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Offensive Coach?

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Having deemed it necessary to bring in a specialist goalkeeping coach last season to give our current management /coaching team a ''helping hand'', has it reached the stage where we should be bringing in someone to ''help'' at the other end of the pitch?

Having splashed the cash with a wide range of new attacking talent, is it too much to expect two ex-defenders and an ex-midfielder to get the best out of these players?

Nothing would be more embarrassing than a repeat of last season when we could comfortably play our way through ninety minutes of football without testing the opposition goalkeeper even once.

Having started pre-season with a nice little 3-0 win, everything else that has followed has suggested that we need more specialist input in the final third of the pitch.

Yes, I know ''friendlies'' mean absolutely nothing, and are in no way a barometer for when the season actually kicks off, but I''d far rather the goals to be flowing than for the squad to be continuously drawing blanks!

I don''t have anybody particular in mind, but surely it wouldn''t be too much to bring in a Tourette''s sufferer on some specialist Government Training Scheme to make sure we get goals and the very best out of RVW, Hooper, Redmond et al......

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Oh dear....

So the philosophy of Lambert (defensive midfielder) and Culverhouse (defender) really shines through in their teams then?!

Conversely, the flamboyant attacking midfielder George Graham turned into a dour defensive manager.

Oh, and how did one of the greatest PL strikers ever, Alan Shearer, get on when in charge at Newcastle? Let me see...

I could go on but honestly mate, football in real life isn''t quite that one dimensional! Think you''ve been playing too much FM...

Cut this negativity comments about last season - PL games are like chess matches and to open up the game in your favour you have to score first. That means better quality in the final 3rd and taking chances when they come. With the quality of players we have at our disposal this coming season, we should be in a position to take our chances when at 0-0 more often than last season.

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Pre season? Means diddly squat and frankly I can''t give a rats arse how we are getting on. Only on Aug 17th will we be putting out a side to win a game properly and giving 100%. That''s when I''ll be concentrating properly on our performances. At the moment (my god I''ve gone all Lawro!), it''s all about fitness and avoiding injuries (Seb take note!).

Fret not.

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I do wonder if we have replaced those coaches that went off to Villa before pre-season. Would have thought we''d be told about it.

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Is there a pro team in the world that doesn''t have a GK coach? This isn''t something we "brought in last season" - we and every other team on the planet have had one for decades...

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[quote user="flecky76"]Pre season? Means diddly squat and frankly.[/quote]does it ? the very early games yes, just fitness exercisesthe next few are importantlast seasons pre season we all watched in awe at the new managers 451 formation and the inability to score goals, we all thought ''we wont go through the season like this, one up front, no chance.........''and yet we did, and it was painfully dull for a lot of it. hughton made it clear very early on what his plans were and he stuck to it as well

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[quote user="iron_stan"][quote user="flecky76"]Pre season? Means diddly squat and frankly.[/quote]

does it ?

the very early games yes, just fitness exercises

the next few are important

last seasons pre season we all watched in awe at the new managers 451 formation and the inability to score goals, we all thought ''we wont go through the season like this, one up front, no chance.........''

and yet we did, and it was painfully dull for a lot of it. hughton made it clear very early on what his plans were and he stuck to it as well

[/quote]

 

AAAARRRGGGGHHHHhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [:@]

 

I don''t believe it people!

 

These are TRAINING games, their purpose is to try and get the squad ready for the new season. According to the official site, this was our squad tonight:

Nash, McNeill, Toffolo, Fox, Ayala, Gafaiti (Ajayi 78), Hoolahan (Morris 61), Butterfield (Hall-Johnson 78), Hooper (Loza 46), Jacob Murphy, Josh Murphy

 

Only ONE of that squad played for Norwich 1st team last season, just ONE - and that was Wes.

 

BTW eight of them played in the Youth cup!

 

Let''s try and get some perspective on this - and as for the next few games - they are just as important (or not) as the previous ones - all geared towards one objective - to be ready for 17th August.

 

I find it absolutely incredible that people are already "starting" on the management approach, carrying on from last season - unbeflippinglievable!

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The preseason is to get ready for the regular season; we all seem to agree on that.

The OP''s concern, then, is legitimate. We''ve been shut out 3 times and scored at a rate lower than last season. Wednesday''s squad aside, we should be scoring more or are we preparing to gain points the same way we did too often last year, by giving away 65% possession while putting the opposition into a daze of boredom and hoping to catch them flatfooted on a break?

Where''s the enthusiasm of the last 2 matches many of us hoped might be an indication of things to come?

Ya it''s way too early to be too concerned but the OP makes a legitimate point that scoring a few in these generally meaningless games would feel a lot better than pretending to not care.

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"Wes, you can''t head a ball for toffee"

"Nathan, when are you going to get that haircut finished"?

"BJ, you couldn''t hit a cow''s arse with a banjo"

Do I get the job?

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[quote user="crabbycanary"]"Wes, you can''t head a ball for toffee"

"Nathan, when are you going to get that haircut finished"?

"BJ, you couldn''t hit a cow''s arse with a banjo"

Do I get the job?[/quote]

Not offensive enough Crabby, must try harder.

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Heh.. we were 11th with that dull game where we tried play like a modern and premier league team instead kicking ball around and getting exhausted by running end to end after the ball.

Lambert way was probably nice to watch for those who dont care about anything else than goalscoring chances, but it would have dropped us down previous season. He almost managed to drop AV down with quite much bigger budget and at the end his tactics are for tinpot teams. We should be aiming higher if we want to get our foot really in the top table.

I still haven''t seen any of the games and I wouldnt worry at all before we play our 10 first premier league games. We still have not landed our strongest side on the field at same time and we still are looking for goalscoring number 10.

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[quote user="Lavanche"]Heh.. we were 11th with that dull game where we tried play like a modern and premier league team instead kicking ball around and getting exhausted by running end to end after the ball.

Lambert way was probably nice to watch for those who dont care about anything else than goalscoring chances, but it would have dropped us down previous season. He almost managed to drop AV down with quite much bigger budget and at the end his tactics are for tinpot teams. We should be aiming higher if we want to get our foot really in the top table.

I still haven''t seen any of the games and I wouldnt worry at all before we play our 10 first premier league games. We still have not landed our strongest side on the field at same time and we still are looking for goalscoring number 10.[/quote]

You support the team, manager etc., and fair play. But don’t make things up, the tinpot tactics of pressing high up the pitch you refer to, seemed to work pretty well for Bayern, Dortmund, Barcelona, Spain and Germany, can you think of one team that won anything last year that didn’t deploy these tactics? Plus they also got us to the premier league.

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Thank you BC. Add to that the criticism shown here frquently for the dull but effective style of play that has Stoke firmly positioned in the Prem.

Ya I love the team but I also prefer to be entertained while watching it.

Lambert''s tin pot attack at all costs style was a thrill a minute, and made for a much more memorable season albeit one position lower. It was those last 2 games where we threw caution to the wind that got us 11th place, not the 0-0 games.

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Didnt Newcastle employ Mark Lawrenson in the 90''s as a specialist defensive coach. Think he only lasted 2 months or something...

Those who can coach, those who cant become pundits (and bless the world with their insight, blinkered views, club bias and dullness of personality)

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Nice try Bill Carr, but both Bayern and Barca are perfect example of opposite tactic Lambert used.

They keep the ball and keep it on the ground. There is almost no crossing before whole unit has moved near box and in Barca case even in that situation they keep the ball on the ground. We didnt try to keep the posession and we didnt keep it on the ground at all.

Borussia plays a long ball counter attacking football against bigger sides, but even they keep it very compact and press as a team. Also they use 4-2-3-1 where Lambo almost never used 2 holding middlefielders. Which is quite a big issue if you fullbacks get out of position.

Our pressing under Lambert was almost never in premier league effective because we had long distances between players and support took too long to get there. Perfect example of "chasing the ball without real purpose". Here comes also the negative effect of not using two deep middlefielders. When we had both strikers or striker and pocket player up in the box and wide middlefielder and fullback near the line and lost the ball there was nothing we could do after losing the ball for getting it back. Only one central middlefielder to pass by and after that there was centre backs. So 1 striker and one winger could get quite easily 2 vs 2 just by playing it over the central middlefielder. Not a very modern way to play.

That is biggest reason we conceded very cheap goals and why Hughton''s first idea was to make our team work as a unit and for some people that is dull way to play.

Also Lambert never realised that we were not Real Madrid. They can run end to end and keep high line as they have 2 wolrd class holding middlefielders and two fast centrebacks to make it hard for opponent to use effectively those long distances that accurs after long balls and long dribbles. As said we didnt have neither. You have to play with what you have. Ambition is great thing, but you still have to realise what you are.

Gun-Ho is one of the easiest tactics after parking the bus to teach for the team. After that it is all about motivating the players. That is reason why youth teams in all over world mostly plays from end to end against equal opponents and turtle defence against better opponents. Lambert was a great motivator, but he did use small team tactics where Hughton tries to be a bit more modern and make us a bigger team who plays football and not kick it around just for sake of entertaining. This is sport not a circus.

Only thing what worries me about next season is, if we can get our distribution to work like it did at the end of the season.

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Lavanche - Your final paragraph is the big ''if'' and also presents for me the big question. Why, in your words, did we get our distribution to work?

My reply is another question, why did we appear to encourage forward positive movement from our full backs overlapping to our midfield moving up on block giving a fantastic improvement of supply to our front runners.

What ever the reason it is not evident in the pre season games.

I am a simple man but the tactics deployed for a lot of last season allowed our ''striker(s)'' probably a maximum of two chances per game. A top class striker needs usually 4, 5 or 6 chances.

The heinous devil that is a certain Lambert plays it a different way to us.

Let''s see what method is the most successful at the end of this season.

It may be we tweak our approach with better players available. I sincerely hope so as after all this good work in the transfer market I would hate for the likes of Fer and the Wolf to get frustrated.

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Pre season is far from conclusive in reality the best it can show is some trends so for instance that Redmond is looking very eager and interested that sort of thing. Or the tactical shape but don''t read much into the results or the performances really.

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Bury Yellow:

In my opinion we just got our best 9 back on the field and Howson started to find his form again.

As I said earlier previous season overlapping wont happen until the unit is in position and that means we need to keep a ball a bit longer to do so. It wasnt tactical change it just happens when players do what is asked from them and with Pilkington, Hoolahan, Howson and Snoddy it just clicked at the end of the season and we got more of those chances to overlap.

That is one of the reasons I dont want Hoolahan to be replaced with Hooper or with another attacker. That is also reason why I would have liked to see us sign a Lucas Biglia type player alongside of Fer and hope we sign either Quag, Toivonen or similar to them that we get other options for Hoolahan.

Also I dont know how our opponents have played in preseason games, but when we start to get more equal opponents against us I''m quite sure they get bit more higher on the field and then RvW start to be in his comfort zone with some room behind the line. I think Hoolahan, Fer and RvW will be quite big improvement of Holt, Hoolahan, Tettey/Howson what comes to central build up play.

And blasphemy or not Snoddy needs to level up his game. He is important part of our attack, but he needs to use those chances he gets outside of still ball situations. Pilkington''s absense almost killed our attack previous season as we didnt get enough goal threat behind our striker.

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But they all when defending pressurise high up the pitch though, don''t they? Also I watched Dortmund play Bayern recently and both tried to win the ball back as high as possible the majority of the time and I certainly didn''t see many long balls, both play with 3 in the middle and like to retain possession.

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Yeah pretty offensive, how bout Glenn Roeder or perhaps the incredibly offensive Joseph Barton?

(When Glen Roeder was typed in the predictor suggested ''tosser'' I could easily have clicked on it

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Pressuring high isnt a tactic, it is part of tactic, but simple answer yes they all pressure high.

Also pressing up high can be done so many different ways and Lambert way for example isnt nowhere near what Barcelona is doing.

Dont know if the whirlwind press is familiar word with you, but it is based on players changing place in a circle that keeps constant pressure on the middlefield building up. We mainly send two players to send pressure and other players kept their places with third man keeping the easiest pass option cut down. Which by the way is easiest way to press the ball.

Also our press was quite minimal where you only press few first players to touch the ball after we lose it and return under the ball if press failed where Dortund for example keep it going long as possible.

What comes to CL final, good coach knows when to mix up tactics, but reason you didnt see much long balls was that both Lewandowski and Reus were kept in tight guard and Bayern kept their line quite tight so instead playing over them like against Real Madrid they started to run channels and kept it on the ground.

So the difference between Bayern and Borussia is/was that Borussia is way more direct with the ball than Bayern.

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