"We're gonna score one more than you ...."

[ron obvious 1,498]

To borrow the lyrics of that timeless classic Vindaloo, this is our philosophy now.

It is a complete reversal of the accepted (& I accept it) football wisdom that success is predicated on a sound defence. But after watching the last 2 games I am persuaded that we can score almost at will against any team. When we want it, when we need it, we look simply unstoppable.

Two games. Hardly a statistically significant sample I know, & we have yet to play the top teams - Burnley will be a very big test. But in some ways this team has the look of Lambert about it; I can remember my heart being in my mouth many times in the promotion season when there was only Ruddy left to stop an attacker who had a clear 30 yard run on goal only to fluff it or Big John to make a miraculous save (it's amazing how often attackers do fail in that situation, it seems the longer the decision time the worse the decision is likely to be).

Wagner has somehow managed to instantly instil total belief, I said at he beginning of the season we had the best squad & the only reason we wouldn't get automatic promotion would be if we completely lost our way. I stand by that. it may be too late for automatics (though I'm not giving up yet) but we should (should) walk the play-offs (Watford are the team that worry me most in that respect). In Teemu, Onel, Sarge & Dowell we have the greatest attacking threat around & it's getting stronger & more cohesive with every game.

Confidence can be a shallow, fragile thing, but there's an air about Wagner which suggests strength of purpose & a refusal to accept second best. Try to swing the lead wit him & I think any player will have a very angry man on his hands. I think he genuinely believes our players are the best at this level, & that's what I'm now seeing - consistently, not in 20 minute bursts.

I also think he will actually improve our defending, mainly by making attack the best form of defence. As I've said before we walk the tightrope on the edge of chaos & order which is where the most exciting & creative things happen, so we''ll always tend to give the odd chance away. Minimising those will be Wagner's biggest challenge.

As you can tell I'm really excited, can't wait for match days to come around. Will there be disappointments? Inevitably. But the next few months are going to be a helluva ride!

[Nuff Said 5,088]

2 hours ago, ron obvious said:

Two games. Hardly a statistically significant sample

Nuff said. Some posters on here are already very excited. Let’s take a deep breath and find a little bit of patience before getting carried away. At a minimum we need to see what happens against Burnley.

[The Real Buh 3,423]

You have to play to your strengths

we don’t have a great defence and haven’t for many years. Consistently we’ve underdeveloped it. We do have a few lads who can score goals though so we’re going to go for that lol

Probably should think about upgrading Center back and defensive midfield very soon though. Just a thought.

[By Hook or Ian crook 917]

I think all Wagner has done is get the lads playing a brand of football that they clearly enjoy playing. It’s hardly rocket science that if you make football fun people will want to play for you. It’s just so nice to see a side that’s playing forward passes and making forward runs again. Chalk and cheese to the previous manager. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,507]

7 hours ago, ron obvious said:

To borrow the lyrics of that timeless classic Vindaloo, this is our philosophy now.

It is a complete reversal of the accepted (& I accept it) football wisdom that success is predicated on a sound defence. But after watching the last 2 games I am persuaded that we can score almost at will against any team. When we want it, when we need it, we look simply unstoppable.

Two games. Hardly a statistically significant sample I know, & we have yet to play the top teams - Burnley will be a very big test. But in some ways this team has the look of Lambert about it; I can remember my heart being in my mouth many times in the promotion season when there was only Ruddy left to stop an attacker who had a clear 30 yard run on goal only to fluff it or Big John to make a miraculous save (it's amazing how often attackers do fail in that situation, it seems the longer the decision time the worse the decision is likely to be).

Wagner has somehow managed to instantly instil total belief, I said at he beginning of the season we had the best squad & the only reason we wouldn't get automatic promotion would be if we completely lost our way. I stand by that. it may be too late for automatics (though I'm not giving up yet) but we should (should) walk the play-offs (Watford are the team that worry me most in that respect). In Teemu, Onel, Sarge & Dowell we have the greatest attacking threat around & it's getting stronger & more cohesive with every game.

Confidence can be a shallow, fragile thing, but there's an air about Wagner which suggests strength of purpose & a refusal to accept second best. Try to swing the lead wit him & I think any player will have a very angry man on his hands. I think he genuinely believes our players are the best at this level, & that's what I'm now seeing - consistently, not in 20 minute bursts.

I also think he will actually improve our defending, mainly by making attack the best form of defence. As I've said before we walk the tightrope on the edge of chaos & order which is where the most exciting & creative things happen, so we''ll always tend to give the odd chance away. Minimising those will be Wagner's biggest challenge.

As you can tell I'm really excited, can't wait for match days to come around. Will there be disappointments? Inevitably. But the next few months are going to be a helluva ride!

The question for me is all about getting that defensive solidity in there down the line when we're up against teams who aren't so easy for us to penetrate, but are much more clinical when it comes to penetrating us, as in the Premier League.

Both Smith and Hughton invested a lot in trying to shore us up defensively, and in both cases that came at a huge price offensively, an overall style that was not so eye pleasing, and the hit to their personal popularity.

Farke also had to confront this dilemma in the premier League and that's ultimately where he came unstuck for the fact that the eye-pleasing style was gone, but we still couldn't get the results.

The big challenge any manager will have with us is persuading the fan base to be a bit more patient when we have to focus on being more defensively resilient and leaving less holes at the back.

But for now, we can just go back to what we do best, which is fun attacking football at Championship level and enjoying it. Hopefully that will build morale enough that Wagner will have the credit in the bank to be awarded the patience needed to properly tackle the more challenging topics for us defensively.

Edited January 23, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[Nuff Said 5,088]

2 hours ago, The Real Buh said:

You have to play to your strengths

we don’t have a great defence and haven’t for many years. Consistently we’ve underdeveloped it. We do have a few lads who can score goals though so we’re going to go for that lol

Probably should think about upgrading Center back and defensive midfield very soon though. Just a thought.

Every supporter thinks their team’s defence is poor. If you look at the home and away tables our goals conceded pretty much matches our position, that is, our defence is on balance no better or worse than anyone else.

I suppose it could be argued that we should have a “Premier League” defence given the history of most of our defenders, but I thought the best of the five defenders we saw on Saturday was McCallum, so 🤷‍♂️ (that’s a shrug emoji if you can’t see it!).

Edited January 23, 2023 by Nuff Said

[The Real Buh 3,423]

10 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

Every supporter thinks their team’s defence is poor. If you look at the home and away tables our goals conceded pretty much matches our position, that is, our defence is on balance no better or worse than anyone else.

I suppose it could be argued that we should have a “Premier League” defence given the history of most of our defenders, but I thought the best of the five defenders we saw on Saturday was McCallum, so 🤷‍♂️ (that’s a shrug emoji if you can’t see it!).

I don’t think you’d disagree we have consistently underdeveloped our defence in recent years though. 
 

Omo is a great young talent but after that we have Hanley, who can perform ok at championship but any higher can’t compete and then after that it’s Gibson, less said the better. 
 

The DM role is the role we’ve struggled with for years though. The difference just having skipp there to cover the back 4 was awesome but we’ve nit attempted to replace that role.

Norwich have always been an attacking team though, we always gravitate towards the “swashbuckling” style and I’ve always been cool with that.

[cambridgeshire canary 6,674]

Both teams we have beaten are teams that will most likely be finishing in the bottom half. We SHOULD be beating them. Let's wait and see how we do against Burnley who are arguably the best team in the divison.

[Peregrine Shorts 314]

1 minute ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

Both teams we have beaten are teams that will most likely be finishing in the bottom half. We SHOULD be beating them. Let's wait and see how we do against Burnley who are arguably the best team in the divison.

perhaps we should be beating these teams.......would we have beaten them playing the turgid football we were before Christmas?

its the change of atmosphere and style we are enjoying

[rock bus 850]

I'm not sure OP is right. It certainly seemed like that at the weekend where the first half turned into being played like a Basket ball game. But Wagner was very clear in his post match interview that he was really unhappy with the first half and our style of play. I think the 2nd was much more what he wanted where we totally controlled the game.

I think the players just got carried away in the first and it was brilliant when we were attacking but it also led to a lack of discipline and structure in our play which allowed a far inferior team to get back in to the game. 

The flowing football was great but I certainly feel Wagner is looking for a more controlled and organised style of play rather than the gung ho approach of Lambert.

[Hairy Canary 668]

1 minute ago, rock bus said:

I'm not sure OP is right. It certainly seemed like that at the weekend where the first half turned into being played like a Basket ball game. But Wagner was very clear in his post match interview that he was really unhappy with the first half and our style of play. I think the 2nd was much more what he wanted where we totally controlled the game.

I think the players just got carried away in the first and it was brilliant when we were attacking but it also led to a lack of discipline and structure in our play which allowed a far inferior team to get back in to the game. 

The flowing football was great but I certainly feel Wagner is looking for a more controlled and organised style of play rather than the gung ho approach of Lambert.

Absolutely agree with this. I thought we were excellent in the second half and got the balance right. Before Dowell's goal we controlled the game for long periods, not by just passing it across the back but by building pressure and probing. Very few chances came at the other end. From Coventry's perspective they had come from 3 down to only one behind and they must have been straining at the leash at the start of the second half, yet they couldn't lay a glove on us. 

More tinkering to come before we get to see exactly how Wagner wants us to play.

   

[Capt. Pants 4,195]

34 minutes ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

Both teams we have beaten are teams that will most likely be finishing in the bottom half. We SHOULD be beating them. Let's wait and see how we do against Burnley who are arguably the best team in the divison.

If Burnley are the best team in the league then losing to them tells us nothing really.

Realistically we've left ourselves too much to do for the autos so the play offs are the best we can hope for. That requires us beating teams that we SHOULD as you put it. That's always been the case in football.

Whine whine it's only been 2 games but I for one are more excited about watching Norwich than at any point in the last year or so. We might fall short but let's at least enjoy trying!

[Yellow Wal 314]

Hopefully our last two games will have shown Wagner exactly what we need and he will have a very large say in how we get it. 

This is a style of play that will entertain, even if the result occasionally fails. 

The important thing is that we have a style at last because we sure as hell haven't for the last year. 

[ron obvious 1,498]

36 minutes ago, rock bus said:

I'm not sure OP is right. It certainly seemed like that at the weekend where the first half turned into being played like a Basket ball game. But Wagner was very clear in his post match interview that he was really unhappy with the first half and our style of play. I think the 2nd was much more what he wanted where we totally controlled the game.

I think the players just got carried away in the first and it was brilliant when we were attacking but it also led to a lack of discipline and structure in our play which allowed a far inferior team to get back in to the game. 

The flowing football was great but I certainly feel Wagner is looking for a more controlled and organised style of play rather than the gung ho approach of Lambert.

Actually I'm sure that you're right. As you say Wagner made it crystal clear that he was annoyed with our failure to control the first half. However, it surely demonstrated to our team & every team in the league that we have the capability to blow the opposition away.

If I was another manager I'd be sh!tting myself at the prospect of facing us, knowing however lucky we got, no matter how clever our game plan we would be facing a team with PL levels of attacking ability. 

These are only opinions & I could be wrong. Let's see how it pans out. I think we can all agree it'll be entertaining!

[ron obvious 1,498]

Just to add, in case you haven't seen it, there's a brilliant tactical analysis of the game on the Pink Un

https://www.pinkun.com/news/23268616.norwich-city-tactical-analysis-sky-blues-championship-win/

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

We have every right to get excited. We have been waiting a long time to see our team dominating matches and Teemu playing on the shoulder (he is the best at it) and a No10 running in behind the front two to take his chances. Max looks a different player and who is this fella Sara now? Little things need working on like Sarge's ball control and AO's ball watching but the coach can do that on the training ground.

A golfing buddy is a Burnley supporter and he is delighted that they are no longer a tough back four and lump it to Wood. He says he watches them and they take risks but it is worth it for the joy he gets from them playing decent football.

[cambridgeshire canary 6,674]

4 hours ago, rock bus said:

I'm not sure OP is right. It certainly seemed like that at the weekend where the first half turned into being played like a Basket ball game. But Wagner was very clear in his post match interview that he was really unhappy with the first half and our style of play. I think the 2nd was much more what he wanted where we totally controlled the game.

I think the players just got carried away in the first and it was brilliant when we were attacking but it also led to a lack of discipline and structure in our play which allowed a far inferior team to get back in to the game. 

The flowing football was great but I certainly feel Wagner is looking for a more controlled and organised style of play rather than the gung ho approach of Lambert.

Didn't help we had Krul in goal and who is clearly past his best and was also being clearly blinded by the sun..