The usual problem

[westcoastcanary 173]

5 minutes ago, king canary said:

The loss of one (admittedly very talented) central midfielder shouldn't throw us that far out of whack.

I wonder if there is an argument for a return to a back three next week- Hanley, Klose and Godfrey if all available, with Godfrey able to step forward into midfield if needs be.

Agreed, it shouldn't king, and other factors have played a part. I don't think DF will deviate from 4 at the back though. 

[SwindonCanary 455]

We let in corners when the ball is played in low.  We have to improve.

,

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,735]

56 minutes ago, SwindonCanary said:

We let in corners when the ball is played in low.  We have to improve.

,

This is what I cant understand about those 2 corners....from a defensive point of view they were exactly what you'd want...two poorly hit low corners that went straight to our players but on both occasions the ball ricoched of our ankles and straight to them....its almost as if we're not awake or alert to the fact that the ball might come to us.

   Absolutely terrible for both of them

Edited December 30, 2018 by GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary

[Ian 1,129]

Anything to do with fatigue and injuries do you think?

Ron, normally agree with you - but Mario indifferent despite a key pass, assist, and numerous quality balls, and Teemu less effective despite netting his 15th of the season and maybe leading Champ goalscorer?!?!

We were a patched up team, and looked it defensively today. Despite that we absolutely dominated a top 6 team for 35 mins, and but for individual errors would have won today.

Disappointing, but we move on knowing everything is in our hands. 

[Ian 1,129]

King. We have lost Leitner, Lewis, had Zimmerman and Klose returning from illness/injury, and have had long term injuries to players (McLean, Godfrey, Hanley), so obviously it's not just about Leitner.

This is also his second spell out, and we coped well during the first. More likely a combination of fatigue, injuries, and a dip in form have caused the slight wobble.

That said I would have bitten your hand off for second at the halfway point, so lets go again.

[Fiery Zac 1,066]

6 hours ago, westcoastcanary said:

Spot on. But in addition to his appreciation of the situation and his dictating the pace of the game, IMO Mo has also added a greater defensive element to his game this season. To be fair to Vrancic, when he first came in in place of Mo, he made a good fist of that aspect of the midfield pairing with Tettey, but latterly it's been less in evidence. We need damage limitation now until Mo is fit.

Far too harsh on Vrancic, he’s been fantastic this season, whether it’s coming on as a sub or starting games since Leitners been out. I agree Mo is a big miss and we have to learn to adjust more without him but we simply cannot play damage limitation football until one player is back fit again.

Yesterday reminded me of the first few games of the season. Plenty of entertaining forward play but no solidity in defence and we look like we’re going to concede from every attack we face.

A re focus on our defensive duties and a couple of changes, I’d go with Pinto-Hanley-Klose-Aarons for Brentford and we can easily get back on track.

Norwich don’t do things the easy way, including promotion!

[Clint 221]

Hanley has to come back in for Brentford and we can only hope he adds some stability. We could really do with getting back on track with a win and a much better defensive performance before going to WBA! 

[ron obvious 1,498]

8 hours ago, Ian said:

Anything to do with fatigue and injuries do you think?

Ron, normally agree with you - but Mario indifferent despite a key pass, assist, and numerous quality balls, and Teemu less effective despite netting his 15th of the season and maybe leading Champ goalscorer?!?!

We were a patched up team, and looked it defensively today. Despite that we absolutely dominated a top 6 team for 35 mins, and but for individual errors would have won today.

Disappointing, but we move on knowing everything is in our hands. 

Ian, I was thinking of the way their levels dropped as the game progressed. I think they're tired. They don't seem capable of harassing the defence throughout the game.

As usual it's a combination of factors. It's difficult to understand what's going on in the collective defensive head though; we were getting skinned for pace, fair enough, but why nobody can just do the obvious thing & wallop the ball out of play from corners is beyond me. Sometimes it's safety first & to hell with the football!

 

 

[Making Plans 936]

We don't hoof it out of our box when we have the opportunity. That's all.

[East Rider 548]

We did not get the rub of the green in many aspects yesterday and they exploited our changed defence well. The loss of two of our most talented midfielders is going to hurt and combine that with the combativeness loss of Emi who wins far more 50/50 balls than should do and it is a concern.

We have (I'm led to believe) conceded 22 goals at home so far, half that amount away, and the worst 'goals against' out of the top 8. This is clearly not a crisis however, unless we adapt immediately to cover the weakness, our season will fall away during a hard January. Which will be a shame.

I suspect DF will change this for the next few games and we will redress this. I hope

[Capt. Pants 4,195]

Not sure bringing Pinto back would actually strengthen the defence. Good at going forward but poor defensively in my opinion.

[unique 434]

It doesn’t matter what formation you play with when you’re conceding goals for fun at set-pieces.

That said, we should be looking to reduce the number of corners and free-kicks we are conceding. Moving to a back three at home is surely worth a go, as the number of goals being conceded could hardly be worse.

It might help to confuse the plans of opposing managers for the first few games. As someone posted earlier, a back three of Klose, Hanley and Godfrey would enable Godfrey to push into midfield as and when.

Something has to change.

[sonyc 5,489]

8 minutes ago, East Rider said:

We did not get the rub of the green in many aspects yesterday and they exploited our changed defence well. The loss of two of our most talented midfielders is going to hurt and combine that with the combativeness loss of Emi who wins far more 50/50 balls than should do and it is a concern.

We have (I'm led to believe) conceded 22 goals at home so far, half that amount away, and the worst 'goals against' out of the top 8. This is clearly not a crisis however, unless we adapt immediately to cover the weakness, our season will fall away during a hard January. Which will be a shame.

I suspect DF will change this for the next few games and we will redress this. I hope

Agree ER, we are not in a place of crisis yet but January could hit hard. It depends how Brentford goes.

Looking at the most recent 5 game form table, we have scored more goals than any team (12) and conceded the most (11) standing 8th in the form league over these games.

Why would you change a winning team? DF knows his best mix. Yet I've wondered if this Xmas period should have been the time to rotate 3 or 4 players. Leeds and W Brom struggled too. We needed fresh legs and to have given players rest...psychological if nothing else. The squad know the system.

The FA cup gives us a chance to see Marshall and MacLean at least.

I'm confident in this team. I saw a deep disappointment in Farke in his post-match analysis but also a steely comment of defiance. I expect the post-mortem is going on right now. 

Promotion races have setbacks normally, unusual results. Yet our overall trajectory is a positive one. We sit second on New Year's Day 2 points ahead of 3rd. Who wouldn't take that? Either now or 5 months ago?

This is perhaps one of those times where those old fashioned words "Steady on...." ring truest.

[king canary 7,578]

Worth remembering keeping the ball out doesn't solely sit with the defence. I think Cantwell has been guilty of being moved off the ball to easily and not being able to get it back.

I'd hope to see Hanley and Klose together if possible v Brentford but I'd also expect a bit of midfield rotation.

[Otis62 6]

Do you think we’ll see MacLean in the squad for the Portsmouth match ? Read we’d signed a very good creative player player at the time. Would also like to see Srbeny play a bit more  looks a very strong player and seems to get involved straight away when he comes on. 

[Boris 56]

16 hours ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Really cant decide which of those 4 goals was the worse to concede??.....the 2 corners are all the worse due to the fact that we were the first to get a foot on both of them??

 

May be some one will find joke but can you see Pukki what do it on this both corners on Derby games!??

 

Far too casual by him and self-confident on both of this corners who ball is on his zone.

 

Farke stick too much on short grup of players around 14-15 max this days and when schedule is epic for me the problem is that he not put back his best players but after some one is out then need to wait too much to be back on starting 11(Klose,Hanley,Mclean,etc)

For example against Forest he put straight Klose+Godfrey as centre back pair but they never ever player official game together on this area!

Is period with so many games and Farke must stop to experiment to see how many under 21 players we can keep use!

Is time for more experienced players on heat moments and we must start use Klose+Hanley around all this kids.

Godfrey I liked much to be around but him simply is not defender or need much time to stick for pair as cb.

Pinto seems on fridge and may be morale is very low but if him not play when we not have other full back why he receive his check week after week?

Nothing happen that bad but I hope this game to not be turning point of our season because after sky high confidence after last epic games we are on knockdown after too many strange things happen yesterday last 10 minutes.

Must react on New Years Day and then we have time to regroup and to fit some missed players etc

[westcoastcanary 173]

12 hours ago, Fiery Zac said:

Far too harsh on Vrancic, he’s been fantastic this season, whether it’s coming on as a sub or starting games since Leitners been out. I agree Mo is a big miss and we have to learn to adjust more without him but we simply cannot play damage limitation football until one player is back fit again.

Zac, my reference to damage limitation was simply saying we need to recognise that Mo's absence is detrimental to the good balance we have between attack and defence when he plays. However good Vrancic is in possession and going forward, his defending, especially in and around the box, is generally weak. So you can't just slot Vrancic into Mo's place without making adjustments elsewhere to restore the balance. As I said, Vrancic actually did pretty well defensively at first, but latterly far less so.  

[lake district canary 4,531]

With the absence of a genuine left back, I do wonder of it's time to use three centre backs, with Aarons as wing back on the right and a left sided player on the left wing back position. It means changing a few things, but maybe a necessity.

                      Krul

           Zimm Godfrey Klose

Aarons   Tettey  Vrancic  Stiepermann

         Hernandez      Cantwell(Pukki)

                       Pukki(Rhodes)

With the team set up like this, there is still plenty of scope for players to get forwards, but with an emphasis on keeping tighter at the back with five players plus Tettey. You could with a formation like this play Rhodes at the top with Pukki in the left channel, where he scored some of his goals from earlier in the season. 

So pretty much the same players with the same ability and mentality, but addressing the issue of not having Buendia and Mo available. Once Maclean is back, we have other options, but maybe re-adjustment is necessary for now.