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Home form vs Away form

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As I have just posted on another thread.It appears our home and away form is continuing exactly from where it left off last season (Ignoring the great victory at Man City of course)How can a team be so good at their home ground..... then look a completely different outfit on the road.If i''m not mistaken, the lineup today was the exact same lineup we saw against Southampton.Yet outside of Carrow Road things just don''t tick.Do you honestly believe Hughton told them to play completely differently to how they did 2 weeks ago (in that impressive performance against Saints)

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We do appear to play a lot more negatively away from home. I do think Hughton has them playing less adventurous football away from home. Less players push forward, full backs not crossing the halfway line etc. 4 games is too early to judge, but the signs are looking like more of the same from last season.

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I''m not quite sure what to make of this home/away problem. We''ve had two games - one pretty good performance v Everton and one very good v Southampton - where it looks like we know how to play the right way and everything looks hunky dory, yet as soon as we go away from home even the simple stuff like midfielders passing to each other goes out of the window completely. Admittedly it was always going to be hard to get point(s) today but after a decent start against Hull we became atrocious and have lost both games without scoring.

I just don''t understand how we are completely inept and unable to pass the ball accurately away when we play away, yet at Carrow Road we look like we know how to play football. Does it affect other teams this much? Do things like pitch sizes, pitch conditions, long journeys, hostile crowds, etc, really affect things as much, or is it down to our noticeably different tactics?

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It''s certainly a conundrum Rufus. I remember back in the 70s we went the best part of 2 seasons without an away win. We had a good manager (John Bond). We had good players like Martin Peters, Kevin Reeves, Jimmy Neighbour and Colin Suggett to name just 4 attacking ones. Just like last season we finished mid-table. But none of us could understand why we couldn''t repeat are home form away from home.

 

 

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1-2 more away wins a season. with our current home form and we finish safely in the top 10.Without those away wins we could head for another nervy end of season.

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It''s certainly a frustrating conundrum, and away form seems to be the bane of the NCFC fan - relegation coupled with that unwanted statistic in the 04/05 PL season is a very bad memory. Last season we were poor, barring two bizarre games at Swansea and Man City, and this season looks like more of the same. But there''s a long way to go and hopefully we can nick a couple - if we can, we''ll be fine as we look good at Carrow Road.

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It''s not as if the home fans turn Carrow Road into an intimidating ''fortress'' (as it''s laughably referred to) that scares other teams into submission. In fact, the same can be said of most (all) grounds in the Premiership. Nor are pitches particularly different. Travelling is cushy and they stay at the best hotels. So, therefore, it must be one of players'' state of mind and/or tactics employed away.

If, as a large number of posters have said, a team like Norwich cannot go away to a team like Spurs and expect much, will they say the same when Spurs come to Norwich? I doubt it.

Simplistic opinion, I know, but it''s still a game of 11 vs. 11 (or 14 vs. 14) so why so different? And by the way, it''s not just Norwich.

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As I tried to say in my earlier post It''s difficult to pin down why this happens. Most people site the manager saying he sets his team out differently away from home. There''s no real evidence to support this, same players and same formations after all, but I guess logic dictates he must approach away games differently so it''s assumed he does and I guess we all feel better with someone to blame.

 

Us older fans seem to get it in the neck when we suggest that things aren''t as bad as they''re being painted. Poor old Rickyyyyy is now branded a coward by CJF but he makes valid points with views obviously formed having followed the canaries for 60 years. Anyway, I can''t speak for Rickyyy but I know I can''t so easily put this conundrum of why our away form is so bad down to the manager approaching games differently. As I said there''s no real evidence to support this. The line up yesterday was pretty much the one being called for by contributers to this board. He didn''t change it and play Tetty and Johnson or replace Whittaker with the more defensive Martin as it has been suggested he would. So really all the evidence folk have to say he approaches away games differently is the team talk they imagine he gives his players. That''s not much to go on is it? An imaginary team talk??

 

Now I mentioned 1976/79 because I''m an old dodderer who can remember it. Looking back through the archives I see the following : -

 

1976/77 Home: W12 D4 L5 F30 A23 Away; W2 D5 L14 F17 A41

1977/78 Home: W10 D8 L3 F28 A20 Away: W1 D10 L10 F24 A46

1978/79 Home: W7 D10 L4 F29 A19 Away: W0 D13 L8 F22 A38

2012/13 Home: W8 D7 L4 F25 A20 Away: W2 D7 L10 F16 A38

 

Now those 3 seasons we finished 16th, 13th and 16th but of course there were 22 teams in the league then and only 2 points for a win.

 

However I don''t remember anyone ever suggesting we set out differently away from home. During those seasons we had players like Martin Peters, Colin Suggett, Kevin Reeves, Justin Fashanu, Jimmy Neighbour, Graham Paddon and Phil Boyer. We had attacking full backs like Sullivan and Downs and crucially one of the most positive managers in our history in John Bond.

 

I don''t have the answers as to why this happens. I think it must get into the players mindset because otherwise it makes no sense. But I think it''s quite a a leap in the dark to assume the manager puts it there although I accept that''s the view on here. But then are there any other old codgers who would say that Bondy made the players perform differently away from home? 

 

 

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I think you are confusing getting results at home with playing well at home. We get results at home very rarely do i come away from the ground now thinking how well we have played. As i have mentioned on a previous thread there is a stat about us that we have never won a league game under CH by more than a single goal. hardly screams that we are playing out of our skin and putting teams to the sword

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I think that we have played quite well at home but certainly haven''t given anyone a good beating. Hannibal''s point is a good one in as mch as I agree that the manager sets the team out the same way both home and away but the more positive opposition pushes the team further back when they play away.

 

However, I am convinced Hughton sends his players out with the same instructions both home and away. But because of pressure they drop deeper away. I think we are in for a long season. Hughton will continue with the system he has chosen and has spent the budget to play. We will improve. But I expect home and away records similar to last season and to finish 12/16th. We will eventually all get bored with it but any change of system midseason will probably see us relegated.

 

 

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

I think that we have played quite well at home but certainly haven''t given anyone a good beating. Hannibal''s point is a good one in as mch as I agree that the manager sets the team out the same way both home and away but the more positive opposition pushes the team further back when they play away.

 

However, I am convinced Hughton sends his players out with the same instructions both home and away. But because of pressure they drop deeper away. I think we are in for a long season. Hughton will continue with the system he has chosen and has spent the budget to play. We will improve. But I expect home and away records similar to last season and to finish 12/16th. We will eventually all get bored with it but any change of system midseason will probably see us relegated.

 

 

[/quote]A fair and balanced analysis and I agree with the conclusion.However, this will not satisfy those who have worked themselves up to believe that a top 10 finish is ours by right.

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Two excellent posts, Nutty, painting the bigger picture. You should bookmark these because I think they''ll need revisiting during the season when the pant wetters get out of control as they are wont to do. It was Ricardo''s post last season around the turn of the year I think, where he gave the odds of relegation for a team in our then position that convinced me that we wouldn''t go down. I think your assessment is spot on with a 12/16th finish if we keep our nerve.

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[quote user="Rock The Boat"]Two excellent posts, Nutty, painting the bigger picture. You should bookmark these because I think they''ll need revisiting during the season when the pant wetters get out of control as they are wont to do. It was Ricardo''s post last season around the turn of the year I think, where he gave the odds of relegation for a team in our then position that convinced me that we wouldn''t go down. I think your assessment is spot on with a 12/16th finish if we keep our nerve.[/quote]After 12 games I will be giving you 5 teams from which the relegated 3 will almost certainly come. Hopefully we won''t be among them but there are 8 more games before that judgement can be made with any degree of confidence. At the moment we are 1 point behind where I expected us to be while Sunderland and WBA are both at -3. Palace and Hull are at +3 but its very early days yet.

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What concerns me is that everybody laughed off last season, because in the end we managed to finish 11th. We had a great result against West Brom and Man City (could be argued they werent very interested that day, nothing to play for, manager likely to be moving on with certain players). Finishing 11th doesnt mean we had a nice comfortable season where relegation was never a concern. Results went our way in the final weeks of the season. We were right in the thick of a relegation battle right up until those final weeks. We could easily have gone down last season, we were always in danger. To look at our eventual league position and then doublethink a different type of season is just pure ostrich behaviour.

We could easily have been relegated last season as there were so many other teams in that position. And the main reason for that was because of our terrible away form and general isolation of Grant Holt, who took the criticism for the goals not raining in.

£8.25m later and all that has been proved was that the lack of goals was nothing to do with Grant Holt or his ''decline''. The real problems havent been addressed, its still exactly the same as last season, in that we cant supply our forward (regardless of how good he is) and our approach to away games means we can practically write off 50% of the points this season, Unless Hughton changes whatever is behind our away no-shows we are not going to pick up points away. Against anyone.

The ''Tottenham were good'' argument does not hold water, because although we were never in the game and never looked like scoring, the same was true at Hull, where on paper and with a man advantage we are never going to get an easier opportunity of a point, let alone 3.

The team is completely different, to a man, when away. This is what Hughton needs to address, and fast. Nothing has changed from last season despite the influx in quality. With those problems we were in trouble last season, and as they''re still here, unless theyre rectified we''ll struggle again.

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But this doesn''t explain the difference between our home form and away form. Unless Everton and Southampton were on the beach these were two terrific results. Everton remain unbeaten and have still only conceded the 2 goals we scored. I don''t think we could ask or expect for more from the 2 home games. Yet the same players away from home playing the same system under-perform by comparison.

 

 

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