Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Yorkshire  Canary

Have we over Achieved this Season?

Recommended Posts

I have been to all home league and cup games this season bar one. What strikes me about the league games is every game this season i have looked down the opposition team sheet then looked at ours and thought  " They have got better players than us and more of them " Hughton has probably put together the best defence  that we have had in many a good year but you look beyond that and with odd exceptions it has that championship feel about it.  Last season our cavalier spirit and the momentum from 2 back to back promotions carried us forward and the bottom half of the division was i suggest a bit weaker than it is this season, withthe exception of Reading the promoted clubs have spend big and we know the likes of QPR and Sunderland both still below us at the moment have spent  3 or 4 times as much as we have this season. add to that the disruption of the Lambert saga and  we truly did go into the season as one of the bookies favorites to go down.

  I totally accept that this season it has rarey been very pretty and i scratch my head as to how we have managed to grind out so many points with the squad we have, which i may add is particularly tin when you lose 2 or 3 players. In addition Morison either went off the boil or was found out and  Holt our Tallisman for so long is another year older. We owe him much but i thought on saturday he was a shdow of what he has been, not so much the penalty miss but the lack of confidence to have a shot, shooting off target and unfortunately losing a yard of pace. I know Hughton has his critics, but not me. Many managers in charge of the players we currently have at our disposal wouldhave got us virtually relegated by now.people forget that at the startnof the season 17th spot was regarded as success, but for the first few games of the season we have consistently been severalplaces above 17th.  Nine games left of grind and guts, little or no flare and a few more points to keep us safe. If and when we are safe i do really lookforward to Hughton getting the rewards fr his efforts and more wise spending in the summer to take us on to a consistent mid tabel team

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I said at the start of the seaosn we would do well to finish in that 17th spot. New manager and better teams up from the championship.

 

When you look at what players Southampton & West Ham had on the first day of the season we would have to concede that we do have a lesser squad then most on paper.

 

That said we do have some seriously good players, Ruddy, Bassong, Johnson, Pilks and Snodders. The rest do a job, but would not consider them of any value to any other Premiership team and that is how I would see the squad we have.

 

Hughton in my book has done an exceptional job this year, just betan 10 times, only losing 3 at home and 10 clean sheets.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Have we over-achieved?   Not sure we have,  but I dont think we have under acheived either - nicely performing during a period transition I would say. 

We started the season amid table premier league team and we will finish it there too - plus ca change.  

 

I am not convinced that PL is better this season,   spending money does not equate to better quality as Portsmouth, Leeds, QPR, Newcastle and Liverpool have repeatedly shown.    Most of the evidence suggests its a lower quality league (very high number of PL teams losing to lower league opposition in cups,  poor european showing,  Man Citeh comfortably second while being a shadow of last years team,  Manure romping the league while being as dull as ditch water)

 

Hughton has done well to strengthen the defence,  with players that are young enough to perform again next year.   That has come at the expense of some attacking flair but given the limited funds this year he was only ever going to transform the defence slowly - we have an excellent platform to build on for next year and increase the attacking options then.  

 

I have to think we are in transition, logically it makes sense to me and its the only way I can tolerate the dour performances the team are currently delivering.   I cant wait for the close season to remove the current angst in the fans and enable us to kick our squad on again and return the NCFC reputation of free flowing football.

 

We have spent more than ever before and maintained our league position,  a good performance,  but not over acheiving at all.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

No, we haven''t "over-achieved" this season. If we were pushing for a Champions League place we would be over-achieving. As it is, we are limping unconvincingly towards safety playing some of the most turgid football Carrow Road has seen in many years, having morphed from an exciting attacking team into a poor man''s Stoke. Add to that the manner of our exit from both domestic cup competitions and I would suggest that we have done the polar opposite of over-achieving.

Mungo

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Have to say the OP has made the most sensible post I have read on here in a long old time, well done YC. I agree with everything you say and feel Hughton has not received the plaudits he has deserved. Yes the football has been less than inspiring, especially in light of the previous three year''s success of constant attacking but the team now has the feel of a more mature unit that can be built on and added to so we can regain some of the entertainment value we have lost. This year was always about surviving, paying off the debt and ensuring we are about to get a share of the additional £30m next year, so far we are on course to achieve that and if we do the future of our club could be guaranteed for many years to come - something that should not be underestimated in light of where we were only four years ago.As to the squad, we all knew that the squad we could afford to build was mostly of good Championship players that would, on their day, provide Premiership quality performances but to expect all of them to reach that level each and every week is not realistic. Hopefully in the Summer we can pick up a couple more players of the quality of Bassong and improve the overall quality of the squad before going again next year, but once again I think survival is going to be a good result for the next couple of years.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Ask me when the season is done.

At the moment we are about right. We could have won some games we drew or loss, we could also have lost games we won or drew. That''s footy.

I find it weird you stating the comparison of team sheets. I mean, was that any different last year? Will it be greatly different next year?

We have some real quality in out team, at the moment defense is arguably our strongest department.

Ruddy, Bunn, Bassong, Turner, Whitty, R. Martin, Garrido - is a pretty strong back line. We just need to supplement and build upon that in the summer.

Now, not all of those will be better than what they face but there are certainly quite a few worse defenders out there than Bassong and Turner. I think they are better than anything QPR (bar possibly Samba), Wigan, Southampton, Reading, Sunderland, Villa and maybe West Ham - and are about on a par with the likes of Stoke, Fulham and West Brom. I''d even say that Jagielka appart I''m not sure Everton do.

I think midfield is still where we lack something. We have strong enough wide players, it just seems to be someone to zip that ball about in midfield but without weakening it strength wise.

I actually think Johnson has more playing ability than some give him credit for but when you have just won the ball, you ideally want someone you can give the ball to and do something with it. I think he struggles at times as he tries to do too much.

I actually think the Premiership has dropped in quality largely this season. There are a lot of teams you''d look at the team sheet of and think why are they not doing better.

Sunderland for example. Fletcher, Graham, Sessegnon along with A.Johnson and Larson. Some great players in there. Again, take a look at that defense and tell me you''d want them above ours? Bardsley, Brown, Kilgallon, Bramble, O''Shea, Cuellar. I don''t think there is a single one I would put ahead of any of ours.

But like I say, this is the premiership, we are playing teams made up of full internationals almost every week.

I still don''t think we have over achieved, we have done well so far, over achieving would put us at the head of middle of the table rather than at the lower end of it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It could be argued that we have over-achieved for the past three seasons. I, for one, didn''t expect us to go through the Championship like a dose of salts and then achieve such a high position in our first year back in the Premiership.

 

Rags to riches in the blink of an eye, and still they grumble. Football doesn''t normally "do" that.

 

I think that, given all things into account, Hughton had probably the hardest task of all the Premiership managers at the start of the season. He inherited a defence and a forward line of virtual Championship quality after all and did not have the biggest budget for his Summer dealings.

 

We cannot realistically expect a succession of "Messiahs" in the hot-seat after all and we might well have ended up with a real duffer. There are quite a few of those about, just ask the Portalooers, and we have fairly recently found that fact out too.

 

As far as I am concerned it''s mission nearly accomplished and I look forward to the time this season when statistics will enable us to look forward to next season with our increasingly wealth and a consequent more expansive and agreeable style of football.  

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Totally agree Broadstairs, we got very, very lucky since going down to the third tier.

This year, I feel, we''ve had to actually grind out results and can be proud if we stay up this year. Dire football or not, we''re doing a bloody good job all things considered

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
There is a 70% correlation between wage bill and league position with a standard deviation of two places. Probably only Reading has a lower wage bill than us given our 20m debt repayments over the last 2 years which is backed up by the fact that we were 19th in the money spent on agents. So 19th would have been par. 17th above par but within the expected range. Anything over 17th is an overachievement.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
To any neutral observer we are massively over achieving. Hughton has done an excellent, far beyond what Lambert thought was possible. The board laid down the sole objective of staying in the league, which was a significant task at the start of the season. We have accelerated through frOm the third tier and stay uP on momentum year one. Staying up year two is an extremely impressive achievement. Neutral observers would consider we have less finances, a lower standard of players and a thinner squad than almost every team. Hughton had to address the defense and reconstruct it,as wide-eyed momentum would not have kept us up this year. Good defenders are also much cheaper than good attackers, so these made pragmatic sense. Given the disparity between haves and have nots, every club from 21 downwards in the football pyramid dreams of "doing a Norwich". This summer''s financial influx will no doubt see us address the forward line - which may well see unparalled investment - which will symbiotically address the playing style issue.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes.

Our strikers, all four together, cost less than £5m, I would guess, the midfield perhaps slightly more. They are up aginst players who individually cost multiples of these figures. We are a shoe string side.

 

I think that we over achieved last year as well, but may have had the advantage of being an unknown quantity, until later in the season when we struggled a little more.

 

We had the good run in the autumn, but everybody had to play out of their skins, but at such intensity that we could not maintain it. I think that we shall just maintain our status in the Premiership but it''s going to be a struggloe, especially with the recent injuries.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[quote user="AJ"]Totally agree Broadstairs, we got very, very lucky since going down to the third tier.

This year, I feel, we''ve had to actually grind out results and can be proud if we stay up this year. Dire football or not, we''re doing a bloody good job all things considered[/quote]

I don''t like calling it luck. It wasn''t a lack of luck that got us to League 1. Most of the players we had were more than capable championship players, but for whatever reason, hadn''t been managed well.

There were several key appointments that helped us starting with McNally. By that point we had already signed Holt. Lambert was exactly what we needed and to some extent you could argue the reaction of the players to his appointment and management was incredible. But they all worked bloody hard together.

Sure there may have been some luck on the way, but I am a firm believer in making your own luck.

I think getting into good shape as a club at this time is possibly the only part luck played.

Hard work, sweat and no doubt tears are what have got us where we are.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree very strongly with the OP''s thinking.

 

It struck me on Saturday when someone made the comment that we should expect to beat a newly-promoted team like Southampton at home.  Well, if you look at the players making up their squad and our squad, could you really say we''re strong enough to expect to beat them ?

 

Last year our playing squad was one of the weakest in the Prem.  Fortunately Lambert was able to succeed with a cavalier style that overcame the individual weaknesses of our back four (among others).  I doubt that approach would have worked for a second year.  We were also fortunate that several established Prem teams went into a downward spiral and played far worse than their squads would have performed "on paper".

 

This year CH has massively strenghthened our defence and when our key players are in the team, we are hard for anyone to beat.  But if you look at the squads for the teams that have been promoted this year, you can''t really say we have a much stronger squad than any of them.  So yes, we have over-achieved (again).

 

The hope is that we can survive (which I expect us to do) and strengthen our squad further over the summer to the point where, hopefully, we can actually say we are stronger than the newly-promoted teams.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[quote user="Its Character Forming"]

Well, if you look at the players making up their squad and our squad, could you really say we''re strong enough to expect to beat them ?

[/quote]

 

To be honest - yes I do think our squad is stronger than theirs,  we have a breadth of experience across our squad and there are not too many of their players I would have in place of ours - schneidy being the one exception.   We have a couple of injuries and get them back in and we do compete with them all.

 

We do have a talented squad and I think the fans as well as the manager continues to under rate them. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×
×
  • Create New...