*****Official Match Thread v Swansea*****

[City 2nd 191]

7 minutes ago, king canary said:

Look at the stats? Look at the game! They were comfortably the better team, we huffed and puffed but they kept us at arms length with ease. Having loads of the ball near the centre circle and blasting 10 shots miles over the bar means nothing.

Don’t know what match you were watching! Comfortably the better team. They were gifted two goals. Kept us at arms length. You are having a laugh! Poor decision making when in good positions, the lack of a good striker, and failing to shoot cost Norwich. Not a ‘comfortably better team’.

[Making Plans 936]

12 minutes ago, unique said:

An out-of-form Pukki is far more dangerous than Adam Idah.

And there, in one short sentence you have summed up our problem

[City 2nd 191]

8 minutes ago, Clint said:

It should be nil nil, we’ve arguably been the better team bar two suicidal goals. You don’t give a 2 nil lead to the team with the best defence in the league. 
 

However, we clearly need a change of personnel from the start. Rupp and Skipp is far too defensive. Placheta is not good enough. Hernandez took on more players in 30 mins than PP has done in two games. Pukki hasn’t been great but needs some help up top and looked much better with Idah on. Given Pukki looks like he couldn’t hit a barn door, maybe Idah up top with Pukki feeding off him.

Vrancic needs to play in midfield, not number 10. Carries the ball forward so we’ll and is so positive, he keeps possession but always looks to go forward. His set pieces are a cut above as well. Placheta basically gave the ball away with every set piece until he went off.

Emi is so far ahead of Todd it’s unreal. He’s been really poor and I think we only need to play one of them, so it’s Emi. Josh Martin also looked decent before being dropped and I’m not sure why he’s so far behind Todd.

I thought we played alright so not a big deal but Farke can’t keep playing players that are massively out of form. We don’t look lively enough.  There’s no point having all these players available unless Farke is going to use them.

We’re top and we’ve now got some winnable games so it’s over to Farke....

Someone who sees the game as clearly as I did. Top post Clint.

[king canary 7,578]

6 minutes ago, City 2nd said:

Don’t know what match you were watching! Comfortably the better team. They were gifted two goals. Kept us at arms length. You are having a laugh! Poor decision making when in good positions, the lack of a good striker, and failing to shoot cost Norwich. Not a ‘comfortably better team’.

I'll happily wager more people were watching the game I was than the one you apparently did.

[Canary Wundaboy 1,358]

19 minutes ago, Creedence Clearwater Couto said:

He wasnt utterly awful. He was dropped tonight, in favour and McLean / Cantwell and we end up losing for the first time in ages. 

He was poor the last 2 games, don’t let tonight’s result cloud your judgement. We lost because we carry zero attacking threat right now, for whatever reason.

[City 2nd 191]

1 minute ago, king canary said:

I'll happily wager more people were watching the game I was than the one you apparently did.

Somehow I don’t think do. Even the sap pundits said it! Norwich are not as poor a  side as you wish to make out.

[Pukki Blinders 96]

If we were completely outclassed tonight and it was clear Swansea were the better team then that would be one thing, but the fact is we've lost this game because we've gifted them two goals. I said it at half-time Swansea really were nothing special and if we had Emi on the pitch I really would've fancied our chances. But the fact is we can't be so over-reliant on one player like we are on Buendia. Absolutely massive game tonight and we've generally looked completely toothless and been the architects of our own downfall.

One thing I do think needs to be mentioned, without making excuses, is Swansea had a full week to prepare for this game, because they didn't play in midweek and fantastic people at Sky decided to move this to a Friday. We on the other hand had 2 days and had to make our longest away trip of the season. 

Cantwell and Skipp played well, Mario and Onel made an impact when they came on. Outside that there was nothing good to be said there. Think we definitely need a refresh for our next game. Placheta, Pukki, Rupp, not offering enough.

Next 5 games are Stoke, Coventry, Birmingham, Rotherham and Wycombe. That HAS to be a minimum of 13 points. Do that and we should put ourselves back in a commanding position. Tonight was massive, there's no denying that. If Brentford and Swansea win their games in hand now we'll drop down to 3rd (though I'm hopeful Boro can do to Brentford tomorrow what they did to us last week), but there's no need to press the panic button just yet. Get Emi back in, and with a full week off and an 'easier' run of games hopefully we can get back on track.

[Ian 1,129]

8 minutes ago, City 2nd said:

Don’t know what match you were watching! Comfortably the better team. They were gifted two goals. Kept us at arms length. You are having a laugh! Poor decision making when in good positions, the lack of a good striker, and failing to shoot cost Norwich. Not a ‘comfortably better team’.

100% agree.

The fact is we've played 360 mins of football, generating many decent chances, but I can't remember the opposition keeper making any half decent saves other than Woodman's routine one tonight.

Swansea, on the other hand, scored two half-chances that we gifted them.

Fine margins, ****e finishing.

[Tumbleweed 106]

I'm not sure that the lineup is the issue. For me its the tactics and leadership Too slow, the team don't seem fired up until up against it, and posession obsession is killing us. Natural instinct, flair and risk taking seem prohibited. Its ok against a certain open set up, anything compact, direct or high press and we struggle badly.

[ged in the onion bag 854]

17 minutes ago, City 2nd said:

Don’t know what match you were watching! Comfortably the better team. They were gifted two goals. Kept us at arms length. You are having a laugh! Poor decision making when in good positions, the lack of a good striker, and failing to shoot cost Norwich. Not a ‘comfortably better team’.

Two mistakes, avoidable mistakes but they still needed the quality to take advantage.   We never had that quality!   

[NFN FC 1,123]

Dropping to 2nd or 3rd could be the catalyst we need to spur us on 

[Jim Smith 2,314]

18 minutes ago, king canary said:

I'll happily wager more people were watching the game I was than the one you apparently did.

I agree with Clint. They weren’t the better team and we gifted them the win with our errors and lack of incisiveness in the final third.

[Jim Smith 2,314]

8 minutes ago, Tumbleweed said:

I'm not sure that the lineup is the issue. For me its the tactics and leadership Too slow, the team don't seem fired up until up against it, and posession obsession is killing us. Natural instinct, flair and risk taking seem prohibited. Its ok against a certain open set up, anything compact, direct or high press and we struggle badly.

Rupp and Skipp as a combo slows everything down. It’s one or the other. Against weaker sides we should drop Vrancic deeper and let him be the play maker. 

[Making Plans 936]

4 minutes ago, NFN FC said:

Dropping to 2nd or 3rd could be the catalyst we need to spur us on 

Christ, you might be right.

But think how good we would be if we were 10th.

We would walk this league then

Edited February 5, 2021 by Making Plans

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

35 minutes ago, sgncfc said:

It's probably too soon after the game but people saying that Swansea were comfortably the better team are completely wrong. We gave them two goals. As last season, you can't do that and expect to win games - they didn't have to do anything much to win, just let us make the errors.

Heads are down. Supporters are mouthing off. Now we'll find out how good Farke and his coaches are. We have 4 difficult games left (all at home) and the rest are winnable. Win next week and we are back on 2 points per game.

Sorry but Swansea were clearly the better team, we need to find some form very quickly else Brentford and Swansea will run away with the promotion spots, and I really don't fancy our chances against Watford in the play-offs... they are too physical for us. 

[NFN FC 1,123]

3 minutes ago, Making Plans said:

Christ, you might be right.

But think how good we would be if we were 10th.

We would walk this league then

What I mean is it could wake the team up from complacency and push them a bit more. 

[Ian 1,129]

1 minute ago, Jim Smith said:

Rupp and Skipp as a combo slows everything down. It’s one or the other. Against weaker sides we should drop Vrancic deeper and let him be the play maker. 

Agree with this. For me Vrancic is awful in the 10 role, and Rupp doesn't really offer enough of anything to be played alongside Skipp. Neat and tidy footballer no doubt, but brings very little to the table in terms of dictating tempo IMO.

In this division I don't understand why we don't go with Vrancic, Skipp and McLean/Dowell more often, although I suspect it may be fitness related with Mario.

[Jim Smith 2,314]

3 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Sorry but Swansea were clearly the better team, we need to find some form very quickly else Brentford and Swansea will run away with the promotion spots, and I really don't fancy our chances against Watford in the play-offs... they are too physical for us. 

No they weren’t. Keeper error and a cheap loss of possession. Apart from that they did very little.

[Ian 1,129]

3 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Sorry but Swansea were clearly the better team, we need to find some form very quickly else Brentford and Swansea will run away with the promotion spots, and I really don't fancy our chances against Watford in the play-offs... they are too physical for us. 

I don't really agree. They defended deep, and had the quality in front of goal when it mattered, so if you think that makes them clearly better, fair enough.

They were clearly better at appealing every time one of their players fell over though, I will give you that.

Brentford and us for the top two positions 😆

[CDMullins 436]

How anyone can say we were the better team is beyond me.

They were incredibly comfortable and I think they had another gear if needed, we certainaly didn't.

[Jim Smith 2,314]

1 minute ago, CDMullins said:

How anyone can say we were the better team is beyond me.

They were incredibly comfortable and I think they had another gear if needed, we certainaly didn't.

They didn’t. Just as we haven’t had an extra gear all season. I bet Swansea couldn’t believe their luck because we just gifted them two goals they weren’t going to create for themselves. 

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,735]

Before tonight we'd just kept 2 clean sheets and were solid at the back, the issue was with scoring goals..and Farke picked a team (midfield) which made us even less of a threat. ...too late to then change it when we're 2-0 down

[CDMullins 436]

14 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

They didn’t. Just as we haven’t had an extra gear all season. I bet Swansea couldn’t believe their luck because we just gifted them two goals they weren’t going to create for themselves. 

We'll never know if they had another gear or not, they didn't need it.

[Van wink 2,994]

Missing Hugill badly

[BigGrantsTash 70]

29 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

No they weren’t. Keeper error and a cheap loss of possession. Apart from that they did very little.

Have you ever watched a Norwich match, regardless of result and thought “they were better than us”?

[Jim Smith 2,314]

3 minutes ago, BigGrantsTash said:

Have you ever watched a Norwich match, regardless of result and thought “they were better than us”?

Yes. But not tonight because they weren’t. 

[BigGrantsTash 70]

2 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Yes. But not tonight because they weren’t. 

You say they did very little. Do you believe we done a lot?

[Jim Smith 2,314]

4 minutes ago, BigGrantsTash said:

You say they did very little. Do you believe we done a lot?

Yes we did other than shoot which is one of our problems 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

52 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

No they weren’t. Keeper error and a cheap loss of possession. Apart from that they did very little.

This is a joke right? Coopers 3-5-2 more than matched our 4-5-1. Second half they sat back and let us have the ball after the second goal.

[BigGrantsTash 70]

16 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Yes we did other than shoot which is one of our problems 

I presume you’re the same Jim from the wotb forum who always claims we outplayed everyone and the opposition are always ****. I disagree. Though it wasn’t the most fluid game they were clearly better than us. They created marginally more chances and weren’t as wasteful as we were in possession. What you, I or anyone can’t deny is that they defended better than us and that is a big part of football whether you like it or not.