Good players - poor manager?

[Dean Coneys boots 1,400]

I do think today showed up our tactical naivety. Why defend against a team with a great attack but less good defence? Should have gone at them. For me the return of Sarge took spotlight of the manager and saved his blushes - but today showed it didn’t improve him in terms of subs and tactics. Though, to be fair, our bench offers little by way of match changing promise…

[cambridgeshire canary 6,759]

10 home wins in a row. All time record.

 

One loss? "Poor manager.."

 

Although yes, todays tactics were poor and cost us.

Edited April 1 by cambridgeshire canary

[Capt. Pants 4,266]

Decent manager but average players.

Sargent, Sainz, Sara, McLean, Barnes largely invisible today.

I was disappointed by our attitude today but good to get that out of system. I was worried we had peaked too early and a defeat/poor performance was inevitable. We go again, next week.

 

[Ulfotto 640]

To me it’s a real surprise people still think it’s not the players. We have save for a couple of players a mid table championship squad. Last season we finished mid table the squad is now significantly worse again. Wagner is doing a decent job. If someone offered the playoffs before a ball was kicked I would assume 99% of Norwich would have taken it.

 

[Ken Hairy 3,774]

I would say 50% good players 50% poor players, and an average manager.

The trouble is all our poor players are defenders.

Edited April 1 by Ken Hairy

[The Real Buh 3,446]

Not enough good players, flukiest manager that might have ever existed.

[Harry53 210]

40 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

I do think today showed up our tactical naivety. Why defend against a team with a great attack but less good defence? Should have gone at them. For me the return of Sarge took spotlight of the manager and saved his blushes - but today showed it didn’t improve him in terms of subs and tactics. Though, to be fair, our bench offers little by way of match changing promise…

For Christ's sake give him some credit

[canarybubbles 1,925]

Some very good players, but the problem is the quality falls off a cliff after the first XI, so any injuries really hit us hard. And, as someone said earlier, the defenders are all poor (except for Stacey, who is OK).

[Conrad 171]

Some good players, but we don't have a good team. 

[S_81 819]

In Sarge, Sainz, Sara, Rowe, Nunez (on his day), Stacey (on his day), McClean (in certain positions), and Gunn we have talented players at this level. We then have a collection of defensive liabilities. And not a lot of bench depth. Attacking football suits most of the above mentioned. When we try and revert to piling pressure onto the defence it rarely works for us. Wagner hasn’t always seemed to have grasped that. And it’s a repeat failing and should be obvious by now. 
I really hope some of our defenders out on loan are ready to push out some of the mistake ridden duffers in defence. Or that we are willing to go into the market to ensure the likes of Duffy, Gibson and Hanley are not starters next season. We also need a holding mid tackler. 

[Midlands Yellow 4,020]

46 minutes ago, Capt. Pants said:

Decent manager but average players.

Sargent, Sainz, Sara, McLean, Barnes largely invisible today.

I was disappointed by our attitude today but good to get that out of system. I was worried we had peaked too early and a defeat/poor performance was inevitable. We go again, next week.

 

We were outplayed simply by a better team. Shame about the one thousand empty seats we could have taken and possibly sold today. 

[Capt. Pants 4,266]

4 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

We were outplayed simply by a better team. Shame about the one thousand empty seats we could have taken and possibly sold today. 

Sometimes the better team doesn’t always win. We were too negative.

[CDMullins 436]

Average players

Poor manager

An inability to defend

An inability for our defenders to complete basic 10 yard passes.

Worst of all, we went into today with a negative mindset.

[Jim Smith 2,325]

Good manager makes a team more than the sum of its parts. This team is probably somewhere around 95% of the sum of its parts. He’s ok, nothing more. We have a great front 6 and keeper and and very average back 4. Good coach has the team playing to its strengths. Away from home we don’t do that. 

Edited April 1 by Jim Smith

[yellowrider120 767]

2 hours ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

10 home wins in a row. All time record.

 

One loss? "Poor manager.."

 

Although yes, todays tactics were poor and cost us.

I thought we'd won 7 home games in a row?

[chicken 2,640]

2 hours ago, canarybubbles said:

Some very good players, but the problem is the quality falls off a cliff after the first XI, so any injuries really hit us hard. And, as someone said earlier, the defenders are all poor (except for Stacey, who is OK).

This isn't as true as folks make out.

Width: Sainz, Rowe, Hernandez, Fassnacht. We have Rowe and Hernandez out injured so we are currently playing the only two fit wide players. Fassnacht has assists and goals to his name this season, he's not pacey, but he does carry a threat. In fact, he's almost the opposite of Hernandez...

[Hairy Canary 705]

Leicester bring on Vardy and we decided not to use SVH

[Commonsense 633]

11 hours ago, Hairy Canary said:

Leicester bring on Vardy and we decided not to use SVH

Not really a surprise is it?

[pete 320]

Trouble is making the play offs and back to being top 26 is it may lead to Wagner being retained.  Which was the Webber mantra.  Wagner is a poor coach with some good players, Sargent single handed saved Wagner's season.  I won't be happy until Wagner and current owners have become history.

[Hairy Canary 705]

5 hours ago, Commonsense said:

Not really a surprise is it?

No of course not. I was making a point about the respective strengths of the squads and that maybe Wagner needs to be cut a bit of slack.

[hogesar 9,711]

Now Webber has gone, some who slated everything he done in the past 2 years are now suddenly claiming he built a title-challenging squad for the 3rd time running. 

[repman 635]

7 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Now Webber has gone, some who slated everything he done in the past 2 years are now suddenly claiming he built a title-challenging squad for the 3rd time running. 

I think this squad is on a par with most sides in the league, certainly the top end of it. I didn't love how old it was going into the year but that was more of a long-term issue. The fact we're not in that top 4 group reflects on the coaching imo.

In general I supported Webber more than most here (less than others!) but my main gripe with him was that he didn't seem to believe that a manager could add value onto a squad through coaching, for him it was always players (and tangentially, wage bills) over everything else.

In that department though I think the recruitment was often good, though not quite as good as it was to begin with. Webber arrived at the perfect time, and for those first few years we were one of maybe 5 or 10 clubs in the whole pyramid, and not many more globally, using data to drive our transfer business. It's why no one was watching Buendia when we were, and how we got him so cheap. Unfortunately our success became the blueprint, we won the championship with a squad that cost very little and everyone said hang on, why aren't we doing that too? The next year Liverpool won the prem and their data use was talked about everywhere too. 

Once that playing field was levelled we began to struggle more, no longer could we sign good players for next to nothing. That's why I think he said in the recent interview that money was the deciding factor, I'm not sure he's wrong exactly especially with how the PL is nowadays but there are other areas where we could've been so much better in that time. Mainly to do with coaching, look how key set pieces have been for us recently, we could've been keyed in on them long before the start of last season.