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Jim Smith

Belated thoughts on saturday

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A big win for us and a hard fought one as well. Good signs in terms of the team spirit and battling qualities and gives us soem breathing space going into a couyple of tricky away games now. I thought that our tactics perhaps made Swansea look better than they are due to the sheer amount of possession we gave them. Its a bit depressing that we feel the need to play that way at home against the likes of Swansea City but to give Lambert his due it worked in the end thanks to Ruddy''s heroics and the fact we never give up.

Thoughts:

1. Big game and performances for Ruddy and Jackson. The former really needed it and I think will hopefully now go from strength to strength. Unlike most in the ground i thought the penalty decision was fair enough (ultimately if the keeper makes contact with the striker the ref is going to give it more often than not) but it was a great save from Ruddy. That two pen saves already now and it doesn''t half make a difference having a keeper who you think has a chance of saving them. Could be important for us this season as I think we may give a few away!

2. Ward MOM was also deserved. Despite the fact he kept slipping over I thought he had a excellent game and gives us some composure back there that we really need.

3. Hoolahan had possibly the worst game I have seen him have for us. No problem as far as i''m concerned. Every player is allowed a bad game every now and then and he still worked hard. It did however show how important he is to the flow of our game as the fact he was so quiet when we had the ball meant that at times there were no options for people to pass to and we never really got our passing game going at all. We rely on him coming and getting the ball off the holding midfielder and that wasn''t happening.

4. Surman - great first 25 minutes then seemed to fade completely. Class on the ball, a bit weak off it. We have a player on our hands here but he needs to get stronger and produce more consistently for 90 minutes.

5. Good subs by Lambo. Thought the team selection was right and putting Korey in the middle was the right move at the time and Macca made an impact. He has looked sharp for me at the start of the season and i think is a great option for us to have off the bench.

6. The main problem we still have is lack of pace at the back. I know people below have said that martin had a good game but the fact is that despite doing little else wrong he got done for pace for the penalty and he also got done when Sinclair ran through for that one on one with Ruddy. On another day thats two goals conceded. The Nelson/Martin corridor remains our real weakness and when they come up against anyone with pace we are going to have our work cut out. Drury also got ripped to shreds first half but to give him credit recovered in the second half somewhat. I think lambo knows this (hence our tactics of sitting so deep and making them play in front of us) but the question is what can he do about it?

7. Crowd - a bit depressing to see all the empty seats and a clear message to Mcnally. Yes concession prices have been too low but any adjustment needs to be more subtle and not price the younger generations out of attending Carrow Road.

 

 

 

 

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At what point do we stop saying Wes ''had a bad game'' and actually realise hes not good enough at this level?

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I agree almost entirely with what you say except re: R. Martin and Scott Sinclair, IMO there are not too many players in the leaguee who have a hope in hell of matching Sinclair for pace and I am in no way surprised that Martin struggled against him at tiems on saturday, he isn''t the first and won''t be the last. In fact given the pace and skill of Sinclair I think Martin actually deserves a lot of credit that he didn''t allow him to create more chances. The biggest criticism I would have is that there were a couple of times where I think he was too afriad of being done on the outside and therefore showed him the inside channel which obviously allow Sinclair to drive in towards goal rather than having to go the long way round. Luckily our central defence and covering midfielders were able to deal with this threat (except for the penalty) but on another day it could and should have have cost us. But as I said above I think Martin had a decent game against one of the biggest attacking threats in the league and to be overly critical of him when we beat one of the best teams in the championship (at this early stage) and kept a clean sheet is totally counterproductive.

With regard to the penalty and sinclair''s other second-half chance, both in my opinion were more the fault of Crofts and Smith being too far up the pitch than of a lack of pace in defence. If you look at the bbc coverage for both chances there are two or three Swansea players running at our defence without a midfielder within 10 yards of them, they were almost a carbon copies of Danny Graham''s first goal for Watford a couple of weeks back and it was the same for Sinclair''s. Any defence is going to struggle when you have a player of Sinclair''s pace running at you with no midfield cover as the attacker is always at an advantage becuae he has the defenders backpedalling, and very very few defenders in this league will have the pace to match someone like him. The key is to make sure our covering midfielders are doing their job (which they did for most of the game) to ensure that we have players tracking the runs in towards the box, given that this was Lambert''s job throughout his career I am absolutely confident that he will identify and deal with this problem. What these chances also demonstrate to me, is that there is so little room for error in this league that any positional mistake from any player in going to allow a talented attacker to exploit it and ultimately this will cost us goals and possibly points throughout the season. Unfortunately it is simply impossible to eliminate those kind of little errors from our game but ultimately i don''t think this will be too much of a problem, we''ve shown that once again we have the desire and fitness to keep on fighting for 90-95minutes every game and with Lambert in charge we will never ever give up trying to win games whatever the outlook, this will more than make up for any errors because it gives our player the ability and oppourtunity to atone for ay mistakes. This is probably the most important aspect of our game as it will enable us to exploit teams as they flag in the final 10 minutes and will win us a lot more points over the rest of the season, as it did last year.

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[quote user="CDMullins"]At what point do we stop saying Wes ''had a bad game'' and actually realise hes not good enough at this level?[/quote]

When Wes shows he''s not good enough for this level is your answer. He was good against Watford, excellent against Scunthorpe and poor against Swansea. For me saturday''s performance was the exception to the rule and he is plenty good enough.

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[quote user="CDMullins"]At what point do we stop saying Wes ''had a bad game'' and actually realise hes not good enough at this level?[/quote]

I would say give him at least 10 games (minimum) before even comprehending that "he''s not good enough at this level". However, in you case it''s a bit pointless, as you''ve quite clearly made your mind up already.

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First 20 mins we were in serious control, I would like to see the right and left backs coming in late when we are playing wide, 2 or 3 occasions of the ball whizzing across the goal mouth untouched, all in all a good performance even with Hoolahan having an off day. The positive for me was Lambert not being afraid to change the formation with enough time to make an impact, McNamee looked lively and caused a bit of havoc, and this changed the game from an attacking perspective, as well as Ruddy’s save which was awesome, (I think he will turn out to be a good signing) .

Jackson’s finish was class and probably quite underrated, to adjust his stance 2-3 times in order to pick his spot was no mean feet (great ball over from Holty)

  

Swansea are a good side and play very attractive football, Dyer and Sinclair looked very lively and caused us problems , but we stood firm at the back and I have to say the back 4 are starting to gel quite well ! ( great cover from Korey when needed )

 

3 points at Forest (very achievable) and we will be sitting nicely in the top 6 come Saturday evening!

 

Things are definitely looking good and no-one to fear at this stage!

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[quote user="CDMullins"]At what point do we stop saying Wes ''had a bad game'' and actually realise hes not good enough at this level?[/quote]

Seem to remember he had a pretty good season for Blackpool at this level.  Didn`t Roeder say that he signed him because he`d ripped us apart in the two games against them?  Anyway, you don`t go from being one of the outstanding players in league 1, to being rubbish in the Champs.

Good OP, but no way a penalty imo.  If you`ve lost control of the ball it`s not a pen (unless you`ve been pole-axed or something) and the ball had gone out of play before the bloke hit the ground.

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[quote user="CDMullins"]At what point do we stop saying Wes ''had a bad game'' and actually realise hes not good enough at this level?[/quote]

Ive heard it all now... [:|]

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Fair enough Mullins, the way you worded it however suggested it to be rhetorical.

Like I said before, I reckon he will be fine in this league and depending on how well he does will also dictate our seasons'' success.

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[quote user="CDMullins"]It was a simple genuine question! I dont imagine he will be good enough at this level, only time will tell.[/quote]

Think you should have used "decide" instead of "realise" in your question then [:P].  "Realise" sounds as though you`ve already made your mind up.

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[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

[quote user="CDMullins"]It was a simple genuine question! I dont imagine he will be good enough at this level, only time will tell.[/quote]

Think you should have used "decide" instead of "realise" in your question then [:P].  "Realise" sounds as though you`ve already made your mind up.

[/quote]

Holt did''nt have a great game Saturday when do we decide he''s not good enough? Give me strength....

 

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