Farke vs Smith

[Petriix 3,219]

There's a remarkable similarly (or symmetry even) between Farke's last 6 games and Smith's first 6. One win, two draws, three goals scored, a couple of games where we could or should have got more.

The differences are there, but not enormous. It's impossible to know whether Farke had just about turned the corner and was getting more out of the team, but it's pointless to speculate. We can't ignore the rest of his Premier League record.

Smith has stopped us conceding so many, but that might be down to the opposition rather than his coaching. The initial signs were good in that we were giving it a go, playing with more intensity and creating chances.

But it has descended right back to the same situation as under Farke. The midfield issues have returned in identical form. The lack of attacking intent combined with hoofing it long has resurfaced.

It's all very well to keep Man Utd at bay for 80 minutes or to start brightly against Spurs, but those games won't define our season. It's Newcastle away against 10 men and Villa at home where we need to pick up the points.

If the managers are so similar then you need to look at the squad. Ok, we're suddenly missing a bunch of players, but where are the exciting young prospects champing at the bit ready to take the chance? Where are the leaders in the dressing room?

It's pretty clear that the squad has been mismanaged. I'm not so worried about this season because it's been a lost cause for a while now. It's next year that I'm worried about. We've gone backwards while spending record amounts on poor players.

It would be pretty miraculous if Smith could repeat Farke's Championship success with this squad (minus the loanees). Not impossible, but I'm struggling to imagine it right now.

I keep telling myself that the bad times in football are what mak the good times good. I just fear we're going to realise over the next couple of years just how good the recent good times have been. 

[Mr Angry 2,019]

5 minutes ago, Petriix said:

There's a remarkable similarly (or symmetry even) between Farke's last 6 games and Smith's first 6. One win, two draws, three goals scored, a couple of games where we could or should have got more.

The differences are there, but not enormous. It's impossible to know whether Farke had just about turned the corner and was getting more out of the team, but it's pointless to speculate. We can't ignore the rest of his Premier League record.

Smith has stopped us conceding so many, but that might be down to the opposition rather than his coaching. The initial signs were good in that we were giving it a go, playing with more intensity and creating chances.

But it has descended right back to the same situation as under Farke. The midfield issues have returned in identical form. The lack of attacking intent combined with hoofing it long has resurfaced.

It's all very well to keep Man Utd at bay for 80 minutes or to start brightly against Spurs, but those games won't define our season. It's Newcastle away against 10 men and Villa at home where we need to pick up the points.

If the managers are so similar then you need to look at the squad. Ok, we're suddenly missing a bunch of players, but where are the exciting young prospects champing at the bit ready to take the chance? Where are the leaders in the dressing room?

It's pretty clear that the squad has been mismanaged. I'm not so worried about this season because it's been a lost cause for a while now. It's next year that I'm worried about. We've gone backwards while spending record amounts on poor players.

It would be pretty miraculous if Smith could repeat Farke's Championship success with this squad (minus the loanees). Not impossible, but I'm struggling to imagine it right now.

I keep telling myself that the bad times in football are what mak the good times good. I just fear we're going to realise over the next couple of years just how good the recent good times have been. 

A good point about the similarity of the 6 results for each manager, and therefore questioning whether DS has done any better than DF.

I would say though that DF had been in charge for 4 years so had a much greater knowledge of most of the players at his disposal, whereas DS has only been here just over a month and is presumably still learning about those players-I think he needs to be given more time before we can properly compare their relative performances.

[canarydan23 4,762]

7 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It would be pretty miraculous if Smith could repeat Farke's Championship success with this squad (minus the loanees). Not impossible, but I'm struggling to imagine it right now.

If Newcastle come down with us then it will be difficult, maybe even impossible, to get another Championship title. Whilst they may struggle to attract top Premier League talent in January, they will have no trouble assembling a squad that can bank on the top two in the second tier. So we'll be among a clutch of teams competing for the final automatic promotion spot. And we'll start the season with something of a rebuild project with several players certainly/almost certainly leaving (Normann, Gilmour, Williams and Kabak) and others likely to not be here (Aarons, Cantwell, Rashica) and probably a couple of departures not that foreseeable (Pukki and Krul fancying a final payday?).

When we came down last time we lost Lewis and Godfrey and not much else and replaced them impeccably with Gibson and Xavi then Dimi.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

Think this is a bit disingenuous to Smith.

Old habits die hard. Our best performances have been under a clear change in style of play, high but organised pressing against Wolves and So'ton which we were never capable of under Farke, and a much more solid base to repel attacks. Totally different to Farke, and much more effective in the PL. 

Our worst performances have come in games where the team has reverted to type and have been totally Farke-esque in nature (towards the end, not good Farkeball). Is that a coincidence? The game situation versus Newcastle clearly threw us as we didn't seem comfortable being handed the initiative. The Villa game was very reminiscent of Leeds at home, but we had youth players on the bench ffs. 

Before that, Wolves was the first game we significantly outperformed out opponents xG. The first game we could actually tangibly say 'we should've won that game'. Okay there are games versus Brighton we 'could've' won under Farke, but to say that is to simply be reliant on us scoring our chances, but Brighton equally missing chances too. On that basis Brighton 'could've' won it too (remember the penalty shout and Maupay's miss). Whereas Wolves didn't so much as have a chance to score. There was no 'could've' for Wolves. Only us. 

And since Smith has taken over we've rescued 4 points from losing positions, in 6 games. Under Farke we rescued 0 points from losing positions, in 48 games.

Also under Farke's last 6 games did we ever have to cope with having 8-9 first team players out either? Or even any injuries? 

Our best performing players have been out for much of the Smith era (Normann, Rashica, and now everyone else). How would Farke have coped under those circumstances?

I loved Farke and was sad he went in the way he went, and also underwhelmed by Smith, but his positivity has overall been a breath of fresh air and I can see a clear improvement in performances in his opening 6 games - even in spite of the fact Smith has had a whole raft of issues much more difficult than Farke ever did in those games. 

Could you imagine a Farke side with Placheta on the wing, Sorensen at CB and Byram in midfield? Holy hell!

Edited December 16, 2021 by Hank shoots Skyler

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

I agree RE the mismanagement of the squad though, and am fearful of how things will go in the champs next season if (when, tbh) we go down.

[Rolf Harris 33]

Would say we look a lot better and up for a fight. The games have been close but we don't proper firepower. Need a goal scorer in Jan and a DM. 

[BigFish 2,283]

30 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's pretty clear that the squad has been mismanaged.

Not really, it is pretty clear that you started with this position and then attempted to build an argument around it. What has been pretty clear lately is we are without a number of key players right now.

[king canary 8,758]

I certainly don't think its fair to claim our improvement defensively is down to the opponents. Under Farke even teams like Watford tore up apart every single time they ran at us. You can see Smith and his team have the defence much better drilled and able to cope with counter attacks.

[Kenny Foggo 1,194]

8 minutes ago, king canary said:

I certainly don't think its fair to claim our improvement defensively is down to the opponents. Under Farke even teams like Watford tore up apart every single time they ran at us. You can see Smith and his team have the defence much better drilled and able to cope with counter attacks.

100% this. Also seemed to remember when Farke took over his 1st season wasn't great.

[non-scoring strikers 153]

Another day another bunch of creepy fans pining for the days of our team playing like spineless amoebas under the tutelage of an inept manager, woefully out of his depth. Sigh.

[hogesar 10,766]

36 minutes ago, king canary said:

I certainly don't think its fair to claim our improvement defensively is down to the opponents. Under Farke even teams like Watford tore up apart every single time they ran at us. You can see Smith and his team have the defence much better drilled and able to cope with counter attacks.

Our fullbacks look like they can defend.

Also, the timing of this post is odd. It wasn't, and wouldn't have been posted after the Man Utd game.

It's posted after a game where half our squad were basically unavailable, with certainly 4 or 5 realistic starters not able to even be on the bench. If we're using that game to judge the overall picture then that is grossly unfair.

[lake district canary 4,831]

You have to widen it imo. The football we played under Alex Neil was sometimes brilliant too.....but as with Farke, struggled in the PL. Smith will have the same problems.

 

 

[lake district canary 4,831]

1 minute ago, hogesar said:

It's posted after a game where half our squad were basically unavailable, with certainly 4 or 5 realistic starters not able to even be on the bench. If we're using that game to judge the overall picture then that is grossly unfair.

Yet the Villa goals were down to lack of challenges by people who are regulars in the team.....

[Danke bitte 1,155]

1 hour ago, Petriix said:

It's pretty clear that the squad has been mismanaged. I'm not so worried about this season because it's been a lost cause for a while now. It's next year that I'm worried about. We've gone backwards while spending record amounts on poor players.

It would be pretty miraculous if Smith could repeat Farke's Championship success with this squad (minus the loanees). Not impossible, but I'm struggling to imagine it right now.

I keep telling myself that the bad times in football are what mak the good times good. I just fear we're going to realise over the next couple of years just how good the recent good times have been. 

Exactly this. I’m completely with you. I know it’s all conjecture at this stage but playing Champ football with Smith and no Buendia has me thinking we’re now entering another phase of mid table mediocrity. I think it’s completely dependent on who our DoF is as of next season. 

[king canary 8,758]

2 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Our fullbacks look like they can defend.

Also, the timing of this post is odd. It wasn't, and wouldn't have been posted after the Man Utd game.

It's posted after a game where half our squad were basically unavailable, with certainly 4 or 5 realistic starters not able to even be on the bench. If we're using that game to judge the overall picture then that is grossly unfair.

This is what has confused me greatly these last couple of days.

It largely smells of a group of people who didn't want Farke gone, didn't want Smith in and have been waiting for a crap performance to jump all over.

[hogesar 10,766]

3 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Yet the Villa goals were down to lack of challenges by people who are regulars in the team.....

This is overly simplistic. It's ignoring the fact players were left exposed, starting with a poor high press up top (with 2 wide players who wouldn't normally play for us, lacking in match sharpness key to that), and the fact our midfield was overrun exposing our defence, and ignoring the fact that the CB partnership was a completely new one.

 

3 minutes ago, king canary said:

This is what has confused me greatly these last couple of days.

It largely smells of a group of people who didn't want Farke gone, didn't want Smith in and have been waiting for a crap performance to jump all over.

I wasn't massive on Smith, especially initially, and I was a huge fan of Farke. But I don't see the value in making things up to suit a narrative. I maintain certain things like Farke was a very good judge of player especially younger players and we've not really benefited from the inclusion of Gilmour or Cantwell so far. 

But we just couldn't get to a regular competitive level under Farke. We would need to score 3 goals to win any game under him generally. I think under Smith there's some downsides (when Farkeball is good, it's REALLY good) - but overall i've seen more chance of us retaining a Premier League place under him than at any time under Farke.

[lake district canary 4,831]

3 minutes ago, king canary said:

This is what has confused me greatly these last couple of days.

It largely smells of a group of people who didn't want Farke gone, didn't want Smith in and have been waiting for a crap performance to jump all over.

That is just being vindictive. Farke had many things going for him - not least his ability to get the best from players, given time - and if they gave him problems, he dropped them until they toed the line. 

Problem for him this season was the egos who wouldn't toe the line and who he tried to treat the same way, were deemed to be in the right by some of the other players and Webber.......yet neither of them have done any better since he left (talking about Cantwell and Gilmour). 

Smith has it all to do to show he can do better or even match Farke's achievements. Give him time to mould his squad and way of playing and we may see something special again, but at the moment - which is all we can judge him on - it doesn't look much better.

[king canary 8,758]

3 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

That is just being vindictive. Farke had many things going for him - not least his ability to get the best from players, given time - and if they gave him problems, he dropped them until they toed the line. 

Problem for him this season was the egos who wouldn't toe the line and who he tried to treat the same way, were deemed to be in the right by some of the other players and Webber.......yet neither of them have done any better since he left (talking about Cantwell and Gilmour). 

Smith has it all to do to show he can do better or even match Farke's achievements. Give him time to mould his squad and way of playing and we may see something special again, but at the moment - which is all we can judge him on - it doesn't look much better.

I can't see how its 'vindictive' is any way- you just don't like it as it absolutely sums you up to a tee.

Yes Farke had a lot going for him but to talk about his ability to get the best out of players when he picked up 5 points in 11 games this season is fairly laughable.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

9 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I wasn't massive on Smith, especially initially, and I was a huge fan of Farke. But I don't see the value in making things up to suit a narrative. I maintain certain things like Farke was a very good judge of player especially younger players and we've not really benefited from the inclusion of Gilmour or Cantwell so far. 

But we just couldn't get to a regular competitive level under Farke. We would need to score 3 goals to win any game under him generally. I think under Smith there's some downsides (when Farkeball is good, it's REALLY good) - but overall i've seen more chance of us retaining a Premier League place under him than at any time under Farke.

👍 Tbh I would say Smith's Norwich currently plays better premier league football than Farke does. I really enjoyed what we did versus Wolves and So'ton (second half). I don't recall any moments of 'Farkeball' this season.

Lets be real, Farke's playstyle in the premier league was totally dead and had been since the first lockdown in 2020. I don't know what happened then but we never recovered from it, even having sandwiched a title-winning championship season in between and a whole raft of incomings and outgoings. Can't be a coincidence that two totally different Norwich sides, two years apart, experienced very similar mental and tactical flaws under Farke.

It was time to move on. I still appreciate what Farke did for us, but we needed a freshen up and Smith has done that probably as well as could be expected considering the shocking injury list and what appears to be a mentally traumatised group of players.  

I just can't work out the need to compare so quickly into his tenure when people felt that 48 premier league games were not enough for Farke. Not sure that's fair? Especially when Smith is trying to correct all of those bad habits and the loser's mentality which had set in under Farke. Not going to happen in 6 games is it? 

[canarydan23 4,762]

I wasn't hugely opposed to Farke's sacking. I was inclined to give him more time, particularly given the relatively easier fixtures that followed his win at Brentford. My big thing is that I don't think sacking him and replacing him with Smith was going to improve things, certainly not enough for us to survive, and if that was (or will be) the case, then why sack him?

I'd love to be proven wrong about Smith and you cannot argue that we did well against Man Utd. I don't get the Spurs praise mind you, we had a good bit of the ball but only converted it to one shot on target and conceded three. The Newcastle and Aston Villa games were, for me, on a very similar level to the Watford and Leeds catastrophes under Farke.

And as has been referenced, the fact remains that Farke achieved the same number of points in his final six games, against better opposition, than Smith has managed in his first six.

And whilst I'm not sad enough to go trawling through old posts, I suspect a lot of the people talking about our improved "performances" in games that we've lost or drawn were disparaging of Farke's good performances in times gone by because we didn't get 3 points. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance at play, on both sides if I'm being honest.

For me, if Farke had to be sacked, and there is certainly a compelling case that he needed to be, I would have liked and expected Webber to have someone as close to guaranteed as being better than lined up. That, in my humble opinion, hasn't happened.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

15 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

That is just being vindictive. Farke had many things going for him - not least his ability to get the best from players, given time - and if they gave him problems, he dropped them until they toed the line. 

Problem for him this season was the egos who wouldn't toe the line and who he tried to treat the same way, were deemed to be in the right by some of the other players and Webber.......yet neither of them have done any better since he left (talking about Cantwell and Gilmour). 

Smith has it all to do to show he can do better or even match Farke's achievements. Give him time to mould his squad and way of playing and we may see something special again, but at the moment - which is all we can judge him on - it doesn't look much better.

Your pretty laughable change in tone since Farke left and Smith has came in is an exact example of what King describes. You gave Farke miles and miles of rope yet Smith has been walking the plank with you since day 1. That is clearly not fair, nor are you abiding by your own mantras which have set you apart as an extremely positive poster in the past. 

Also you are mad if you don't think we are much improved overall in these first 6 games. Try to imagine a Farke team missing Normann (the only player who actually played well for Farke this season), missing Rashica, missing 5, 6, 7 other first team players. Try to imagine a Farke team salvaging points from a losing position in the PL, it never happened in 48 games before but has happened twice since Smith came in. What a coinky-dink!

Some serious mental gymnastics being done by the Farke apologists...

[Monty13 2,736]

6 games is not a sample size big enough to compare the two especially when you look at the teams available to both in that period.

[Danke bitte 1,155]

24 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

6 games is not a sample size big enough to compare the two especially when you look at the teams available to both in that period.

A fair point, I do feel Smith has had his kipper stitched since coming in. Classic Norwich luck

[Beefy is a legend 224]

Ultimately the squad isn't good enough to stay in this league, whoever is in charge.

The issue now is whether we've made it even more difficult for ourselves to come back up again from the Championship. We've gone away from a long-term mantra, we've sacked a guy who absolutely ruled the Championship, and we have half a dozen players who won't be here next season. 

On the face of it, it's going to be a lot more difficult to come back again this time. 

[C.I.D 358]

12 minutes ago, Danke bitte said:

A fair point, I do feel Smith has had his kipper stitched since coming in. Classic Norwich luck

Kipper = injuries to key players and Covid at a time when we needed all of our best X1 fit 😔

[Mengo 852]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

This is what has confused me greatly these last couple of days.

It largely smells of a group of people who didn't want Farke gone, didn't want Smith in and have been waiting for a crap performance to jump all over.

Obviously this is the case. Opportunistic posts after a poor performance.  Circumstances with players or lack of players and players on the bench not fit either. The posts are from people Iiving in the past who will not change and will cherry pick at convenient times. 

[Alex 26]

3 hours ago, king canary said:

I certainly don't think its fair to claim our improvement defensively is down to the opponents. Under Farke even teams like Watford tore up apart every single time they ran at us. You can see Smith and his team have the defence much better drilled and able to cope with counter attacks.

To be fair Watford have torn better teams than us apart when they have ran at them. They are actually relatively dangerous going forward just **** at defending. But yes we probably do look a little more organised but still not good enough for a realistic chance of staying up in my opinion. 

 

The question is Farke or Smith? But the correct answer is probably neither. 

Edited December 16, 2021 by Alex

[Danke bitte 1,155]

1 hour ago, C.I.D said:

Kipper = injuries to key players and Covid at a time when we needed all of our best X1 fit 😔

You couldn’t make it up huh? Standard 😊

[Worthy Nigelton 1,306]

3 hours ago, king canary said:

This is what has confused me greatly these last couple of days.

It largely smells of a group of people who didn't want Farke gone, didn't want Smith in and have been waiting for a crap performance to jump all over.

Possibly, or possibly the results speak for themselves.

[sgncfc 1,330]

We are clearly defensively tighter since Smith took over. We do at last have a coach who can set up a team in the PL, which Farke never managed to do, even in the rare victories. Unfortunately, we have again been hit by injuries and illness to key players and we still have very little back up of any quality. I've never felt that this squad has been good enough to survive in this league, despite the fact that I thought we had an OK window. We bought some decent prospects but no proven performers so were always likely to be in trouble.

On Tuesday we had no one capable of competing - not one of our 18 on duty would have got near Villa's first team. I think that is a really valid point to make in stating where we are as a club. Villa brought on a £30m striker from the bench. Almost every player in a Villa shirt on Tuesday cost them more than we have ever spent on one player. Why do so many expect that we can genuinely compete with this kind of financial power?

I can't defend the apparent lack of commitment on show or the general poor quality of passing and covering on show - but some of it is at least understandable when you look at the circumstances and the quality of the opposition.

I disagree though about the progress and that the squad won't do well in the Championship (regretfully I do think relegation is inevitable). I think the current squad overall is better than last seasons, and I think our squads have been improved year on year. The division we are in is almost academic in terms of that progress being made - we are doing what we can do, in buying several £5-£10m players. We've been here before and went for more "quality" in Naismith, RVW, Klose etc - that didn't work either. So I agree with Webber that if you buy several at £5 to £10m you have a reasonable hope of some of them being worth it.

Whilst we will lose Gilmour, Williams, Kabak and Normann and it's also likely that Aarons and Cantwell will be moved on by then, I don't see any other first team squad player being sought after and leaving. We will hopefully add another couple of prospects and I won't write off Tzolis, Sargent, Rashica etc or even Idah, Dowell or Placheta yet. I think all of them will be decent Championship players who still have the potential to improve further.