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Jim Smith

Thoughts on last night

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Above all else my main thought is what a load of utter, utter cr*p that was. Worst performance i have seen under Lambert and a real opportunity missed to pick up three points against a team I thought were the worst i have seen us play for a long time at Carrow Road and were there for the taking. When we went one up, their heads dropped and, although i didn''t think we played very well in the first half either, I thought that we would come out and see them off quite comfortably. Instead, however, we came out, sat back, backed off and allowed them into the game, conceding 2 quite dreadful goals in the process. I sincerely hope it was just a bad day at the office all round and normal service is resumed on Saturday but last night has brought back a few of the nagging doubts i''ve had about some of our players even when results have been going ok. Thoughts:

1. We missed Drury and Ward far more than I thought we would. Ward is not only good in the air, he is composed on the ball as well. Last night also showed what a decent attacking outlet Drury has become as we missed his overlapping runs.

2. I am going to give S.Smith the benefit of the doubt and assume he is not match fit but he does not yet convince me he is anything other than cover.

3. Simon Lappin and Korey Smith were both completely ineffective and in the case of the former I would say absolutely useless. Ok lappin put in the cross for the goal but other than that it was back to the Simon Crappin of the second half of last season. Slow, cumbersome and he and S.Smith managing to give the ball away constantly. For some reason we persisted in attacking down the left hand side (despite the fact Davids was blowing out of his backside on the other side after 10 minutes) and every attack ended up grinding to a halt. To be fair to Lappin, he has done ok since coming in for Surman but the last few games his performances have dipped, just as they did last season once he became established in the side. Korey is going through a lull in form. He''s young and that will happen but he has not performed for several games now and in my view needs a performance on saturday or his place comes under question. Crofts has been carrying these two for weeks now. last night Crofts was ok but not as outstanding as he has been and as a result we struggled in midfield.

4. Jon Ruddy - jury still out for me. Credit for 2 great saves but you could argue thats what keepers are paid to do. On the other hand he does not come for crosses and in my opinion should have come and taken the cross for their second goal. I am not sure the defenders have confidence in him coming for crosses and that leads to uncertainty.

5. I think Lambert (unusually) got it wrong taking off Wes when we needed a goal. he was our only spark of creativity and once he was off there was no link between Crofts and the front line hence we struggled to create anything. Macnamee did quite well but would have liked to see both him and wes running at them.

6. Russel Martin went completely missing for the second half.

7. Atmosphere was crap.

8. God I hate Palace. They will no doubt be crowing and saying their season has turned around but they are powder puff and a decent team (or us  playing even half decently) would have swept them aside.

9. Edgar Davids needs to be sent to the knackers yard.

A massive improvement needed for Saturday if we arte to get the three points we need to get back on track. We don''t usually lose 2 on the trot under lambert so hopefully he will work his magic again!

 

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[quote user="Olski_yellows"]ruudy would have had to plough through three players to get to the ball for the second goal. It should of been headed out but our defenders didn''t fancy jumping for it[/quote]

Maybe it should have been headed out but from where I was sitting it looked like the header was from inside the 6 yard box. if our defenders had confidence he would come they would have got out the way.

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Russell Martin went missing 2nd half? did u actualy leave the gents at half time and return too ur seat? RM and LB were in my opinion the 2 most consistent players in the 90 mins (my opinion) Smith was getting skinned everytime their winger ran at him.............bring back Dury and quick.The Midfeild had no idea in the 2nd half ...........and all the passing across midfeild what the F**K was that all about? we went nowhere fast..absolutley dyer!.........ive seen March town play better than that.There was no movement from our players from throw ins or corners,high balls into Simeon and no other players of hieght in the box? i''m still trying too work that one out.We couldn''t even beat the first man in there defence from set pieces,we never pressured them for the second  ball ........seemed happy to let them play and attack............We gotta play better saturday .............end of!

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A kick up the arse for saturday may be all thats needed. I think Askou was very ring rusty and Ward will be welcomed back. Steve Smith is still finding his way and doesn''t have the confidence to push on past Lappin yet.

Assuming the defence sorts itself out as a unit back to how its been recently, I would consider dropping Korey Smith.

He has done very well but there is not enough product from him. Its great to see his enthusiasm, but we need more than a scrapper. Crofts does a marvellous job breaking up play but where does the ball then go? He needs another outlet other than Lappin and the strikers - the result is the ball gets cycled forward to quickly and often comes back to soon. Lappin is defensive minded. Wes has to come to deep if he wants the ball because he gets bypassed by the long stuff, and we end up starting from too deep at times. Another midfielder who can hold the ball and pick a pass is what we need - it takes some of the pressure off Wes. Korey is not that player yet. Is Fox the replacement? Hughes sounds like he''s out for weeks with ankle surgery and the rest are out on loan and probably not good enough.

Longer term Surman will replace Lappin and give us the pace we lack on the left. Lappin has his moments but is not quick enough at this level to worry most fullbacks often enough.

McNamee has failed to convince me that he has anything to offer - he has various tricks that have little effect and  isn''t the sort of player to push a ball past a fullback like Hucks and leave them for dead.

Its the difference between the leagues - we now face bigger, faster better teams than last year and we need to stop being so predictable. We look better when we up the tempo.

We were rubbish last night but still better than most in this league when we get it right.

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[quote user="cosmos67"]Russell Martin went missing 2nd half? did u actualy leave the gents at half time and return too ur seat? RM and LB were in my opinion the 2 most consistent players in the 90 mins (my opinion) Smith was getting skinned everytime their winger ran at him.............bring back Dury and quick.The Midfeild had no idea in the 2nd half ...........and all the passing across midfeild what the F**K was that all about? we went nowhere fast..absolutley dyer!.........ive seen March town play better than that.There was no movement from our players from throw ins or corners,high balls into Simeon and no other players of hieght in the box? i''m still trying too work that one out.We couldn''t even beat the first man in there defence from set pieces,we never pressured them for the second  ball ........seemed happy to let them play and attack............We gotta play better saturday .............end of![/quote]

He did nothing wrong defensively to be fair but going forward I think he went missing yes. Was not showing for the ball and was showing no urgency going forward (although admittedly none of them were). As you say we need to play better - knowing Lambert I am sure we will as we don''t often play badly 2 games in a row.

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I feel gutted.

Does anyone else feel like we have lost 5 points this week. If Hooly had secured the penalty at QPR we should have had 3 points against the top team, then to lose at home to CP, bottom of league proves we are just throwing points away. I hope this isn''t a sign of things to come.  

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[quote user="Eagleeye"]

I feel gutted.

Does anyone else feel like we have lost 5 points this week. If Hooly had secured the penalty at QPR we should have had 3 points against the top team, then to lose at home to CP, bottom of league proves we are just throwing points away. I hope this isn''t a sign of things to come.  

[/quote]

 

I felt like that last night and it ruined my hubbys birthday night out [:(]  Lets hope and pray we get a win at the weekend

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It was a very disappointing performance.Smith did ok but we really missed Drury; having 2 defenders come in because of injuries and conceding 2 soft goals says in all IMO. Doing ok is not good enough for the rest of the season. We were standing still for much of the second half which remeinded me of a couple of season ago. We must remember to run with the ball and in the right direction. Too often passes looked bad because there was no-one in the right place to pick them up.

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I thought that we desperately missed Ward and Drury last night, and as such our midfield seemed to have to track back too many times  in the second half exposing our lack bodies in the middle of the pitch, this allowed them to overlap on the right on far to many occasions for my liking.

 What worried me most was that we seemed to have slipped back to not being first to any ball out from either defence, something that was far too apparent during our fall from the Championship 2 years ago. This was highlighted in abundance last night and I thought that Palace looked sharper as a result of this and more likely to expose us on counter attacks.

 All in all they played us very well and exposed our weaknesses, fair result in my opinion as we did not deserve a draw.

 Korey and Crofts ran their legs off again trying to close down but with no Drury overlaps on the left we always look well short of ideas ( especially after Wes went off ),very  frustrating 15 mins of going sideways , not forward)

 Lapps unlucky not to net with his fierce drive as was Jackson with a tremendous strike, should they have gone in I could not have seen them getting back into it , but they didn’t and we let them back into the game oh so easily.   

 Gutted, but not too despondent, 3 points against Boro and we will be smiling again and to be fair I would have taken 5th at this point of the season 10 games ago.

 Onwards and upwards and bring on Saturday!

 On a side note, Snake pit tried to get a few songs going but overzealous stewarding, I have to say the men and women in jackets would really hack me off if I sat in there. Stewards had great tussle with the Palace fan (I presume he was Palace) who got over the hoarding at half time, what was he on ?

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[quote user="Woman in the Stands WITS"]It was a very disappointing performance.

Smith did ok but we really missed Drury; having 2 defenders come in because of injuries and conceding 2 soft goals says in all IMO. Doing ok is not good enough for the rest of the season. We were standing still for much of the second half which remeinded me of a couple of season ago. We must remember to run with the ball and in the right direction. Too often passes looked bad because there was no-one in the right place to pick them up.
[/quote]

Agree hun it was disappointing.  For the first time ever last night we questioned Lamberts tactics, taking off Hooly, who is our most creative player, and bringing on McNamee, unless Hooly was injured or exhausted it just seems very odd.

As I have said on another topic thread, last night in the 2nd half was like we were stuck in a time warp of two years ago, the passing was worse than I have ever seen, too many times the ball was given away.

No player on the posts when they are playing a corner is absurd, offers the goalie no protection whatsoever.

If they practise set pieces then it didn''t show last night.

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I agree WAY about sticking a player inside the posts on corners. I coached young lads years ago and insisted that we always had a player inside each post, who didn''t move away until the ball was cleared. Doing this really does reduce the size of the goals dramatically. If the goalie is left alone to cover the whole goal, he has little chance of saving anything from close range.

I didn''t go to the game but saw their goals on tv. Unbelieveable that we succumbed to such basic errors.

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[quote user="Eagleeye"]

I agree WAY about sticking a player inside the posts on corners. I coached young lads years ago and insisted that we always had a player inside each post, who didn''t move away until the ball was cleared. Doing this really does reduce the size of the goals dramatically. If the goalie is left alone to cover the whole goal, he has little chance of saving anything from close range.

I didn''t go to the game but saw their goals on tv. Unbelieveable that we succumbed to such basic errors.

[/quote]

 

That''s the thing, they were basic errors, poor passing and no players on the inside of each post.  They definately need to practice defending from set pieces because last night it looked like they had never practised at all

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Hoolahan had 70 minutes and had no effect on the game. What makes people think he was the answer for the last 20? At least Mcnamee has a bit of pace, which can in theory make him just as creative, but in a different way. Thats why Hooly was taken off. 

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