Josh Sargent - “we become too passive after we score”

[Jim Smith 2,317]

Listened to his canary call interview in the car last night.

Smith also said we become too passive. Sargent said it’s a repeating pattern.

They talk as if it’s beyond their control.

id actually say it’s after 20 minutes of decent play at any time regardless of whether we’ve scored but my question is if they are well aware we are doing it then why does it keep happening every week. Is it a fitness thing? Is it tactical. Or do we have other senior players who just do not give enough of a sh*t?

[cambridgeshire canary 6,716]

Seemed in some ways that scoring early was a curse as after we scored seemed like we were happy to just sit back and slowly walk around for the next 85. It just never feels comftable being 1 nill up does it?

[The Real Buh 3,432]

He’s going to go first chance he gets

[littleyellowbirdie 2,547]

I tuned in literally seconds after Sargent's goal and I genuinely thought 'oh no', because we seem to be incapable of preventing the game turning around when we're too much on the front foot early on. A 1-2 loss felt weirdly inevitable.

 

[Petriix 2,835]

It's simply not possible to play at that pace for 90 minutes, regardless of what they plan. It's why teams put their foot on the ball, passing sideways and back. 'Resting on the ball' is a huge part of the game and a massive part of how Farke was able to dominate this league. 

Remember all those late goals? It was because we'd reserved more energy than our opponents by making them chase shadows for 90 minutes. Football is about so much more than just running around at a high intensity. You have to be intelligent about how and when you spend your energy.

[hogesar 9,658]

9 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's simply not possible to play at that pace for 90 minutes, regardless of what they plan. It's why teams put their foot on the ball, passing sideways and back. 'Resting on the ball' is a huge part of the game and a massive part of how Farke was able to dominate this league. 

Remember all those late goals? It was because we'd reserved more energy than our opponents by making them chase shadows for 90 minutes. Football is about so much more than just running around at a high intensity. You have to be intelligent about how and when you spend your energy.

Correct. And first half we managed the game well. We surrender possession under DS, but we kept shape and discipline and they didn't really create anything, whilst still giving us a decent shout on the counter.

Second half completely different story. I said to my mate "I don't like the idea of Onel coming on when we are winning" and whilst it isn't his fault everything fell apart pretty quickly and that's on Smith.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,547]

13 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's simply not possible to play at that pace for 90 minutes, regardless of what they plan. It's why teams put their foot on the ball, passing sideways and back. 'Resting on the ball' is a huge part of the game and a massive part of how Farke was able to dominate this league. 

Remember all those late goals? It was because we'd reserved more energy than our opponents by making them chase shadows for 90 minutes. Football is about so much more than just running around at a high intensity. You have to be intelligent about how and when you spend your energy.

Trouble is passing it around at the back doesn't go down too well at Carrow Road.

[Petriix 2,835]

Going 4-2-3-1 wasn't the issue, it was pushing the wide players so high and wide. We lost our compact shape and left huge spaces in the midfield.

[kenfoggo 247]

Having resolved not to go to Carrow Road until there is a regime change I weakened and decided to purchase a late ticket, nice seat, tea and biscuits at half time. Should have stuck to my plan of not attending. Even the tea at half time tasted odd, and that was the highlight of the afternoon. What a complete waste of time and money. Dean Smith appears to be as inept , clueless and as out of his depth as did Roeder. In fact poor old Dean Smith looks as if he regrets coming to Norwich and it shows as he slugs around the touch line with his hands in his pockets feeling glum and sorry for himself.  Someone (Webber) really should put him out of his misery, let this all end so that we can all move on.

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,749]

We did very little after taking the lead to to extend the lead...second half was complacent and gradually let them back in, a draw was probably a fair result as we didnt try to force the advantage

...to have actually lost it however is unforgivable.

Smith Out

[Monty13 2,231]

37 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's simply not possible to play at that pace for 90 minutes, regardless of what they plan. It's why teams put their foot on the ball, passing sideways and back. 'Resting on the ball' is a huge part of the game and a massive part of how Farke was able to dominate this league. 

Remember all those late goals? It was because we'd reserved more energy than our opponents by making them chase shadows for 90 minutes. Football is about so much more than just running around at a high intensity. You have to be intelligent about how and when you spend your energy.

I know it’s a simplistic and sweeping generalisation of a take, but it does feels like Farke failed because he had his team play like a Championship team in the PL. Dean Smith is now failing because he’s set us up to play like we should in the PL in the Championship. 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Well I'm glad they know what is wrong but it seems they have known for a while which is worrying. To be honest, we are a passive side. The midfield seems to just stroll around. Boro kept the same tempo the whole after our intitial burst.

[SwearyCanary 1,179]

6 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I tuned in literally seconds after Sargent's goal and I genuinely thought 'oh no', because we seem to be incapable of preventing the game turning around when we're too much on the front foot early on. A 1-2 loss felt weirdly inevitable.

 

We simply can’t be accepting of a period in our existence that means when we actually score we say ‘oh no’. It’s ridiculous to accept that this is not an ideal start for us to build from and we are then in charge of managing the game thereafter. Managing the game could be just doing the same to kill them off or, if we are good enough we maintain possession so the opposition get knackered and frustrated chasing shadows. What you don’t do is offer the opportunity for the opposition to have all the possession, attack and put dangerous crosses into the box. It’s just awful awful tactics. 
To suggest that teams can’t play high intensity for more than 20 minutes is not true. It’s not us playing it’s professional athletes, they can manage at least 45 over the game, I’ve seen plenty of teams do that long and more. As it is the only way we seem to offer any kind of threat I’d suggest we have to do more, because I’m not going to forgive a tactical system where we wait til the final 20 to start trying to score and risk being 2-0 down by then anyway. 
If you find yourself arguing for Smith’s defence because of logic along the lines of, ‘we should’ve  expected to lose to mediocre Middlesbrough because we scored first’ then you’ll not convince about 20,000 of the 26,000 in that stadium. And that’ll be because the other 6000 left early and missed Middlesbrough’s winner 

Edited November 13, 2022 by SwearyCanary

[Robert N. LiM 4,342]

4 hours ago, Monty13 said:

Dean Smith is now failing because he’s set us up to play like we should in the PL in the Championship. 

that's what I assumed he was brought in to do, but tbh I'm not sure I can even see that. There was one moment in the game yesterday when we swept forward with two or three excellent long passes (not hoofs forward, really good passes) and created a chance. That's kind of what I assumed a Smith team would be, but we've hardly seen any of it. We seem to have lost the ease in possession of a good Farke team without gaining any real dynamism or threat.

[Monty13 2,231]

14 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

that's what I assumed he was brought in to do, but tbh I'm not sure I can even see that. There was one moment in the game yesterday when we swept forward with two or three excellent long passes (not hoofs forward, really good passes) and created a chance. That's kind of what I assumed a Smith team would be, but we've hardly seen any of it. We seem to have lost the ease in possession of a good Farke team without gaining any real dynamism or threat.

I didn’t say he was doing so successfully 😂 

[Making Plans 936]

The guy playing down the left for Boro put in more dangerous crosses in one match that we have all season

[Petriix 2,835]

1 hour ago, Robert N. LiM said:

that's what I assumed he was brought in to do, but tbh I'm not sure I can even see that. There was one moment in the game yesterday when we swept forward with two or three excellent long passes (not hoofs forward, really good passes) and created a chance. That's kind of what I assumed a Smith team would be, but we've hardly seen any of it. We seem to have lost the ease in possession of a good Farke team without gaining any real dynamism or threat.

Exactly this. We've abandoned the principles of Farkeball for the sake of it, chasing the unicorn of being 'better suited to the Premier League', while failing entirely to come up with a coherent alternative. 

What we really needed was incremental improvement. What we got was ripping up the template and starting again. It's no coincidence that we look good in fits and bursts. We lack an underlying structure to hold it all together. Players don't understand their roles and how they fit together. 

[Robert N. LiM 4,342]

15 minutes ago, Petriix said:

Exactly this. We've abandoned the principles of Farkeball for the sake of it, chasing the unicorn of being 'better suited to the Premier League', while failing entirely to come up with a coherent alternative. 

What we really needed was incremental improvement. What we got was ripping up the template and starting again.

Ah, that's where I don't fully agree, actually. I can see the logic of, if not ripping up the template, then certainly moving to a new one. While it could certainly be argued that DF could have been given more time last season, he really wasn't showing any signs that his way of playing could be adapted to the PL (on our budget, at least). I was totally on board with the idea of trying to set up a more pragmatic strategy, that could hopefully be a bit more effective in the PL, and I thought Smith was a decent choice to try and do that.

 

18 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's no coincidence that we look good in fits and bursts.

I wouldn't mind this so much if you could see what we're trying to do. But I just don't see what we've gained in the trade-off from what we've lost.

 

19 minutes ago, Petriix said:

We lack an underlying structure to hold it all together. Players don't understand their roles and how they fit together. 

Agree with that entirely. I said on another thread that I'm far from an expert, but this just looks like a poorly coached team to me.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

8 hours ago, The Real Buh said:

He’s going to go first chance he gets

Who could blame him.

 

[Capt. Pants 4,230]

It's not the first time Josh has been critical. Not sure if it is a thinly veiled criticism of Smith or not but at the end of the day he doesn't seem to be inspiring the players during the match and his halftime teamtalk must have sent them to sleep such was their lack of effort in the 2nd half.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

1 minute ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Who could blame him.

 

Not At all. If you’d have told me mid-way through last season Id be sad to see him go and he’s probably our best attacking player I’d have said you were mad.

good luck to him at the World Cup/shop window.

[hogesar 9,658]

2 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

Not At all. If you’d have told me mid-way through last season Id be sad to see him go and he’s probably our best attacking player I’d have said you were mad.

good luck to him at the World Cup/shop window.

To be fair, Smith showed trust in him after an awful Prem start and even then, a poor start to the first couple games this season when he was ripped to pieces on here.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,547]

2 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

that's what I assumed he was brought in to do, but tbh I'm not sure I can even see that. There was one moment in the game yesterday when we swept forward with two or three excellent long passes (not hoofs forward, really good passes) and created a chance. That's kind of what I assumed a Smith team would be, but we've hardly seen any of it. We seem to have lost the ease in possession of a good Farke team without gaining any real dynamism or threat.

 

53 minutes ago, Petriix said:

Exactly this. We've abandoned the principles of Farkeball for the sake of it, chasing the unicorn of being 'better suited to the Premier League', while failing entirely to come up with a coherent alternative. 

What we really needed was incremental improvement. What we got was ripping up the template and starting again. It's no coincidence that we look good in fits and bursts. We lack an underlying structure to hold it all together. Players don't understand their roles and how they fit together. 

Incremental improvement on that approach simply wasn't going to bridge the gap to Premier League survival any time this decade.

Have we abandoned the principles of Farkeball for the sake of it or have we abandoned them because they left us woefully unprepared for the Premier League on two occasions, whether for the sake of style, players, or both? I would suggest the latter.

Regarding chasing a unicorn, this is a rebuild more or less from first principles, and there are fits and starts of actual coherence starting to show, much as was the case in Farke's first season, so 21 games into a thick and fast season riddled with injuries and no chance to take stock until now hardly seems like the time to assume that we are indeed chasing a unicorn. Worth bearing in mind that this is asking patience regarding a manager who came to us with a far superior track record than the one Farke came to us with; patience in Farke's case did deliver dividends of sorts, although ultimately not enough to take us where we wanted to be.

 

 

 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

1 minute ago, hogesar said:

To be fair, Smith showed trust in him after an awful Prem start and even then, a poor start to the first couple games this season when he was ripped to pieces on here.

He didn’t do himself any favours. At least he looks like he might give a s41t though. I’ll take that right now.

[Robert N. LiM 4,342]

6 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Regarding chasing a unicorn, this is a rebuild more or less from first principles, and there are fits and starts of actual coherence starting to show, much as was the case in Farke's first season, so 21 games into a thick and fast season riddled with injuries and no chance to take stock until now hardly seems like the time to assume that we are indeed chasing a unicorn. Worth bearing in mind that this is asking patience regarding a manager who came to us with a far superior track record than the one Farke came to us with; patience in Farke's case did deliver dividends of sorts, although ultimately not enough to take us where we wanted to be.

I've been hoping someone would make the case for the defence: it's really good to have the conventional view challenged, so cheers for that.

I guess I'd question whether there are 'fits and starts of actual coherence': we did have some good moments yesterday in those first twenty minutes, but I think you could say that of most games this season - from what I've seen we don't really seem to be making any progress.

If you're right that this is 'a rebuild more or less from first principles', I have to say I'd like to hear something along the same lines from the board, or SW. Obviously there was a lot of impatience in DF's first season, but at the same time there was clarity from top to bottom at the club that there was a plan. Unlike now. I'm not sure we know what we're doing at the moment. Are we throwing everything possible at an immediate return to the PL? Are we starting again with a new plan? Or are we caught between the two?

[littleyellowbirdie 2,547]

2 hours ago, SwearyCanary said:

We simply can’t be accepting of a period in our existence that means when we actually score we say ‘oh no’. It’s ridiculous to accept that this is not an ideal start for us to build from and we are then in charge of managing the game thereafter. Managing the game could be just doing the same to kill them off or, if we are good enough we maintain possession so the opposition get knackered and frustrated chasing shadows. What you don’t do is offer the opportunity for the opposition to have all the possession, attack and put dangerous crosses into the box. It’s just awful awful tactics. 
To suggest that teams can’t play high intensity for more than 20 minutes is not true. It’s not us playing it’s professional athletes, they can manage at least 45 over the game, I’ve seen plenty of teams do that long and more. As it is the only way we seem to offer any kind of threat I’d suggest we have to do more, because I’m not going to forgive a tactical system where we wait til the final 20 to start trying to score and risk being 2-0 down by then anyway. 
If you find yourself arguing for Smith’s defence because of logic along the lines of, ‘we should’ve  expected to lose to mediocre Middlesbrough because we scored first’ then you’ll not convince about 20,000 of the 26,000 in that stadium. And that’ll be because the other 6000 left early and missed Middlesbrough’s winner 

Exactly, and the players are not doing that as professional athletes, which goes to my point that there really should be more scrutiny of why the players aren't doing their jobs properly rather than pointing to strategy being the problem when it obviously isn't; if it was strategy that was the problem then you wouldn't even see the 20 minute spell before the players drop off.

[SwearyCanary 1,179]

1 minute ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Exactly, and the players are not doing that as professional athletes, which goes to my point that there really should be more scrutiny of why the players aren't doing their jobs properly rather than pointing to strategy being the problem when it obviously isn't; if it was strategy that was the problem then you wouldn't even see the 20 minute spell before the players drop off.

There was a clear change to our approach in the second half. Being there it was obvious that it was the instruction. We had a spell of possession for around 10 minutes and we did NOTHING with it, this was the tactic. If it wasn’t the tactic why would Smith say NOTHING and allow it to happen? What kind of a manager allows the players to autonomously change the system without saying something about it? 
a) one who actually was asking his players to do this - in which case he is terrible 

b) a manager who is unable to effect his will on the team and has lost the respect if the dressing room - in which case he has to go 

two options, same solution

Smith Out

[Petriix 2,835]

27 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

 

Incremental improvement on that approach simply wasn't going to bridge the gap to Premier League survival any time this decade.

Have we abandoned the principles of Farkeball for the sake of it or have we abandoned them because they left us woefully unprepared for the Premier League on two occasions, whether for the sake of style, players, or both? I would suggest the latter.

Regarding chasing a unicorn, this is a rebuild more or less from first principles, and there are fits and starts of actual coherence starting to show, much as was the case in Farke's first season, so 21 games into a thick and fast season riddled with injuries and no chance to take stock until now hardly seems like the time to assume that we are indeed chasing a unicorn. Worth bearing in mind that this is asking patience regarding a manager who came to us with a far superior track record than the one Farke came to us with; patience in Farke's case did deliver dividends of sorts, although ultimately not enough to take us where we wanted to be.

 

 

 

There's so much nonsense in this post... 

Farke's 4-2-3-1 was a decent base from which to build a more robust system. What we needed to do was pull our midfield deeper and more compact to absorb pressure while adding some pace and athleticism to facilitate faster counterattacks. All that could have been done without trying to start again from scratch. 

Instead we pushed two wide attackers further forward, creating huge holes on our flanks - holes which were still visible on Saturday by the way. Rather than making us harder to beat, Smith has created a shambolic and overly attacking structure which regularly leaves us short in crucial tactical areas.

By 'coherence' I'm not just talking about how we string our attacks together but a more holistic view of how we transition between defence and attack (and vice versa). The plan currently seems to hope that the glacial Hayden will single-handedly be able to snuff out all the danger while everyone else bombs forward.

Imagine instead an alternative transfer window last summer: we sign two CDMs, a centre back and an exciting wide AM while keeping Buendia. We keep the 4-2-3-1 but really tighten up, especially against the bigger teams. 

I'm struggling to imagine that going worse than what actually happened. But, whatever. The past is done. But that doesn't excuse Smith's failure to build a solid base from which we can build our new system. He simply hasn't improved us by any metric. 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

16 minutes ago, SwearyCanary said:

There was a clear change to our approach in the second half. Being there it was obvious that it was the instruction. We had a spell of possession for around 10 minutes and we did NOTHING with it, this was the tactic. If it wasn’t the tactic why would Smith say NOTHING and allow it to happen? What kind of a manager allows the players to autonomously change the system without saying something about it? 
a) one who actually was asking his players to do this - in which case he is terrible 

b) a manager who is unable to effect his will on the team and has lost the respect if the dressing room - in which case he has to go 

two options, same solution

Smith Out

There’s not another club in the land that would keep him in the same circumstances and if this “we can’t afford to sack him” thing is accurate then the whole board need sacking for gross misconduct. Wasted our money and potentially put our clubs future at risk. They need to be surgically removed from the club.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,547]

38 minutes ago, Petriix said:

There's so much nonsense in this post... 

Farke's 4-2-3-1 was a decent base from which to build a more robust system. What we needed to do was pull our midfield deeper and more compact to absorb pressure while adding some pace and athleticism to facilitate faster counterattacks. All that could have been done without trying to start again from scratch. 

Instead we pushed two wide attackers further forward, creating huge holes on our flanks - holes which were still visible on Saturday by the way. Rather than making us harder to beat, Smith has created a shambolic and overly attacking structure which regularly leaves us short in crucial tactical areas.

By 'coherence' I'm not just talking about how we string our attacks together but a more holistic view of how we transition between defence and attack (and vice versa). The plan currently seems to hope that the glacial Hayden will single-handedly be able to snuff out all the danger while everyone else bombs forward.

Imagine instead an alternative transfer window last summer: we sign two CDMs, a centre back and an exciting wide AM while keeping Buendia. We keep the 4-2-3-1 but really tighten up, especially against the bigger teams. 

I'm struggling to imagine that going worse than what actually happened. But, whatever. The past is done. But that doesn't excuse Smith's failure to build a solid base from which we can build our new system. He simply hasn't improved us by any metric. 

You're welcome to call it nonsense if you want. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, at the end of the day.