This is starting to remind me of Our Last First season in the Premier League

[Canary Wanderer 0]

Please dont shoot me down as I spend every saturday at Carra Rd having a go at my fellow fans who want to criticise everything.

Last year we had a very settled squad - that excelled and got to 12th - however we seem to suddenly be saying to those players actually you didn''t do well enough - wot is well enough ?? So this year we go out and buy new players for lots of money and they straight way get in the team - the guys that performed well last year are suddenly out of the team - result - we are already seeing.

This is so like the Worthington era when the stars like - Ewan & Malky were allowed to go and look at the result.

All our Team really needed was a Goalscorer but now we have said bye to

Drury (poss understandable)

Whitbread (Did a great Job when fit - Are any of the new players better ??)

Ayala (Again showed promise till injured)

Elliott Bennett - One of our best performers last year - now on Bench.

Andrew Crofts - Great misfiel battler - got us up there.

James Vaughan - Off for pennies if he stays fit !!

Jed Steer, Declan Rudd - came in fantastically last year and now we want to but another Goalie ??

For my Money I would have kept all let  Grant Holt (and I am a great fan of his!!)  go for 5m and bought two good strikers with all the Money we have spent. Wages could be justified as they are the guys that are scoring goals - not putting new same standard players in no better on higher wages - all it will lead to is dressing room unrest, wasted money and now I fear relegation.

Any Comments ??

 

[Row D Seat 7 0]

After one game?

[Crispy 4]

New manager, new ideas & new philosophy.

I understand your point I just feel if Lambert had stayed & made these signings I would agree completely but as we now have Houghton he needs his type of players. If we keep the same squad he won''t get the same positive results as Lambert

[Scooby 0]

I refer the (honourable) gentleman to the previous statement "why the hell would a team who were 7th highest scorers in the premier league but had an awful defensive record, only need a striker" ?????

Doesn''t that sound a tiny bit WRONG !!!!!

[Vazzza 62]

[quote user="Crispy"]New manager, new ideas & new philosophy. I understand your point I just feel if Lambert had stayed & made these signings I would agree completely but as we now have Houghton he needs his type of players. If we keep the same squad he won''t get the same positive results as Lambert[/quote]

Agreed unfortunately. As Lambert was an attack minded manager, the squad he built reflected this. Now Hughton has arrived and tried getting this attack minded squad playing defensive football, and through pre-season and at Fulham it just didn''t work. So new players for a new system and style.

[nutty nigel 7,902]

So you''d have got rid of Grant Holt like we did Iwan and Malky and replaced him with two players who are better than 15 goals a season proven PL strikers.  How does that work?

 

 

[Row D Seat 7 0]

We can say with some confidence that Lambert''s weakness as manager is in defence. We were among the teams to concede most last season.

I expect Villa will concede a few this year too.

It''s difficult for Hughton because he''s coming in and changing our philosophy. However, the game at Fulham was too much of a change.

[lake district canary 0]

I''m sorry, I just don''t go along with this idea that Lambert was attack minded.     He was competetive minded and we had to compete all over the field to get anything last season.    The reason we appear attack minded to some was often in response to the fact that we had gone one or two goals behind and had to attack to get back in the game!!!      Competetive instinct.   

 

 

 

the fact that we scored a good amount of goals was largely down to Holt and Morison and a decent contribution from all the others.    I really don''t see things any different under this manager who will try to sort the defnce out and concede less therefore we could be looking at having to score less goals to win/draw matches.    you can''t have it both ways.   We did not go out last season and attack attcack attack, get in to 2 goal leads.   We were defend defend defend  until we went behind, then we had to do something to try and get back into the game.

 

 

I am 100% certain that hughton will get the defnce sorted out and we will have a much more balanced side this season.  Less seat of the pant s stuff maybe, but hopefully, a more solid and stable team - better able to cope with going into any match with confidence.  It is the only way forward because you can''t have seasons like last year every season.   You have to develop.   It was a fantastic season - but to be a more established team we have to gain in stature and not be playing seat of the pants stuff every week.  

 

 

Its early days but lets not ptetend that last season we were a great attacking team. We were not.  We were a competetive and battling, never give up team.   If we can continue with the same attitude and get more solid things will be ok.  We still have our main goal scorers!!

 

 

 

[ROBFLECK 134]

LDC, I go along with what you say. I just can''t see the same strikers getting the same amount of goals again though. A lot of defences will have them figured out now ... I would like to see Vaughan get a chance and if possible an addition to the squad. When you develop you also need something new to offer! I don''t think Grant Holt will be as effective this season, certainly not if he has to play alone up front.

[nutty nigel 7,902]

Holty has had to prove himself to our doubting fans every season since he''s signed. He would be found out in the championship. He would be found out in the premier league. And now he will be found out in the 2nd season premier league. Eventually he will have a bad season, let''s hope it''s not this season, and ultimately his performance levels will drop as his career comes to an end. That''ll be the day when we get the "I told you sos" on here.

 

Paul Lambert and Grant Holt were instrumental in the success of the last 3 seasons. We have lost Lambert and I''m interested to see how he fares without Holty. I think Holty will fare just fine without Lambert. After all he looked the real deal under Gunn.

 

 

[Number 9 0]

Canary Wanderer, did you really say sell GH and buy two good Premier League strikers for £5 million? Yes, there were a couple of strikers in the PL who were better than GH last year, £5 million, no problem.

[Lets be aving you! 0]

Agreed, Nutty N. Holt''s had his detractors from day one and consistently proven everyone wrong.

 

He was barely involved in the Fulham game because of the poor service he was getting, though also no doubt because he''s not fully match fit (and tends to start seasons slowly).

 

But once he is fit he''ll ask more questions of the opposition than any other player we''ve got. No-one''s yet "found him out", and arguably he ended last season on the best form of his career.

[Bury Yellow 2]

Spot on Nutty

[Tumbleweed 106]

LDC makes some good points. Last season we had many games where we created little and some where we "parked the bus" only to concede. The attack philosophy was indeed driven by necessity when time after time we conceded first. Where we excelled was our conversion rate- if that is measured anywhere as a statistic I''''d love to see it because I''d bet that if you looked at chances created against goals scored we''d be top by a mile. In fact apart from Villa at home on the last day I can''t remember a game where we missed hatfuls of chances or looked like running riot against anyone.

 

As far as I am concerned this is nothing like the 2004/5 season where NW looked like a rabbit in headlights stripping out the iconic figures ruthlessly and panic buying all over the place. This appears much more thoughtful and the capture of Bassong a major step forward. The issue is that PL got a bunch of lower league "hungry but limited" players to peform out of their skins, often through sheer hard work for all 90+ mins. CH''s problem is assuming that the squad is all Prem quality and playing accordingly. He''ll soon realise it isn''t and that will change the approach. How he blends in better quality alongside the more limited players will be interesting.

[Yorkshire Canary 118]

lambert would probably have moved a lot of these players on anyway. Each season that he was in charge half a dozen or so players left

[Fiery Zac 1,066]

It is foolish to think that as we did so well last season all we needed to do was add a ''goalscorer'' and we''d do as well again. Newly promoted richer clubs, surviving clubs strengthening - and so a pretty simple assessment by hughton that our main concerns were being more solid from the off - not waiting to to go a goal or two down before we react and become that ''PL attacking team''

Lambert evolved the team each season into a success for the next challenge. However he could see the 2nd prem season evolution was going to be the most challenging and decided to move on. Fair enough, he''s an ambitious man and has left at a peak with a great reputation, but it''s simply too easy to say hughton is ruining a brilliant PL side.

We had luck last season and limped over the finish line (trying not to degrade the huge success overall) but we have to evolve again to compete with the new challenges. Who knows if hughtons changes will be the evolution the club needs but he''s a brave man to take it on.

[Dubai Mark 0]

LDC and Nutty Nigel sum it up for me, I too expect CH to get our defence sorted and Holt to once again be our top scorer, albeit perhaps with one or two fewer goals due to The Premier League being that bit tougher this season.  I also detect that there are quite a few people who have cloudy memories already of how we played last season, particularly in respect of how we managed to win some of our games or hang on to several draws, it certainly wasnt as a result of consistently playing attacking free flowing football, we did this sometimes, but the majority of the time it was a very different story.

[Europe_93 50]

Lambert leaving and Hughton being installed as a manager has created inevitable instability.  The new manager deserves time more than he does criticism.

Lambert’s decisions were easy to read, the attacking philosophy largely came from knowing our players were adapting to a new and higher standard than they had played before.  Mistakes and goals conceded were almost inevitable (think back to the early games and penalties), therefore we were always going to need to score at least one goal per game.  Early season, we generally hit the front man early and used our energy to get up and support the front players, only around March when we were in relative safety did we adopt a more passing (through the midfield) style of football, this was the beginning of his next evolution and would have had a bearing on this summer’s transfer targets had he remained. 

Which leads to his recruitment policy, generally 3 year contracts, players bought to go straight into the team and by the end of the second season don’t be too surprised if strong competition is bought for your position, part of continuous improvement. 

The decision to for the new contracts to Ward & Martin would not have been taken under Lambert in my opinion.  These players would have been thanked for their contribution over 3 years and replaced, possibly with 2 of Turner / Bassong / Naughton / Whitaker.  Whitbread is a more difficult, I thought he equipped himself well but is obviously a little injury prone (I believe his dispute would have been over money and wouldn’t be surprised if this was an early warning to Lambert of the boards policy).  I thought Tierney was more than competent early season and with him as first choice left back the dependable Adam Drury could have been offered a 1 year deal (unless Naughton, able to cover both sides, decided to stay).  This may not have followed the normal Lambert evolution of players, but would have allowed him to allocate funds to a higher priority.  We have probably now got 2 excellent left backs, but may be short in other areas.

Whilst you can understand Hughton’s desire to improve the defensive unit having watched the video’s of last season, they also need to be examined in context of what was trying to be achieved at the time.  It is tough to be too critical of last season’s defence if the team policy is to attack, the same as it will tough on the attack this season if the team adopts a more defensive nature.

In summary, I think we are in a period of instability but the manager needs time to imprint his own methods and style.  And while the quality of our squad may seem to have improved, I think this will be a very tough season for us.  As fans we need to support more than ever our players and manager to give them the stable platform to perform on.

[Bill 1,788]

I''m not too sure if we had that ''settled side''. We swapped it around quite a bit.

 

There is NO confirmation of Vaughan leaving other than in your over excited imagination.

 

Ayala and the two keepers going out on loan is a positive move in our long term planning as they need to be playing week in week out. They will develop far more that way than sat on the bench.

 

There was no £5m offer for Holt merely nonsense spouted in various rumour sources. I doubt we could have replaced him with two suitable players for his fee, never mind their wages.

 

It matters little who is sat on the bench on the first game of the season, that will be determined by how the manager wants the team to play. Not who is supposedly the best player.

 

As said elsewhere players come and players go. Even more so as we had a squad of players who were with us in League 1 but may not be up to Premier League requirements. To replave EVERY player would be impossible so it is always going to be a more gradual process, determined by needs must.

 

If we had done as I think you are suggesting retained the same squad as last year with only a striker as an additio there would have been howls of outrage, as there would had we bought in new players only to have them sat on the bench as they are not as good as what we have already got !

 

finally I would add that the last few games have not turned out as any genuine City fan would have hoped for, but it is early days, the club is not filling the squad with ''one season wonders'' who may keep us up this season but leave us needing to do the same next summer - we are in the hardest league in the world, we are going to get hit hard now and again so learn to take it and recognise it is part and parcel of where we are

 

in the best league in the world !