Are we the Arsenal of the Championship

[CDMullins 451]

We were camped out in Cardiffs half on Saturday without really creating a chance. Much like Arsenal do week in, week out.

Lots of ball, lots of tidy football, very few goal scoring opportunites.

Are we becoming the Arsenal of the Championship?

[city till i die 0]

I had the same thoughts.

I have seen a few games when we have had plenty off the ball, Saturday and the orient game in particular, i found myself getting frustrated.

Its all good playing nice football when we are winning, but with 10 mins to go, we still wouldnt knock it long, and decided to play it out from the back.

Fox was awesome saturday and just wish he would pass forwards, its all very well hitting a 30 yard pass sideways and not going no where. We need that pass to rip teams apart.

Oh and some of the boys need to take a chance on the edge of the box, numerous times we get there and over play it, and not even an attempt.

I cant believe im ranting because were playing brilliant, just want some more attempts and goals.

[hucks@dh6.co.uk 0]

said the same thing in my dh6 match report, keeping the balls great but you''ve always got to have some kind of end product, biggest problem all midfielders are same kind of players Wes-Lansbury-Fox-Surman-Crofts all tidy with the ball, but no real injection of pace to mix it up, Arsenal are great to watch but haven''t won anything for 5 years playing that way

[Hannibal 0]

Arsenal are a poor mans Barcelona. claiming to play pretty football but ultimately flattering to decive. They lack the real bite they had when Veira and Petit were in their prime. They made that team tick and allowed the flair players to play.

At the end of the day Norwich are Norwich we should never try to be anyone else. We have always had a history of playing football the "proper" way. After all no point having a carpet of a pitch and lumping it 50 yards. As Brian Clough once said "If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he''d have put grass up there."  

[a1canary 0]

i think the game yesterday is difficult to judge us on ''cos the opposition got early goals and then decided to try and hold what they had and get behind the ball. that makes it difficult for any team. we started poorly against Cardiff, did nothing for 10 minutes then bossed it. but Cardiff are high up in the league for a reason and they are physically a huge side. very hard to break down. we did over play it at times but having watched the highlights i thought we were more threatening than i gave us credit for from the stands. two good penalty shouts, fox hitting the bar, aaron and holt going close, disallowed goal... we could have won at a canter on another day and we wouldn''t be having this debate.

[canaryfan68 0]

I believe a little more invention on saturday and if we had got an earlier leveller, then there would have only been one winner...us.

We have had too many games this season where we have over run teams only to come away with none of the spoils but we are a team thats very much going in the right direction. We do need to test the oppositions keeper more, as they say if you don''t buy a ticket you can''t win the lottery!!

Main concern is we can''t rely on Holty, Russ and Wes for the goals too much. Would like a few more to chip in.

Lastly, the passing on saturday was great. A few stray passes but at times it was just one way traffic, just need a little more end product which will come.

[Hardhouse44 261]

We need to stop conceding early goals. Saturday was a re-run

of the FA cup game. We conceded an early goal and then Cardiff drop deeper and

defended well.

We have as you say great midfielders, on the ball good feet great first touch.

However it is hard to break teams down when they get bodies behind the ball.

I think whilst we don''t have pace in abundance we actually break really well as

our one and two touch passing is so good. This is why we are so good away with

the onus on the home team to push on more.

Score early against Orient and we''d have buried them.

Pace would be nice but somebody who can cross the ball would be fantastic. So

much ball for our fullback so many bad crosses. Not a dig just the facts.

Martin got lots of praise Saturday and rightfully so. However  if he doesn''t score that goal we''d be talking

about the 15 or so crappy crosses he put in to nobody.

[York Canary 28]

[quote user="a1canary"]i think the game yesterday is difficult to judge us on ''cos the opposition got early goals and then decided to try and hold what they had and get behind the ball. that makes it difficult for any team. we started poorly against Cardiff, did nothing for 10 minutes then bossed it. but Cardiff are high up in the league for a reason and they are physically a huge side. very hard to break down. we did over play it at times but having watched the highlights i thought we were more threatening than i gave us credit for from the stands. two good penalty shouts, fox hitting the bar, aaron and holt going close, disallowed goal... we could have won at a canter on another day and we wouldn''t be having this debate.[/quote]

Definately agree with much of what you said..could/should have won on any other day if those chances/decisions went the right way. From all accounts we should have played against 10 men possibly. I think our main problem is getting enough clean sheets - if we had a few more of them we''d be laughing because we seem to be able to score quite well. Probably more like Man City and Arsenal combined

[Block Y Seat 176 80]

In a word, no. Credit Cardiff for a display that nearly was a result for them. They buckled under the pressure put on them. Norwich are a side in transformation and we are where we are due to many factors which include the type of player in the first team. Conceding the first goal at home playing as we do though is a dangerous game to play, as our record shows. In this respect Wilbrahams is a welcome addition.

Here''''s a thought. If Crouch played for Arsenal would it enhance the Gooners, i think so.

HRH

[shefcanary 2,503]

This thread pretty much sums up what I said in the Chris Martin thread.  We play the same kind of possession football in a european style as Arsenal.  Sure we are not scoring goals all the time - even our "strikers" aren''t always on the score sheet, but I think one thing we do have over the Arsenal at the moment is better team spirit and that is why we do score late goals - without changing our style of play.  Kind of the old Muhammed Ali way of taking the sting out of the opposition before finishing them off.  As long as we keep up the work rate and collectively don''t have an off day (as agaisnt Orient) we can outpass most teams into submission.  Let''s hope we get to their current position in the league sooner rather than later!

[York Canary 28]

I also believe someone is due a routing against us.. I honestly believe this would have been Reading, had Holt not been sent off in that joke of an incident (the one game that really continues to get me - like Leeds away last season). Hopefully we''ll get that big score soon!

[ricky knight 0]

All this about Arsenal is paper talk every year they are up with the top scoring teams in the league this year they are on 70 plus already, Arsenal problem is their goalkeeper and defending, their offensive play is fine, Lambert has got us where we are trying to playing football so i am quite happy to let him carry on, not long ago we were beaten if we went a goal down, not now so lets by happy if we finish halfway its a good season after promotion.

[Salopian 1]

There is a lot in this - commitment, possession in abundance, even chances, but not showing the big wins generally. We are still in with a chance of the play-offs or better, however.

I don''t know the answer to the possession not turned into goals, of which the Orient game is possibly the best example. On Saturday we were moving the ball around with speed and skill, but...

We have met some goalkeepers who seemed to have reserved their best of the season for us, and we have encountered some effective defences (which we expected in the Championship.)

Many (visiting) oponents have given much thought to marshalling their defence, and packed penalty areas seem to be a problem.

Failure in one-on-one chances has been a problem, with all of our strikers guilty at times.

Perhaps the Martin/Bellamy contest illustrates a problem. Our fullbacks go deep and put in crosses because we tend to play without wingers. This is fine, and we scored from Drury''s cross. Martin records how every time he went forward, Bellamy tracked him back. The backs have to run up to three quarters of the pitch length, which gives other teams time to pack their penalty area, and block out shots.

We seldom saw Holt/Martin C confronted by one or two defenders and it is difficult to see us scoring from a knock-down as Cardiff did - even the ponderous Parkin was up and ready.

So, unless we have rapid wingers, I suggest other, extra ways of scoring:

- long balls (sharp intake of breath) like the goal scored from the long kick by Ruddy earlier on.

- defence splitting passes like Lansbury''s to Holty, which means that the strikers have to move at the same time

- encourage the strikers to make space and loose off shots.

- make more use of set-pieces (- should be great when Surman returns.) I''m sure that they already train for this, but how often do we score from a set piece?

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,645]

[quote user="haisbrohacker"]In a word, no. Credit Cardiff for a display that nearly was a result for them. They buckled under the pressure put on them. Norwich are a side in transformation and we are where we are due to many factors which include the type of player in the first team. Conceding the first goal at home playing as we do though is a dangerous game to play, as our record shows. In this respect Wilbrahams is a welcome addition. Here''''s a thought. If Crouch played for Arsenal would it enhance the Gooners, i think so. HRH[/quote]

 

I don''t think a player like Crouch would improve Arsenal -- look what happened when Zlatan went to Barca. Even though he is a great target man (which Crouch isn''t, as he can''t head the ball very well) when every other player is looking for neat inter-changes on the edge of the box or a ball over the top of the defence it doesn''t work out. To play "the big man" well, the whole team needs to be thinking this way, Sam Alladyce for example concentrates all his attacks through long balls and set pieces so it works well but few teams can work both a short pace game with a target man (due to their inherit lack of mobility and pace over 5 yards).

 

Norwich were made to look a bit like Arsenal on Saturday as Cardiff were happy to allow Norwich as much of the ball as they wanted in non-dangerous areas of the pitch. By placing pretty much 8 players behind the ball at all times and defending from the edge of the box they reduced the chance to a minimum. Lambert tried to counter this by spreading the play wide and bringing on wide players (Lappin and Smith) which eventually resulted in the goal.

[a1canary 0]

I agree BGY. Cardiff were happy to let us have it which flattered the posession stats and allowed us to look pretty. But by the final twenty minutes they were beginning to make us look completely toothless. But the reason Lambert''s substitutions so often have an impact is because they always give the opposition a different problem to deal with. We spent much of the time trying to thread it through the middle, getting nowhere and coming back out again. They dealt with it all day long but once we switched to 4-4-2 they were suddenly having to deal with balls coming across them rather than straight at them.

[Lambert is King 0]

Please excuse me being rude but I despair. These are facts not dribble

1. We are the 4th highest scorers in the Championship - teams above us Leeds Watford and QPR ( we are only 2 behind QPR )

2. We have had the 4th most shots at goal in the Championship beaten by Leicester Coventry and QPR

3. We have hit the woodwork 13 times Joint 4th

4. In the player stats Grant Holt has had the 7th most attempts in the Championship and Chris Martin is 11th. We are the only team with 2 players in the top 15.

5. Chris Martin has shot on target 8 times more than Grant Holt despite the fact that Holt has started 8 more games and of course playing in midfield.

6. We dont look very good in the old clean sheet stats.

7. Guess who the top scorers are in the premier Arsenal and I bet you cant guess who has had most attempts at goal yep thats it Arsenal 

 

[YankeeCanary 0]

Lambert and Ricky Knight are absolutely correct in their overview. Also, with respect to Arsenal, I think this is more a sign of the times as far as people generally are concerned ( and football fans in particular ), i.e. less patience in today''s world waiting for an end product. Arsenal and Norwich are both doing fine at the moment, good football, building patiently, looking for opportunity, and both teams competing well in their respective leagues.