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BigGrantsTash

What has Farke learned?

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I’ve seen a lot of people say we will stay up next season because Farke has “learned” from the previous season. There was an article in the evening news about it as well. I’m trying pin point just what it is people think he’s learned tactically that he didn’t know before? No one seems to have an answer. 
 

There is also talk our players will be better this time round because they “learned” last time. Other than learning some of them aren’t good enough I struggle to think what this knowledge is. 
 

So I was wondering if anyone who agrees with this idea that our players and manager have learnt something that’s going to make us better, could explain what they think it is? At what point was it learnt? Why wasn’t it implemented throughout the season we were last in the prem?

 

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22 minutes ago, BigGrantsTash said:

I’ve seen a lot of people say we will stay up next season because Farke has “learned” from the previous season. There was an article in the evening news about it as well. I’m trying pin point just what it is people think he’s learned tactically that he didn’t know before? No one seems to have an answer. 
 

There is also talk our players will be better this time round because they “learned” last time. Other than learning some of them aren’t good enough I struggle to think what this knowledge is. 
 

So I was wondering if anyone who agrees with this idea that our players and manager have learnt something that’s going to make us better, could explain what they think it is? At what point was it learnt? Why wasn’t it implemented throughout the season we were last in the prem?

 

Invest a little more in the summer than we normally do will definitely help the cause. 

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3 hours ago, BigGrantsTash said:

I’ve seen a lot of people say we will stay up next season because Farke has “learned” from the previous season. There was an article in the evening news about it as well. I’m trying pin point just what it is people think he’s learned tactically that he didn’t know before? No one seems to have an answer. 
 

There is also talk our players will be better this time round because they “learned” last time. Other than learning some of them aren’t good enough I struggle to think what this knowledge is. 
 

So I was wondering if anyone who agrees with this idea that our players and manager have learnt something that’s going to make us better, could explain what they think it is? At what point was it learnt? Why wasn’t it implemented throughout the season we were last in the prem?

 

I imagine he's learned to ignore people spouting boll**ks. 

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He might argue that he already knew it, but himself and Webber know:

- we have a better chance of survival if our defence is solid, rather relying on attack.

- getting recruitment right. They made several mistakes last season and will be determined not to do the same again.

- PL teams are quicker, bigger, stronger and better organised.

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The midfield has to be the chief concern next season. Over run so many times last season. If we can't get Skipp back on loan, its a big gap to fill whilst McLean as effective as he is at Championship level, unless he's improved , isn't enough at premier league level. All of the other candidates who had a go last season are either no longer here or not quite good enough at that level....i.e Vrancic,Tettey,Rupp,Trybull,Leitner.

Amadou was signed to play there but was called upon in defence for the most part and rarely got the chance to play as a defensive mudfielder.

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What he has learned or hasn’t will only become apparent this time next year. I would say though he and the players can’t fail to have learned what the PL is all about after last seasons experience. That experience will be vital next time around. 

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indeed, you only know what you don't know when you find out what it is, so you do then realise that you don't know it, but that doesn't mean that you will get to know it even if you know what it is you don't know.

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He learnt that for the way he likes to set his teams up:

• if the CDM pivot isn't up to the task;

• we lose 3 of our 4 central defenders;

the EPL opposition will over run us. 

And VAR is interpreted badly in the EPL!

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8 hours ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

The midfield has to be the chief concern next season. Over run so many times last season. If we can't get Skipp back on loan, its a big gap to fill whilst McLean as effective as he is at Championship level, unless he's improved , isn't enough at premier league level.

Farke and Webber were quoted as being astonished that they didn't get any offers for McLean in the summer. They both see him as a Premier League player.

Obviously we suffered badly with injuries last time but as someone else has said above, PL players are bigger, stronger, fitter and more skilful. The main reason we went down last time was because the 2 defensive midfielders weren't up to it and because we consistently gave the ball away in dangerous areas. We still do that occasionally like the incident at the end of the Derby game. If you do that in the Premier League you concede a goal.

It was noticeable last time that we did better against teams like Man City and Leicester who don't rely on size and strength but suffered against teams like Burnley and Sheffield United who just steam rollered us.

I'm sure Farke knows all this and he tried to solve it with Amadou last time. Hopefully whoever he brings in this time round will be up to the job.

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7 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Obviously we suffered badly with injuries last time but as someone else has said above, PL players are bigger, stronger, fitter and more skilful. The main reason we went down last time was because the 2 defensive midfielders weren't up to it and because we consistently gave the ball away in dangerous areas. We still do that occasionally like the incident at the end of the Derby game. If you do that in the Premier League you concede a goal.

Thats the key I think, I suspect we thought we could succeed by playing an accurate passing game but in many games we were overwhelmed by the physicality of the opposition, its an aspect of the Premier League that we seem to forget about, not only are they quality players but many are big physical units as well.

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What did we learn? Priceless wisdom and experience as opposed to theory.

Many of hard lessons learnt are as noted above and hopefully many of these mistakes we won't make again (or try to mitigate) - but no doubt there will be new ones.

I'm sure we will as a club be better prepared this time around and frankly I'm expecting us to surprise more than a few. We will have built upon our crisp fluent passing game yet fixed many of the defensive/midfield shortcomings and naivety such as when to clear the ball into row Z as opposed to dangerously passing it around or worse dribbling it around at the back under pressure. Stop the soft goals.

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I suspect they both realise the squad didn’t have the right balance, and also we needed a bigger squad to have coped with the injuries.

Tactically I reckon they will be reflecting on the fact that we did not defend or attack set pieces well enough.  The attacking full back worked well, but the defensive midfielders have to cover better than they did last time.

I reckon they have learnt a lot.

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Am I correct in thinking that Chris Hughton is the only manager we've ever appointed with previous Premier League (Premiership) experience?**

Of course, Farke will now be the second of our managers with such prior-to knowledge.

I can't imagine DF following the safe ultra-cautious approach that the Hoots adopted however.

It may be a more tempered approach second time around, helped by the likes of Gibson and the unliklihood of the selective injury crisis that occured before.

**P.S. Glen Roader was (Spam.) Not a lot to glean from that though.

Edited by BroadstairsR

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12 hours ago, BigGrantsTash said:

I’ve seen a lot of people say we will stay up next season because Farke has “learned” from the previous season. There was an article in the evening news about it as well. I’m trying pin point just what it is people think he’s learned tactically that he didn’t know before? No one seems to have an answer. 

 

Our style of play has significantly changed, we play lower risk (and overall lower tempo possession football) - only flicking the switch with cutting incisive play when we need to, or for phases in the game where we want a goal.

Once we have a comfortable lead we look SO assured, we’re a Norwich team that’s won the most games ever with just a 1 goal lead - is that something you ever thought you’d say about a Farke side after last season, where we took the lead against Arsenal, Spurs, Wolves, Sheff United, Crystal Palace (off the top of my head) etc and ended up dropping points?

And what about the Forest, Derby and Millwall home games of 18/19, why has nothing like that happened this season? What about the fact we conceded 56/57 goals that year and now look to have pretty much halved that, despite losing 2/4 of our first choice defenders over the summer?

Given none of the above is news to anyone on this board, I’m really surprised you don’t think anyone has been able to answer this question - moreover that you can’t even answer it yourself having seen the season unfold completely differently to prior campaigns. I can only assume you have just woken up from a coma...

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4 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Our style of play has significantly changed, we play lower risk (and overall lower tempo possession football) - only flicking the switch with cutting incisive play when we need to, or for phases in the game where we want a goal.

Once we have a comfortable lead we look SO assured, we’re a Norwich team that’s won the most games ever with just a 1 goal lead - is that something you ever thought you’d say about a Farke side after last season, where we took the lead against Arsenal, Spurs, Wolves, Sheff United, Crystal Palace (off the top of my head) etc and ended up dropping points?

And what about the Forest, Derby and Millwall home games of 18/19, why has nothing like that happened this season? What about the fact we conceded 56/57 goals that year and now look to have pretty much halved that, despite losing 2/4 of our first choice defenders over the summer?

Given none of the above is news to anyone on this board, I’m really surprised you don’t think anyone has been able to answer this question - moreover that you can’t even answer it yourself having seen the season unfold completely differently to prior campaigns. I can only assume you have just woken up from a coma...

Just brilliant @Hank shoots Skyler😂

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Oh yes and we’re 10x better at defending set pieces now, a topic / issue which barely gets a mention anymore!

So in summary the key areas are probably;

- More control in games with less risk

- A much more organised defensive shape

- Focusing our total dominance in key phases of games rather than going full throttle the whole 90 minutes, I.e. see how many early goals we’ve scored recently to kill the game off, and see how many 75-90 minute goals we’ve scored when we needed to

- Much better approach to managing games once ahead

- More street wise with fouling and winning freekicks etc 

- Ability to dig in and win dirty, even when not playing well (the exact opposite of last season funnily enough) 

- Better at defending set pieces 

Edited by Hank shoots Skyler

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Honestly, who doesn’t learn from experience? Seems fairly obvious. Looking at this season alone, a lot of effort has been made to make us more solid in midfield to provide more protection to the defence. We’ve also looked better organised when defending set pieces.

What the club as a whole have hopefully learned is that you need options within the squad and the recruitment needs to be much better this time. We barely had 2 centre backs fit at the same time last season which meant Farke couldn’t change tactics to 5 at the back if he wanted to try and shore things up. We had no tactical flexibility. On top of that, we didn’t sign a single player that improved the team and lacked adequate backup for the first team for out of sorts regulars. Being realistic though, if I know this then Farke and Webber know it too. They are not dumb and as I’ve said they’ve already addressed defensive frailties. On top of that they’ve tried to fill the no 10 spot which was a problem last season. From what I’ve seen of Dowell recently, if not for injury he would have held down that position all season.

Edited by seanthecanary

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1 hour ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Farke and Webber were quoted as being astonished that they didn't get any offers for McLean in the summer. They both see him as a Premier League player.

Obviously we suffered badly with injuries last time but as someone else has said above, PL players are bigger, stronger, fitter and more skilful. The main reason we went down last time was because the 2 defensive midfielders weren't up to it and because we consistently gave the ball away in dangerous areas. We still do that occasionally like the incident at the end of the Derby game. If you do that in the Premier League you concede a goal.

It was noticeable last time that we did better against teams like Man City and Leicester who don't rely on size and strength but suffered against teams like Burnley and Sheffield United who just steam rollered us.

I'm sure Farke knows all this and he tried to solve it with Amadou last time. Hopefully whoever he brings in this time round will be up to the job.

I agree with what you say.

The real challenge for us is to find defensive midfield players that are physically robust but also have  good control and passing. Amadou was robust but lacked control. I hope that we keep Skipp as he might be the solution, but it will be interesting to see if he is anywhere near being as dominant in the EPL.

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35 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Oh yes and we’re 10x better at defending set pieces now, a topic / issue which barely gets a mention anymore

I do totally agree with everything you say, however next season will be the litmus test on this statement, defending set pieces is still the one area that concerns me, and whilst we have been so much better this season it's true, it could also be countered that the quality of opposition this season has made it easier to do so. 

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2 minutes ago, Ken Hairy said:

I do totally agree with everything you say, however next season will be the litmus test on this statement, defending set pieces is still the one area that concerns me, and whilst we have been so much better this season it's true, it could also be countered that the quality of opposition this season has made it easier to do so. 

Yep don't disagree with that, we'll definitely be in for a tougher time trying to defend set pieces against the Burnleys / West Hams etc etc. However I don't think we'll be going in with anything like the same 'naivety' as last season, which saw the likes of Lewis being allocated Van Dijk for a corner.. 

I suppose the same could be said of our overall defensive record from open play this season, its a good platform but of course it doesn't automatically translate to the higher league. We may still struggle.

But whatever happens I certainly expect us to concede less goals than the 70+ of last year!

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47 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Oh yes and we’re 10x better at defending set pieces now, a topic / issue which barely gets a mention anymore!

So in summary the key areas are probably;

- More control in games with less risk

- A much more organised defensive shape

- Focusing our total dominance in key phases of games rather than going full throttle the whole 90 minutes, I.e. see how many early goals we’ve scored recently to kill the game off, and see how many 75-90 minute goals we’ve scored when we needed to

- Much better approach to managing games once ahead

- More street wise with fouling and winning freekicks etc 

- Ability to dig in and win dirty, even when not playing well (the exact opposite of last season funnily enough) 

- Better at defending set pieces 

Agree with all of this (and your earlier post HSS, spot on). I would add one more thing and that would be the 'golden thread'  linking our much improved defensive shape  with transitions into forward play ...stand up one Oliver Skipp. He covers for the back four brilliantly when they are temporarily out of formation, he turns very quickly and often is there to receive the ball. I know we have Emi and Teemu etc and we are blessed but this fella is the best I've seen in midfield in a yellow and green shirt for many a year. I wouldn't vote him POTS because somehow I reckon Emi might persuade me with my vote.

We have needed Skipp and he has been the real missing link from last year. 

Edited by sonyc

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4 minutes ago, Ken Hairy said:

I do totally agree with everything you say, however next season will be the litmus test on this statement, defending set pieces is still the one area that concerns me, and whilst we have been so much better this season it's true, it could also be countered that the quality of opposition this season has made it easier to do so. 

Couldn't agree more. The difference in standard between the two divisions is now huge. The key, as many have pointed out, is the quality of the 2 defensive midfield players. We probably had the weakest 2 last time round and it showed.  Any defence in the Premier League will struggle if it constantly has quality players running at it.

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1 hour ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Our style of play has significantly changed, we play lower risk (and overall lower tempo possession football) - only flicking the switch with cutting incisive play when we need to, or for phases in the game where we want a goal.

Once we have a comfortable lead we look SO assured, we’re a Norwich team that’s won the most games ever with just a 1 goal lead - is that something you ever thought you’d say about a Farke side after last season, where we took the lead against Arsenal, Spurs, Wolves, Sheff United, Crystal Palace (off the top of my head) etc and ended up dropping points?

And what about the Forest, Derby and Millwall home games of 18/19, why has nothing like that happened this season? What about the fact we conceded 56/57 goals that year and now look to have pretty much halved that, despite losing 2/4 of our first choice defenders over the summer?

Given none of the above is news to anyone on this board, I’m really surprised you don’t think anyone has been able to answer this question - moreover that you can’t even answer it yourself having seen the season unfold completely differently to prior campaigns. I can only assume you have just woken up from a coma...

Wanted to post something, you beat me to it right across the board. Good work.

Call it game management, call it controlling the spaces, call it controlling possession, call it whatever you like, but the style has clearly been amended considerably since our last season in the Championship with the aim of being more durable under pressure in the Premiership.

We're still a centre-half and an anchor man light for sure, and probably a striker too - unless they think Famewo is good enough to be an emergency option. But I'm pretty sure Webber knows this.

The other thing that needs pointing out is this: attack and defence are not separate. If your defence is heavily compromised due to missing a pile of centre-halves, your attackers are often caught between two stools and rendered less effective. Especially as Farke decided his only chance was to play in a low block, which was correct - but then we lost that link between Stiepermann and Pukki as essentially they ended up too far apart.

This is actually why I think we'll be better served playing 4-3-2-1 next season instead of 4-2-3-1, but time will tell.

Edited by TheGunnShow
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I think he will have learnt that the expectation will greater amongst the supporters. He did indeed have 38 free hits. Next season we will expect a bit more.

He doesn't have to look at anything more than 17th at the moment.

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3 hours ago, Van wink said:

indeed, you only know what you don't know when you find out what it is, so you do then realise that you don't know it, but that doesn't mean that you will get to know it even if you know what it is you don't know.

Yes, It's the unknown unknowns that really mess you up.

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4 hours ago, Van wink said:

indeed, you only know what you don't know when you find out what it is, so you do then realise that you don't know it, but that doesn't mean that you will get to know it even if you know what it is you don't know.

Is that a verse from Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" by any chance ? 😉

........or a quote from Sir Humphrey Appleby ? 

Edited by C.I.D

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2 hours ago, Badger said:

I agree with what you say.

The real challenge for us is to find defensive midfield players that are physically robust but also have  good control and passing. Amadou was robust but lacked control. I hope that we keep Skipp as he might be the solution, but it will be interesting to see if he is anywhere near being as dominant in the EPL.

Amadou was undisciplined about his role and was too easily bypassed when he played (not many times) in midfield.  Maclean was frequently left on his own against a flood of opposition midfielders. Keeping, or replacing, Skipp is the number one priority - maybe Sorensen can step up, maybe Mumba can play there too, but that still leaves us very light in that critical area so I expect one or two CDM acquisitions to flesh out the squad.

The rest will depend on who leaves. A right back if Aarons goes; another creative if Emi or Todd move on. But I expect Dowell and Martin to both kick on next season.

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10 minutes ago, C.I.D said:

Is that a verse from Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" by any chance ? 😉

........or a quote from Sir Humphrey Appleby ? 

Well C.I D, if you ask me for a straight answer, then I shall say that, as far as I can see, looking at it by and large, taking one thing with another in terms of best and worst of Joni and Sir Humphrey, then in the final analysis it is probably true to say, that at the end of the day, in general terms, you would probably find that, not to put too fine a point on it, there probably wasn't very much in it one way or the other as far as one can see, at this stage.

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6 hours ago, sgncfc said:

Amadou was undisciplined about his role and was too easily bypassed when he played (not many times) in midfield.

Would also say that he is probably the least Farke style player we’ve signed since he’s been manager. It may just have been his physique that made him look this way but he looked like bambi on ice when in possession and not comfortable at all

Edited by seanthecanary

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