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pete

Smith as mad as it comes

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Not with the team but making his selections.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Picking the same midfield time after time expecting things to change is a definition of madness.

About time he recognised Normann is a shadow of pre Xmas.  Gilmour ineffectual and Kenny what can I say that hasn't been raised in this forum re his abilities "master of none".  Sorensen overlooked has looked one of the brighter options.  Rupp ok but limited by his body, PLM tries hard.  THis madness has to stop time to prepare for the Champs.

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Only excuses I can think of is Gilmour must have some kind of clause that means he has to make a certain number of starts (Although If I were smith said contract would be getting torn up..) and as for Mclean.. Uh, he points at things well and has a loud voice? Other than that I don't know. Although why we have not gone for a 442 with Pukki and Sargent up top is far beyond me

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It doesn’t matter which players we put in midfield. We could select them by pulling the names out of a hat and you’d still get the same results. None of these players are good enough and none of them would get in any other Premier League team.

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This performance was equivocal to the Colchester game all those years back

Oh for a Holt,  Huckerby and Hoolihan

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11 minutes ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

Only excuses I can think of is Gilmour must have some kind of clause that means he has to make a certain number of starts (Although If I were smith said contract would be getting torn up..) and as for Mclean.. Uh, he points at things well and has a loud voice? Other than that I don't know. Although why we have not gone for a 442 with Pukki and Sargent up top is far beyond me

Me personally I'd play Gilmour further up field (and I don't think he played too bad today). PLM looks a good technically and I reckon he'd be okay in the EFL. We can moan as much as we like you get what you pay for and our players (Krul apart) aren't good enough. Should've kept Farke!

Edited by tea total

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Just now, daly said:

This performance was equivocal to the Colchester game all those years back

Oh for a Holt,  Huckerby and Hoolihan

I think even at their current ages they'd do a better job defensively than the 3 today managed 😅

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Doomed from the start midfield selection wrong and Rowe should have started up front pukki is so poor at the moment, sort of selection farke would have been slated for as well 

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9 minutes ago, (Hoola)Han Solo said:

It doesn’t matter which players we put in midfield. We could select them by pulling the names out of a hat and you’d still get the same results. None of these players are good enough and none of them would get in any other Premier League team.

 

I disagree. It does matter. Even if the players are roughly of the same standard, some players work well together and some don't. It's Smith's job to know which combinations succeed and which fail. Gilmour/McLean has been a nightmare since day one. Farke seemed to realise this (although I'm not sure I agree with his solution of keeping McLean in the team and dropping Gilmour). 

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Gilmour and McLean starting together is ridiculous. Too lightweight and easily knocked off ball. As soon as saw the team sheet there was only one outcome unfortunately. 

 

Rowe should have been on from start and NO Sorrenson he would certainly made a difference.

 

I don't think I have seen such a poorer NCFC list of players. Sorry can't call them a team.

Paddy's players scores 8 x 4 and 3 x 3 really says it all. Rowe got a 5 for his cameo

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6 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

 

I disagree. It does matter. Even if the players are roughly of the same standard, some players work well together and some don't. It's Smith's job to know which combinations succeed and which fail. Gilmour/McLean has been a nightmare since day one. Farke seemed to realise this (although I'm not sure I agree with his solution of keeping McLean in the team and dropping Gilmour). 

Seems to me that on most of the things that Farke was slated for at the start of the season, we can now see that his judgement has been proved correct, and nowhere more so than him not playing Cantwell or Gilmour (much).

Whilst Kenny hasn't had a great season, I don't think it surprising that both managers have consistently picked him given the other options available but really he is more effective playing a bit further forward than the purely defensive role he's had this season.

Which brings us back to our fundamental problem this season which is Webber's failure to sign a decent CDM. We all knew that it was our top priority and yet Webber didn't seem to see it that way.

The failure of this season is Webber's responsibility, not Farke's (or Smith's).

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Got to agree with Pete. Lunacy. I can’t agree with those saying that none of the midfield are good enough . How do we know? We haven’t even tried. Give Sorensen Rupp and PLM some game time together and see if it works . If it doesn’t then we can say we tried everything . Saw team sheet today and we had lost before we even got on the pitch.

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1 hour ago, tea total said:

Me personally I'd play Gilmour further up field (and I don't think he played too bad today). PLM looks a good technically and I reckon he'd be okay in the EFL. We can moan as much as we like you get what you pay for and our players (Krul apart) aren't good enough. Should've kept Farke!

I don't know about playing Gilmour further up field, I'd just rather further afield, maybe 40 miles away...... 

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54 minutes ago, jonnyace1 said:

Got to agree with Pete. Lunacy. I can’t agree with those saying that none of the midfield are good enough . How do we know? We haven’t even tried. Give Sorensen Rupp and PLM some game time together and see if it works . If it doesn’t then we can say we tried everything . Saw team sheet today and we had lost before we even got on the pitch.

Yep. This is correct, although I'd even argue we do know as Sorenson and/or Rupp have looked miles better than McLean and/or Gilmour when they have played.

McLean is abysmal and I fear its heading the same way as it did with Gary Holt under Worthington with him.

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1 hour ago, tea total said:

Me personally I'd play Gilmour further up field (and I don't think he played too bad today). PLM looks a good technically and I reckon he'd be okay in the EFL. We can moan as much as we like you get what you pay for and our players (Krul apart) aren't good enough. Should've kept Farke!

He can’t play a forward pass or make a surging run through midfield. His corners and free-kicks are awful. Yes, let’s play him further upfield - behind the goal as a ball boy 👍

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1 hour ago, Yellowhammer said:

Doomed from the start midfield selection wrong and Rowe should have started up front pukki is so poor at the moment, sort of selection farke would have been slated for as well 

Pukki wasn't bad today, first have especially .he was much improved. He also scored which is all you can ask

 

 

 

Ther

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Gilmour misses an open goal and proceeds to do nothing for the rest of the game. I mean, why do you pick him?

 

Edited by Capt. Pants

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Our best midfield performance this season was Everton - h , with a midfield of Sorenson and Lees Melou

Sorenson showed himself to be a better defensive midfielder than anyone else we have whilst PLM a better box to bix than McLean

Somehow we'vw ended up with neither now in the team and we're back with McLean and Gilmour again

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27 minutes ago, astro said:

He can’t play a forward pass or make a surging run through midfield. His corners and free-kicks are awful. Yes, let’s play him further upfield - behind the goal as a ball boy 👍

He'd **** that up as well

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Smith has a lot to prove right now that's for sure. A poor start next season and he will be under serious pressure. If he starts McLean again this season, I'll want him gone before then.

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34 minutes ago, astro said:

He can’t play a forward pass or make a surging run through midfield. His corners and free-kicks are awful. Yes, let’s play him further upfield - behind the goal as a ball boy 👍

Another lovely knowledgable opinion...Great! 🤪

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2 minutes ago, Worthy Nigelton said:

Smith has a lot to prove right now that's for sure. A poor start next season and he will be under serious pressure. If he starts McLean again this season, I'll want him gone before then.

 

People always say, 'But he got Villa promoted'. Yes, with Grealish and some other expensive players, he managed to scrape through the play-off final after finishing about twenty points behind Farke's total that season. And they always add, 'He kept Villa up while Farke took us down.' Yes, he kept Villa up because of a terrible failure in goal-line technology. He also spent loads of money on players and still had Grealish. Admittedly, Farke had Buendia, although most people would rate Grealish more highly, while in terms of money spent on players Farke basically had none. Webber has exchanged a fine Reisling for a bottle of English plonk.

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2 hours ago, canarybubbles said:

 

I disagree. It does matter. Even if the players are roughly of the same standard, some players work well together and some don't. It's Smith's job to know which combinations succeed and which fail. Gilmour/McLean has been a nightmare since day one. Farke seemed to realise this (although I'm not sure I agree with his solution of keeping McLean in the team and dropping Gilmour). 

This. 

McLean is a decent player, but for some reason his playing style doesn't mesh too well with the others. He seems to get in the way of Lees-Melou, who essentially looks like a bit of a McLean upgrade to me, but looks a bit caught out with Kenny alongside him as he's second-guessing what Kenny's doing. He's not good enough defensively to secure someone like Rupp, who gives us more pace in the middle and a decent line in passing. Gilmour needs a cautious defensive midfielder alongside him. Might have worked better alongside Tettey, but that's a complete guess. Closest we've got to that is Sörensen.

I think the Sörensen - Lees-Melou combo was looking quite interesting from the small sample we got out of it until Watford. Lees-Melou could indulge his willingness to go box-to-box in both directions, knowing Lungi would faithfully stay ten/fifteen yards behind him. Not only that, Lungi's fairly circumspect approach was better for the full-backs as they could start bombing on a bit more, giving us natural width and potential overlaps. Definitely want to see that combo put together again. Chuck Rupp or Normann in there, and I think that's a very good Champs midfield indeed.

Still hoping for Giannoulis/Tzolis to come good as a combo. You'd think two left-sided Greeks in the national team should gel together. I also think Idah's injury has hit Sargent hard - those two up front mean the ball's more likely to stay away from our goal, Pukki's forte is running into channels but he's not going to hold the ball up. Sargent's better but needs another big guy just to take the load off.

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It doesn’t matter who you play in our midfield in the absence of the one type of player everyone could see we needed. And I mean everyone. That is apart from our recruitment team it appears. 

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46 minutes ago, tea total said:

Another lovely knowledgable opinion...Great! 🤪

Bit harsh. Not sure what part of the assessment of Gilmour you disagree with? His passes forward we’re very limited, his crosses were slow and ineffective at all times today, no whip or pace and no accuracy. The point about being a ball boy was clearly a joke. 
Were you there? I’d be interested to see your evidence to the contrary on Gilmour? 

Edited by SwearyCanary
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I thought we were 100% better when PLM came on, so for me that begs the question why start Gilmour and McLean?

Yes, we need a DM but Smith is doing nowhere near enough to make the best of what we have got. We were playing Brentford, ****ing Brentford, a game we simply had to win and he picks the worst midfield combo available.

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To be fair to Smith he doesn't have many options. Yes Gilmour and McLean do not look PL players, but  he's screwed if he want to go 442 or 424. We only have one fit, aging center forward in the squad. Once Idah got injured I felt our chances of staying up had totally dissipated as it's too much to expect Pukki, as good as he is, to score enough goals on his own.

The fact that we only have one fit striker is (may) not be Smith's fault, it's whoever greenlit the loan of Hugill to Cardiff. Now I'm not saying Hugill would score 10-15 goals in the Premier League, but with Idah out, at least we would have an option top play 2 up front, which is where we've got most of our points under Smith.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Iwans Big Toe said:

To be fair to Smith he doesn't have many options. Yes Gilmour and McLean do not look PL players, but  he's screwed if he want to go 442 or 424. We only have one fit, aging center forward in the squad. Once Idah got injured I felt our chances of staying up had totally dissipated as it's too much to expect Pukki, as good as he is, to score enough goals on his own.

The fact that we only have one fit striker is (may) not be Smith's fault, it's whoever greenlit the loan of Hugill to Cardiff. Now I'm not saying Hugill would score 10-15 goals in the Premier League, but with Idah out, at least we would have an option top play 2 up front, which is where we've got most of our points under Smith.

 

 

Smith cannot really be judged until he has been given a budget and a squad he can call his own. I suspect given a choice, there are many players here he would not have personally signed. 

He was given £0 from a board that does not like the league it is in. He's in an awful position. He'll be given a lip service budget for next season to give the impression that the club has got EPL aspirations that it hasn't actually got. 

Nobody enjoyed watching that yesterday, but Webber's recruitment coupled with a board who have little interest in the top tier means that in the unlikely event we get promoted again, the same thing will happen. 

What sort of Norwich City do we want? 

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17 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

This. 

McLean is a decent player, but for some reason his playing style doesn't mesh too well with the others. He seems to get in the way of Lees-Melou, who essentially looks like a bit of a McLean upgrade to me, but looks a bit caught out with Kenny alongside him as he's second-guessing what Kenny's doing. He's not good enough defensively to secure someone like Rupp, who gives us more pace in the middle and a decent line in passing. Gilmour needs a cautious defensive midfielder alongside him. Might have worked better alongside Tettey, but that's a complete guess. Closest we've got to that is Sörensen.

I think the Sörensen - Lees-Melou combo was looking quite interesting from the small sample we got out of it until Watford. Lees-Melou could indulge his willingness to go box-to-box in both directions, knowing Lungi would faithfully stay ten/fifteen yards behind him. Not only that, Lungi's fairly circumspect approach was better for the full-backs as they could start bombing on a bit more, giving us natural width and potential overlaps. Definitely want to see that combo put together again. Chuck Rupp or Normann in there, and I think that's a very good Champs midfield indeed.

Still hoping for Giannoulis/Tzolis to come good as a combo. You'd think two left-sided Greeks in the national team should gel together. I also think Idah's injury has hit Sargent hard - those two up front mean the ball's more likely to stay away from our goal, Pukki's forte is running into channels but he's not going to hold the ball up. Sargent's better but needs another big guy just to take the load off.

I have been critical of mcClean for a few seasons, but in his defence I would say he seems to really care. He's the only one I ever see moaning at players, yesterday he had a right go at Gilmour and later Gibson.

Obviously that's not enough, and he is prone to errors himself but I don't see any midfielder trying or running as hard...

Our best 11 is still 5 or 6 players shy of being consistently competitive at this level, 

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