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Are we a better team than 2 years ago?

Are we a better side now than two years ago?  

86 members have voted

  1. 1. Are we a better side than we were two years ago?

    • Yes
      66
    • No
      20


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3 minutes ago, Graham Paddons Beard said:

The idea that we were poor at the back in 18/19 championship winning side isn’t  supported   by the stats

Away from home that season we conceded 23 goals - the lowest in the division. Sheff Utd (that everyone says were miles better than us defensively) let in 24 away from home . 

Away from home is where most clubs set up with an emphasis on defence - and we did ok. 
 

At home - different story- we conceded 34 double what Sheff Utd conceded. Of course we scored 51 goals which helped. 

Also,

The defence shouldn't just be judged on the GK and 4 defenders but;

The cover the midfield provides

and the philosophy of the team - If we are loading men forward to score goals, then there is always a risk wewill conceed more.

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Two years ago we we're a surprise package, noone would have considered as candidates for promotion.  This season we are one of the teams to beat and need to adapt to being a target which we have risen to the challenge by the results.  As a team we are better from defence to attack, more pragmatic in approach.  However the goals are fewer than before when we took more chances certainly it was more exciting than this but less disciplined.    

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My son made a very good point which has persuaded me that this season's team is better and that is precisely because of the lack of........US!  No crowd to roar on the team. Just imagine if we had been able to go to home matches and we were looking for a last minute winner against Boro or the encouragement for our new signings. I think the players' performances would just go up a notch, and if not it would certainly place pressure on the opposing team. As for away games too, just imagine how loudly our fans would sing and shout (away fans often are very vocal). It's amazing we can produce such a decent set of results week on week.

Two big things stand out for me though (a) Farke was under real pressure to produce this year. And he has done that with his usual grace, humour, passion and honesty and (b) Skipp...as posters have pointed out he has been what's been missing for over 10 years, a proper DM and someone who has made the defence look solid, such has been his mopping up. Yet, someone who can pass the ball quickly. The way he plays makes me smile as I often have my main attention on midfield, players -  a joy to watch. I would love us to keep him next year but maybe that's not possible. We missed his kind when in the EPL last year.

2018/19 was one of those wonderful campaigns but there's different ways of winning things and I reckon we are more complete  this season. All we need in the next 15 games is to do over a team 4-0 (or better 0-4) and at last we will finally show the clinical finishing that has just evaded us. If we had have won  by 4 or 5 goals yesterday then it wouldn't have been a surprise. And many many teams this year we've had similar chances. At some point surely we will open up the floodgates.

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Better now, though slightly less chaotic and cavalier performances. I know people are saying we have scored less, but lets be honest we haven't had to score as many with a tighter defence, if you let in 2 goals every other game then your going to have to be banging them in. 

 

Id also say we have a stronger spine to the team with Gibson and Skipp in it, whilst offensively Cantwell and Buendia have really pushed on since then. 

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2 hours ago, CDMullins said:

What?

I mean the Greek has the attributes to be as good as Jamal but right now Jamal is cearly infront of him.

And surely there's no question over Godfrey/Gibson?

I think PAOK and Newcastle supporters might disagree with you about Jamal. And I would take Gibson over Godfrey. Without getting into the debate about what’s changed, our goals conceded speaks for itself.

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1 hour ago, Nuff Said said:

I think PAOK and Newcastle supporters might disagree with you about Jamal. And I would take Gibson over Godfrey. Without getting into the debate about what’s changed, our goals conceded speaks for itself.

Godfrey and Gibson are an interesting comparison. Godfrey is clearly the better all round player and will likely end up playing at the top end of the Premier League for a long time. However his best elements are not really suited to a team fighting relegation and playing on the backfoot. 

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2 hours ago, Peanuts said:

Wasn't the thing two years ago that we massively exceeded our expected goals with Pukki having the season of his career? I don't know the stats but would be interesting to see if we're creating fewer chances this time around or just converting fewer (or both). Individually it does feel like we're stronger with Cantwell, Aarons and Buendia all having progressed. The central midfield definitely has more steel and central defense seems more solid as a result. Godfrey is a strange one as he's obviously doing well with Everton but I wouldn't swap him for Gibson now.

Good thinking. It truly was Teemu's annulus mirabilis. His xG was 22.67 and he scored 29. Those numbers were unbelievable. And unsustainable. We went up thinking we can afford to concede. For a few games we maybe looked like we can get away with it. Alas...

Currently Teemu is on xG 13.59 with 15 goals. Nowhere near 2018/2019 numbers, but very good nonetheless. Especially with this relatively more defensive tack. if fit and no red cards, Buendia-Pukki pipeline is going to produce maybe 0.7 to 0.8 goals per game.

In EPL the strategy for a small team is quite simply to avoid conceding. You only need to win against relegation competition. We are much better positioned for that than the old team.

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Skipp is clearly a step up on two years ago. He is a big part of our defensive resolve. Sadly not our player.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Peanuts said:

Wasn't the thing two years ago that we massively exceeded our expected goals with Pukki having the season of his career? I don't know the stats but would be interesting to see if we're creating fewer chances this time around or just converting fewer (or both). Individually it does feel like we're stronger with Cantwell, Aarons and Buendia all having progressed. The central midfield definitely has more steel and central defense seems more solid as a result. Godfrey is a strange one as he's obviously doing well with Everton but I wouldn't swap him for Gibson now.

This year we're currently underperforming our xg but also conceding a lot less than our xg against.

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Its a poor league, no getting away from that....but thats as much to do with the global situation and there not being much money around. The 3 relegated teams had as big an advantage as theyve ever hsd on that front.

Other little things have gone our way too....the 5 subs rule favours clubs ie ours with stronger benches. 

No fans in stadiums probably works in our favour too especially away from home.

With no outside influences of home fans ,particularly at more hostile grounds, it just comes down to whether our team is better than theirs, and invariably it is.

I'm not sure if we're a better team than 2 yrs ago, its hard to think we are when we scored 92 goals and Pukki scored 30 where were were at times blowing teams away 4-0 and 5-1

We're clearly not as clinical this time round...but to win so mamy games by the odd goal and to be able to see out games is unprecedented for this club and displays a different quality.

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No fans in stadiums works in our favour? Really?

Away from home many other championship clubs have fed up fans who our fans totally outshine.

At Carrow Road our fans are renowned for getting behind the team and being patient.

This place is nuts this weekend.

 

Edited by nutty nigel
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5 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

No fans in stadiums works in our favour? Really?

Away from home many other championship clubs have fed up fans who our fans totally outshine.

At Carrow Road our fans are renowned for getting behind the team and being patient.

This place is nuts this weekend.

 

Yes...."particularly at more hostile grounds"....as I said

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Yep, we are better and the weak areas from the last promotion have been identified and largely addressed. 

How we replace Skipp (if necessary) will define more than any other aspect how we do if we go up.

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23 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Yes...."particularly at more hostile grounds"....as I said

Thats only one or two and I can't even think of them. Compared to our home advantage of having 25k sold out every game, doesn't come close.

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Cardiff,Stoke,Millwall,Bristol City,..Birmingham on Tues...any away game can have an element of hostility from home fans , driving the team on, influencing a referee...particularly going into that latter stages of a game defending a one goal lead as we have on many occasions.

Take out all of the external factors which surround a game with fans...and it comes down to more of a matter of XI vs XI on the field...and more often than not , the better side , i.e us, will come out on top.

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7 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Thats only one or two and I can't even think of them. Compared to our home advantage of having 25k sold out every game, doesn't come close.

I can think of Millwall and Leeds but we tonked both them with fans in the grounds.

So did our fans.

Edited by nutty nigel

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This is a great thread, a real challenge to consider and to be honest I’m not sure how you judge. When you look at the club as a whole, from top to bottom, we must surely be better prepared than we were 2 years ago based on our subsequent experience. We see now, as we saw then,defensive mistakes, which in the Prem would probably end up in us conceding, but less of them I recon, we are now scoring fairly freely but our conversion rate isn’t outstanding,  the old addige is you can only beat what’s in front of you, we do that regularly so taking everything into consideration I would say yes.

Edited by Van wink

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I appreciate he is playing in a struggling team, but Jamal Lewis does not look that great at the moment. Another piece of shrewd work in the transfer market.

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1 hour ago, hogesar said:

Thats only one or two and I can't even think of them. Compared to our home advantage of having 25k sold out every game, doesn't come close.

Its a slightly blinkered view to think.that only our home fans make a difference to us....but nobody elses make a difference to their team??....regardless of numbers any home crowd can influence.

We only saw this season in the league game away at Kenilworth Rd that only 1 or 2 thousand fans can affect a weak referee as was on the night.

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1 minute ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Its a slightly blinkered view to think.that only our home fans make a difference to us....but nobody elses make a difference to their team??....regardless of numbers any home crowd can influence.

We only saw this season in the league game away at Kenilworth Rd that only 1 or 2 thousand fans can affect a weak referee as was on the night.

My point is few have a sold out 27k stadium in the championship.

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1 minute ago, hogesar said:

My point is few have a sold out 27k stadium in the championship.

Its not always about just numbers....The Den with only 12k can be more intimidating than a gate of twice the size elsewhere...

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2 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Its not always about just numbers....The Den with only 12k can be more intimidating than a gate of twice the size elsewhere...

Well we won there with fans. But not without fans.

Are you sure you haven't got this ahs about face?

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The younger players have certainly developed, the squad has more depth and we have youngsters who could be very useful if they fulfil their potential.

We’d certainly be better with Godfrey and Lewis but the replacements are very capable and we’ve made a few million on the deals too.

Yes we’re better as a package as nothing has been drastically changed but we’re continuing to improve as a club.

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37 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

We drew there without fans...we might have lost there if home fans were in there

So we won 3-1 with fans, drew 0-0 without fans, but might have lost if fans had been there.

So what about if there were no fans when we won 3-1? Might we have won 6-0?

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2 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

So we won 3-1 with fans, drew 0-0 without fans, but might have lost if fans had been there.

So what about if there were no fans when we won 3-1? Might we have won 6-0?

We're talking about this season ??

The fact that we only drew there this season but won there 2 yrs ago may in itself show that we were better 2 seasons ago.

...or that we were more prolific and could put teams away easier two season ago, compared to this ,where we are coming through tighter,closer games away from home without a home crowd  behind their team.

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3 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

We're talking about this season ??

The fact that we only drew there this season but won there 2 yrs ago may in itself show that we were better 2 seasons ago.

...or that we were more prolific and could put teams away easier two season ago, compared to this ,where we are coming through tighter,closer games away from home without a home crowd  behind their team.

So we can't compare the games from when fans were in the grounds. Just look at the results from this season and assume they'd be worse.

Fair enough.

Except I've seen how our supporters lift the team home and away. Ive heard countless managers say how Norwich is a tough place to come. I haven't witnessed the empty stadiums but can't imagine they'd make us better.

 

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12 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

So we can't compare the games from when fans were in the grounds. Just look at the results from this season and assume they'd be worse.

Fair enough.

Except I've seen how our supporters lift the team home and away. Ive heard countless managers say how Norwich is a tough place to come. I haven't witnessed the empty stadiums but can't imagine they'd make us better.

 

So , nobody elses fans get behind/lift their team?

I dont believe empty stadiums make our team 'better'...but I do believe its a leveller at many away games in particular....as I said , take fans out of the equation ,it emphasis more the XI vs XI on the pitch , without other influences on the game.

...and when its XI vs XI our team will invariably is better.

...and our ability to see out the vast amount of one goal margin victories , without the oppositions home crowd shouting their team on/influencing a referee in the last few mins of a game , is too in my opinion a factor

For what its worth..I think overall, even taking into account our better defensive record , the team of 2 seasons ago was better, by how clinical we were and the amount of goals we scored.

We're not quite as good this season...but there ate factors which are helping us

Edited by GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary

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