Lambert called it wrong today.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

Two strikers, two wingers and Wes just behind the front pair. That''s basically a five-man front line with only Bradley Johnson in a holding midfield role. Far too risky, especially at this level.

We looked good for the first 15 minutes andthen after Johnson went down in a clash of heads he didn''t look right and we were swamped in midfield, letting Villa into equalise.

Most of the comments about this game will be about Barnett''s reckless backpass costing us the points today, but in my opinion if you play two strikers up front you have to sacrifice one of the wingers, or Wes, for a midfielder, you can''t play all three at the same time or else you lose the midfield.

BTW, Peter Grant was busy  today on the Villa bench.

  

[Gingerpele 0]

Was Wes playing in that role and not CM?

[Canary_on_the Trent 0]

Too many players ahead of the ball when we lost possession.

I don''t dispute Wes has improved his defensive discipline and his work-rate but he''s not capable of playing in a 2 man central midfield, especially when you have 2 out and out wingers.

Villa were able to supply Agbonlahor far too easily and Naughton was served up on toast.

[ZLF 274]

it was heskey and n zogbi on the wings with agbonlahor and bent in the middle. Barnett Naughton and Martin simply could not handle an on fire agbonlahor. Barnett cost us a crucial goal and martins lack of pace and positioning is now being found out.

Bennett was found wanting today and the midfield 2 simply not at the game,

back to 4231 for me sacrificing fox for holt simply cost us too much defensive security.

[Houston Canary 0]

So it was a good lineup, you say, since we did well until the injury. You can''t make lineups based on what bad might happen if you want to win, and Lambert is obviously playing to win, not tie or lose close. The final substitution kind of gave that away, bringing on Jackson. And it almost worked.

[Phillip J Fry 0]

[quote user="Canary_on_the Trent"]Too many players ahead of the ball when we lost possession.

I don''t dispute Wes has improved his defensive discipline and his work-rate but he''s not capable of playing in a 2 man central midfield, especially when you have 2 out and out wingers.

Villa were able to supply Agbonlahor far too easily and Naughton was served up on toast.[/quote]

Agree completely.

[Branston Pickle 3,657]

I disagree - if it worked until Johnson got injured, how can we say the tactics were wrong? IMO Villa are a decent enough side, we gave it ago and came up just a bit short. The match stats on BBC are mostly in our favour suggesting we were unlucky. You take it on the chin and move on.

[smooth 114]

I don''t mind losing by one goal in any game to a team I expect to be above us at the end of the season.

Unfortunately we didn''t defend well and certainly you can see our weakness is in defence. Great balls across the middle should have been cut out at the front post and no doubt the fact that two goals came from that, that it will be worked upon.

Hoolahan can play in a four man midfield, but on the left, many times he would lose possession and hence then go tracking back but follow players and hence big holes in the middle.

Croft came on and played well considering he has hardly played over the last month, but our midfield was a little missing.

I think Lambert called it right with tweaking the team, I certainly prefer two upfront. But we didn''t carve open or produce any genuine quality for the two forwards. I honestly cannot remember a chance created for grant holt, only a header from a corner with about 10 minutes to go.

We need to be creating chances for our centre forwards.

Our midfield was light weight today, it was a risk but I would have been happy with crofts and johnson in the middle if you want to play hoolahn and pilky on the flanks.

But today for me summed up what we need. A centre back with premiership experience, who can lead a very young defence and bring the best out of r. martin. Hodgson did it last year with WBA and helped them stay up, it is key to our survival.

Secondly another central midfielder with premiership experience because we have three central midfielders who offer a different things we need a solid runner, tackler and one who can close out games.

Think it was great to see a 4-4-2, didn;t expect much from today and losing by one goal is fine by me. But it certainly showed where we need to look at improving in january and again asked the question of how do we incorporate hoolahan if we need two strikers.

[Houston Canary 0]

Right on, Branston Pilkington!

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

[quote user="Branston Pickle"]I disagree - if it worked until Johnson got injured, how can we say the tactics were wrong? IMO Villa are a decent enough side, we gave it ago and came up just a bit short. The match stats on BBC are mostly in our favour suggesting we were unlucky. You take it on the chin and move on.[/quote]

Did you see the game, I did, or are you baseing your opinion on BBC match statistics? After Crofts came on for Johnson we were still outnumbered in midfield. Leon''s mistake came about originally through a backpass from midfield. It wasn''t until Fox came on that we were more evenly balanced and were able to make a comeback.

I thought Holt played well, a lot less clumsy challenges and falling over compared to the first four games of the season. He put in a good shift, made some great through balls into danger areas, and took a lot of pressure off Morrison. I think he did enough to keep his place and I think two strikers can work, but we need more beef in the midfield if we play with two up front.    

[manbearpig 0]

Rock the boat is spot on! I said before the game to my dad it was a mistake splittin up the central midfield pairing if he wanted to play holt hoolahan or bennett should of made way! our already weak defence was left more exposed due to not having fox and johnson in front of them! Talkin of bennett he would be the one as he has been poor and today we got smashed down our right hand side by abonglabong naughten got turned inside out many times today im not gonna have a go at him cos cos most defenders will do this season! Thought 2nd half lambert might change it and try and mark abonglabong out the game cos if you stop him we would of stopped villa doing anything! I must say their first one should of been handball! We really need to improve at the back and get some quality in cos it could cost us our prem status at the end of the season!

[Branston Pickle 3,657]

I saw a fair amount of it, thanks. The tactics were not as expected and it is no bad thing to keep sides guessing. When all is said and done, I''d side with PL over you any day of the week on such things, if that''s ok.

[Sing up the river end 0]

We never look balanced when Fox isn''t in the midfield,we only started doing well when he returned this season.

He should play every game

[Canary_on_the Trent 0]

We had a 10 minute period from the kick off where we kept possession really well but the problems on the break were clear for everybody to see.

Even with Johnson on the pitch we looked vulnerable when the ball was given away and it was a just matter of time before Villa got the ball to Agbonlahor in a dangerous area against an isolated defender.

Its very naive to believe you can go to a place like Villa with so little protection for the defence from the midfield when they have the pace of Hutton, Agbonlahor, N''Zogbia and Bent on the break.

However we know Lambert doesn''t make the same mistakes twice, so its just a case of moving on.

[canaryfan68 0]

Have to say PL got it wrong today with Wes.

Even if we started with that team, we left Wes on the pitch for far too long. He gave away the ball too many times, wanted to beat too many players and ''dilly-dallied'' with the ball far too often.

Have to say we rallied when we got back to 3-2 but we can not defend how we did and give teams easy goals away.

We have to start to learn from our mistakes because at the moment we are making too many mistakes and putting ourselves under too much pressure without the opposition causing it.

[Aggy 755]

Agree with the consensus here - outnumbered in the centre, but the point made about Naughton in the opening post was the obvious thing for me today. Agbonlahor ripped him well and truly to shreds.

[Shyster 0]

[quote user="Branston Pickle"]I disagree - if it worked until Johnson got injured, how can we say the tactics were wrong? IMO Villa are a decent enough side, we gave it ago and came up just a bit short. The match stats on BBC are mostly in our favour suggesting we were unlucky. You take it on the chin and move on.[/quote]

You obviously watched the same match as I, Branston [img]http://services.pinkun.com/FORUMS/PINKUN/CS/emoticons/emotion-21.gif[/img]

[CantonsHero 0]

Sat in Villa Family end. Here are my opinions of the game.

We play two attacking full backs which means that very often it is our centre halves defending against the wingers on the break. We saw this with Barnett cynically taking down Agbonlahor in the first half, and then again for the goal. Both times, Barnett was well beaten. Both Bent goals came from Agbonlahor crosses and he could have had two more. Reason?

When our full backs are attacked, generally the defensive midfielder on that sides comes over to assist, meaning they have two players to beat. On Gabby''s side it would have been Barnett and Fox normally. Today with only one holding midfielder, there was only one (generally Barnett to beat) and beaten he was.

Fox''s delivery was poor. Free kicks, corners and crossing was not up to his usual high standard.

Two strikers; not more chances. We lost a bite in midfield and didn''t get twice as many shots. Though Holt''s cross for goal 2 was stunning.

My vote is a go back to 4-2-3-1 with Holt on the bench.

[Nuff Said 5,141]

Who the f*** is Abonglabong?

I would put money on one of January''s signings being an experienced central defender who can not only hoof or head it out of danger (which Barnett is normally excellent at), but also add some tactical nous and skill at putting the ball in the right place going forward.

[Shyster 0]

[quote user="CantonsHero"]Sat in Villa Family end. Here are my opinions of the game.

We play two attacking full backs which means that very often it is our centre halves defending against the wingers on the break. We saw this with Barnett cynically taking down Agbonlahor in the first half, and then again for the goal. Both times, Barnett was well beaten. Both Bent goals came from Agbonlahor crosses and he could have had two more. Reason?

When our full backs are attacked, generally the defensive midfielder on that sides comes over to assist, meaning they have two players to beat. On Gabby''s side it would have been Barnett and Fox normally. Today with only one holding midfielder, there was only one (generally Barnett to beat) and beaten he was.

Fox''s delivery was poor. Free kicks, corners and crossing was not up to his usual high standard.

Two strikers; not more chances. We lost a bite in midfield and didn''t get twice as many shots. Though Holt''s cross for goal 2 was stunning.

My vote is a go back to 4-2-3-1 with Holt on the bench.[/quote]

Oh right, I see - so it''s the midfield and having two forwards on the pitch to blame for conceding three goals and absolutely nothing to do with poor defending? And there was I agreeing with the manager that our defeat was through defensive errors.Oh well, back to the drawing board.[:P]

[Shyster 0]

[quote user="Nuff Said"]Who the f*** is Abonglabong?

I would put money on one of January''s signings being an experienced central defender who can not only hoof or head it out of danger (which Barnett is normally excellent at), but also add some tactical nous and skill at putting the ball in the right place going forward.[/quote]

It''s not just about hoofing/heading it up field, Nuff. We need somebody with experience in control back there. I have no suggestions as to who that might be right now, but such a player won''t come cheap.

[CantonsHero 0]

Extremely confused about your post here Shyster. My post makes frequent reference to Barnett to being beaten.

However as we saw with Moses when we played Wigan, a very quick winger will generally be too much for one player, and the formation meant that we didn''t double up.

It gave Gabby far too much space and he killed us. He was MOTM and rarely did I see him having to go up against Naughton.

Lambert got it wrong today, but will get it right against Arsenal.

[Bryangunnshairline 0]

We play one up front v Liverpool and get undone . We play villa with two up top and get undone. Villa didn''t play one up top so tell me how we were out numbered in midfield? Completely agree with people saying we need a quality centre back . Our defence is a shambles and its no shock we always concede at least one goal a game. A little reality check is also in order here. I know the media and Lambert go on about it a lot but we have come along way in two years. Today we played villa away. Played against a quality outfit. We are only going to get better. Lambert knows where our weaknesses are and he will address them come January I''m sure. As for who to play now. For me stick with the 442 Holt offers so, so much. The well umm in Lambert we trust...

[CantonsHero 0]

Outnumbered against Liverpool with 5 midfielders because their 4 midfielders were better than our 5,

We got undone today because we allowed too much space down the right flank.

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

Hmmm. Unbeaten (except for a very honourable defeat and excellent performance at Old Trafford) when playing 4-2-3-1.

Haven''t won playing 4-4-2.

Correlation may not mean causation, but, as Richie Benaud would say, in this case it looks pretty ?*!$ing close to it...

[Bovril 219]

Manchester United and Liverpool - Concede 3 goals

Blackburn and Aston Villa - Concede 6 goals

With the current group of players we have we must set up as a counter-attacking team and play 4-5-1.

We have hard-working and willing players but not real quality so we have to play to our strengths.

We score most of our goals from set-pieces and this is how we are going to stay up until we can afford the extra quality. Lambert went for it yesterday and have no problem with that against an average villa side.

However I am sure he would have learned a lesson today that we don''t have the players just yet to commit 5 attacking players on the pitch at the same time and with the visit of Van Persie and the other 10 I''m sure we will return to 4-5-1.

[PurpleCanary 5,560]

[quote user="Canary_on_the Trent"]We had a 10 minute period from the kick off where we kept possession really well but the problems on the break were clear for everybody to see. Even with Johnson on the pitch we looked vulnerable when the ball was given away and it was a just matter of time before Villa got the ball to Agbonlahor in a dangerous area against an isolated defender. Its very naive to believe you can go to a place like Villa with so little protection for the defence from the midfield when they have the pace of Hutton, Agbonlahor, N''Zogbia and Bent on the break. However we know Lambert doesn''t make the same mistakes twice, so its just a case of moving on.[/quote]

 

I only saw the last 30 minutes of the first half on a stream, but the above chimes with what I felt, with one exception. This isn''t the first time Lambert has picked a too adventurous midfield. He did it for the first game of last season, at home to Watford. Arguably he did it for the first game of this season, with Hoolahan and Surman starting against Wigan. And in that game our full-backs had a tough time against Moses. And Agbonlahor is a markedly better player than Moses.

 

For what it is worth I suspect it was a case of Lambert logic leading to a flawed team. Holt is playing well when coming on, so he wants to start with Holt. Morison obviously can''t be dropped. Fox had a bad game against Blackburn, so he gets dropped. But two centre-forwards requires two wingers, so Bennett and Pilkington stay. And Hoolahan is the magic man. Hard to drop him. So he stays. All sensible in isolation, but put those desires together and you get a team that will get sand kicked in its face. And this is not hindsight. A silent "hmmmm" when I saw the team-sheet and other posters here expressed concern ("Won''t midfield be lacking? Is this a bit too attack minded for an away game at Villa Park?") on the game thread.

 

A final point (I wont, since it risks looking like an obsession point out that Ruddy''s position when Barnett hit that backs pass was absurd, and contributed to the goal. I have no idea why he was standing where he was unless he thought he was taking a goal-kick). We can now ditch the mantra that Lambert nevers criticises his players individually in public. He did it yesterday. The pressure of being a Premier League manager.

 

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]

[quote user="Canary_on_the Trent"]We had a 10 minute period from the kick off where we kept possession really well but the problems on the break were clear for everybody to see. Even with Johnson on the pitch we looked vulnerable when the ball was given away and it was a just matter of time before Villa got the ball to Agbonlahor in a dangerous area against an isolated defender. Its very naive to believe you can go to a place like Villa with so little protection for the defence from the midfield when they have the pace of Hutton, Agbonlahor, N''Zogbia and Bent on the break. However we know Lambert doesn''t make the same mistakes twice, so its just a case of moving on.[/quote]

 

I only saw the last 30 minutes of the first half on a stream, but the above chimes with what I felt, with one exception. This isn''t the first time Lambert has picked a too adventurous midfield. He did it for the first game of last season, at home to Watford. Arguably he did it for the first game of this season, with Hoolahan and Surman starting against Wigan. And in that game our full-backs had a tough time against Moses. And Agbonlahor is a markedly better player than Moses.

 

For what it is worth I suspect it was a case of Lambert logic leading to a flawed team. Holt is playing well when coming on, so he wants to start with Holt. Morison obviously can''t be dropped. Fox had a bad game against Blackburn, so he gets dropped. But two centre-forwards requires two wingers, so Bennett and Pilkington stay. And Hoolahan is the magic man. Hard to drop him. So he stays. All sensible in isolation, but put those desires together and you get a team that will get sand kicked in its face. And this is not hindsight. A silent "hmmmm" when I saw the team-sheet and other posters here expressed concern ("Won''t midfield be lacking? Is this a bit too attack minded for an away game at Villa Park?") on the game thread.

 

A final point (I wont, since it risks looking like an obsession point out that Ruddy''s position when Barnett hit that backs pass was absurd, and contributed to the goal. I have no idea why he was standing where he was unless he thought he was taking a goal-kick). We can now ditch the mantra that Lambert nevers criticises his players individually in public. He did it yesterday. The pressure of being a Premier League manager.

 

[/quote]

Great post PC. I have to say the last point really shocked me. Certainly the first time I can remember Lambert criticising one of our players. He''s normally brilliant at sticking up for them. To be fair to him his next sentence defended Leon''s general form, so perhaps he realised what he''d just done. Sounds as though he was livid.

[Buncey 1]

We have to be fair to Villa, they are a very good side and one of the 8 or so that will be well clear of the rest come the end of the season. Furthermore, I had major concerns before yesterdays game as I saw Villa as a team that was almost set up to neutralise Norwich. At the back they have two of the strongest centre backs (and even still Morrison bossed them, what a player he has been so far), in front of the defence they have the impeccable Petrov who was going to give Hoolahan a really tough game, and upfront they have two wide players who were likely to severely restrict the forward sorties of our full backs.For once, and I cannot remember the last time, Lambert picked a reactionary team, dropping Fox and promoting Holt. I suspect Lambert is secretly very annoyed with himself, and I think that came across in his interview post match, where even though he criticised our defensive frailties he couldn''t go as far to blame them for our defeat. Even still for parts of the game we were well in the match, but our defensive problems are there for all to see now. I was very surprised that we didn''t line out with a similar strategy to Man Utd where our doubling up out wide really hampered Young and Park in their control of the game and Hoolahan stopped the ball being played backwards. In any event we never controlled the pitch out wide and this limited us defensively but also nullified our greatest strength out on the wing. Furthermore, due to only two men in the middle, Petrov consistently held the ball and had the time and space, away from the scurrying Hoolahan, to orchestrate our downfall.That all said yesterday was Lambert''s 100th game at Norwich and he has won 55 of them, an incredible record that points to his ability to learn from mistakes. He will know that we did not give Villa enough respect, that some of his selections were wrong, and the match (was in a perverse way) incredibly helpful in highlighting some of the shortcomings we have at the back. I am sure that the players will be working hard on learning and building their game knowledge this week, and that Lambert will have resolved these issues come next weekend!(p.s. I have to agree with you on Ruddy PC, this is something I have noticed all season from the front rows of the Barclay. He is incredibly reluctant to kick with his left foot and so always positions himself as far back to the left as possible so he doesn''t have to kick with his left foot. I hope this is just a confidence issue and something that can be resolved with the coaches)