field, a tackler and director of operations that gives us a lack of bite. I have also posted my doubts about Mulryne and his lack of effort to apply his undoubted skills. As I''ve said before players have to earn the right to make their mark on the park and he for my part has become an expensive Prima-Donna. By the way I do attend matches as often as possible I listen with air-phones to the match commentary to see if it does credit to the game, please rest assured, it generally does, especially the asides made by Mr Wallers assistant, that for obvious reasons are guarded, even though the content is not far from being on the ball so to speak.

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OK so I''ve broken my vow to keep quiet about Saturday, but I have to say that amongst the rather negative tone of these posts there is some sense.

There are some points I think the rose tinted (me included maybe) will agree with:

1. Ball into crowded box, we fall over ourselves until we either get it away or we concede a goal, and with a decent striker in there it will always be a goal conceded.
2. Green is not good at quick changing angles and appears slow to readjust. He is better with open space in front of him.
3. Rightly or wrongly we cannot play without a target man, and try as he did McKenzie couldn''t hold up, or more importantly get and distribute to a yellow shirt - the long ball.
4. Mullers is good but not outstanding. He is not Crook, Peters or Graveson and as such he is the lightweight of the middle three. Worthy has got him working and tackling(but often wrecklessly) but he isn''t a natural at that. So we play him for his skill and he needs time on the ball. The Bradfords of this world will not give him that so he shouldn''t play in those games.
5. Henderson is one for the future but again struggles against the big, hard tackling defender and so he looks for the easy option too often. Yes I tutted on Saturday but it wasn''t his fault it was just always going to be a hard gritty game and he would struggle (think Derby).
6. Huckerby like Rivers will run into trouble as many times as he will leave a defender in his wake. When things go well we forgive him, but when they don''t we get frustrated. We can carry and need to carry one like that in the team and it has to be Huckerby.
7. Saturday required the fighters (Brennan, Francis, Iwan along with Malky,Fleming and Holt) its not pretty but it works.
8. Bradford played 5 in midfield and they were usually in the middle, it was a battle.
9. We all got carried away, but we all had a feeling it was going to happen.
10. Its still our best chance of going up, lets enjoy it and worry about how we cope in the Premiership when it matters - next year.

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Thanks for the input Beelsie. Although financial resources may be limited now, if your assessment of a need for a quality midfield general is correct, that would become essential if promotion is achieved. The comment about the style/form of defensive play is interesting. I know this is only indirectly related but, when I read that Nigel had given Huckerby freedom to play his game I could not help thinking about the effect this may have on other players moving forward. All you need is a little hesitancy on the part of one or two players in a team if they think someone else will "take charge" ( whether it''s on defence or up front ) and this can become costly as the promotion ( and relegation race ) tightens up. Nottingham Canary does make a lot of valid points about results to date. I was thinking less about results, however, but more curious about the performance consistency as it related to full effort and coordination of everyone on the field. Of course, I realize this is Nigel''s job to extract that from the team and, obviously, this is easier said than done. I would feel more reassured for the rest of the season if in the next 3 or 4 games we see a tremendous amount of fight and attitude from the Canaries, even if one or two results go against them.

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