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tom cavendish

Honest thoughts

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John Ruddy - hasn''t yet returned to the form that he was showing prior to getting injured.Russell Martin - last season he was our best right-back. However, this season Whittaker has looked a little stronger and has linked-up better with Snodgrass.Michael Turner - he can be great one moment and poor the next. He needs to get back to being consistently good for the whole match.Sebastien Bassong - he is awful when he isn''t fully match fit but great when he is. Ryan Bennett has played very well and deserved to keep his place in the team but I can understand why Houghton went for the experience of Bassong.Martin Olsson - His strengths and weaknesses are very similar to Garrido. Olsson was caught out of position a few times but he linked well with the midfield. Robert Snodgrass - he tries very hard but he seems a little bit off the pace compared to last season. I think he links up better with Whittaker than Russell Martin.Jonathan Howson - I thought he had his best game so far this season. However, too often he passes the ball back towards his own defence when in good positions to create a chance. He needs to be linking up a lot, lot better with RVW. Howson needs to be threading through passes to RVW but he isn''t doing that.Leroy Fer - he is a very good all round central midfielder but I think the best is yet to come from him.Alexander Tettey - he works incredibly hard and is linking up extremely well with Fer. We look very solid in central midfield with Fer & Tettey.Anthony Pilkington - he is the only player that links well with RVW. His all round game is better than Redmond.Ricky van Wolfswinkel - he keeps drifting wide or deep to try get the ball (because of the poor service from Howson through the middle) so at times we didn''t have a striker up front.Gary Hooper - he is physically stronger than RVW and he showed some good touches linking well with the midfield.Nathan Redmond - his positioning is awful when he doesn''t have the ball. Defensively, Snodgrass and Pilkington are both better than Redmond. When he does have the ball he often gets in the way of a fellow Norwich player. However, he is quick as soon as he gets the ball whereas Snodgrass gives opposition defenders more time.Chris Houghton - I am concerned about him because I think that he has been very slow to realise what his best team is, has been slow to read games and slow to make substitutions, but he is getting there slowly.It was ridiculous that all 4 defenders were up for the corner against Chelsea with the score at 1-1 and 5 mins remaining. Houghton should have spotted that and addressed it before the corner was taken.There is a huge tactical emphasis on getting the ball out wide and getting crosses into the box but we don''t have a tall powerful striker. If Houghton is to continue with this strategy then he really needs Fer to be pushing forward to try to get on the end of some of those crosses.We offer very little at all in the final third of the pitch straight though the middle because the link between Howson and RVW is terrible. I have doubts about whether either RVW or Hooper are very well suited to the lone striker role. I see them more like Michael Owen in requiring a strong partner to get the best out of them.

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Was it not Olsson who was back on the halfway line and went to close down Oscar for the second goal or did my eyes deceive me?!

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I thought the second half was our best 30 minutes along with the first 45 against Stoke that we have played under Hughton and it shows that this squad is capable of playing football.

 

Tettey should have hoofed the ball into the River End, not try and pass it back, but it''s our ususal one mistake per gaame against the big boys which gets punished.

 

Their third was just a lucky deflection and great finish, but that ball could have bounced anywhere.

 

Signs are there for all to see but, my concern is that we don''t look as sharp or fit as we did under Lambert and I''m sorry to say Turner and Bassong look lost together, Bennett & Turner last week looked solid.

 

Bright notes were Olsson and Pilks and Redmond looked hungry in his brief 15 minutes.

 

No one can complain but we do find ourselves in the bottom 3 again, very tight down here and reults against Fulham, Cardiff, West Ham, are a must this season.

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[quote user="Indy"]

I thought the second half was our best 30 minutes along with the first 45 against Stoke that we have played under Hughton and it shows that this squad is capable of playing football.

[/quote]

I would be inclined to agree, but that seems to be the exception and not the rule. Against Stoke we were in their faces from the off, but that''s not normally what we do. I don''t like the ''zonal'' way we play, for large periods of the first half Chelsea looked quite comfortable. Our defence and midfield were not close to any of their players, we frequently backed off when I feel it could have been more productive to try and hassle them and force an error. This also invites long range shots from the edge of the box, as if you have someone with a decent shot they will punish you (Everton).

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The link up with RVW is poor. You make a very good point about Pilks being the only player on the sae wave length. Our best football over recent seasons has been when Pilks, Surman & Hoolahan play together as they are very clever footballers who work exceptional together. I wonder if RVW would have had a few more goals to his name if theses three started behind him? It worked for Holt two seasons back, and then when the trio we''re broken up last season Holt suffered.

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1. It''s "Hughton". Are you stupid?

2. Olsson was on the halfway line for the corner, so you are lying to fit your agenda.

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Houghton?

 

Not quite as bad as the Telegraph, though:

 

"GOAL! Norwich 1-1 Chelsea (Pilkington 67) Just as Chris Hughton

was preparing to take him off, Chris Pilkington grabs an equaliser for Norwich."

 

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[quote user="tom cavendish"]

Gary Hooper - he is physically stronger than RVW and he showed some good touches linking well with the midfield.
. [/quote]

When did he show himself to be stronger than RVW and when did he show good touches/link up?

 

That basically did not happen.

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Firstly, my apologies for the miss-spelling of Hughton''s name. My spell-checker uses that name spelling.Secondly, another example why I''m concerned about Hughton is because he continued with inverted wingers when Hull went down to 10 men. This only served to help Hull close the space in midfield when we should have been stretching them to create space to make use of our extra player.Looking ahead, I am glad that Hughton now seems to realise that Fer & Tettey are by far our best combination in central midfield, Pilkington is the best on the left, Howson isn''t a defensive central midfielder, and Redmond should be competing for a place on the right. I think Hughton should have realised all of this during pre-season but at least he is now getting there.The challenge now must be to sort out the link between Howson and RVW because it clearly isn''t working. If Hughton can''t get that to work then perhaps try Hooper and Elmander.

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Sorry but we look a class better without Elmander and Howson pushing on, let''s not take a step backwards please.

 

How can anyone fault that second half, it was just bad luck again which cost us two goals when City were looking for that winner, christ on another day Redmonds shot might have been parried into that path of a City player to smash it in the net.

 

No complaints  after the last two weeks, please keep going and we will be OK, just.

 

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[quote user="Indy"]

Sorry but we look a class better without Elmander and Howson pushing on, let''s not take a step backwards please. 

How can anyone fault that second half, it was just bad luck again which cost us two goals when City were looking for that winner, christ on another day Redmonds shot might have been parried into that path of a City player to smash it in the net.

No complaints  after the last two weeks, please keep going and we will be OK, just.

[/quote]The link between Howson and RVW clearly isn''t working so we are not playing to RVW''s strengths. Howson needs to be threading through some passes like Wes can do (but Wes is more easily pushed off the ball than Howson). It is a difficult problem to solve and neither RVW or Hooper are particularly well suited to playing as a lone striker.

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The lads played well Sunday but do you think if we had a different line up we might have done even better? 

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[quote user="tom cavendish"]The link between Howson and RVW clearly isn''t working so we are not playing to RVW''s strengths. Howson needs to be threading through some passes like Wes can do (but Wes is more easily pushed off the ball than Howson). It is a difficult problem to solve and neither RVW or Hooper are particularly well suited to playing as a lone striker. [/quote]It''s not just Howson, the wingers and full backs seem to be poor at threaded passes too. They seem content to try a hopeful aerial ball, but don''t seem willing to take the same sort of risk on the floor. The coaches need to drill the players on how to successfully play the ball past defenders for the striker to run on to.

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[quote user="GJP"]

[quote user="tom cavendish"]

Gary Hooper - he is physically stronger than RVW and he showed some good touches linking well with the midfield.
. [/quote]

When did he show himself to be stronger than RVW and when did he show good touches/link up?

 

That basically did not happen.

[/quote]

He should several times that he is stronger, he muscled Luiz off the ball with ease on the halfway line and he also showed his comparative strength several times as soon as he came on against Villa.

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Against Chelsea he had that moment when he went shoulder to shoulder with Luiz and he never really had control of the ball. Chelsea had it well covered. He did not muscle Luiz off the ball with "ease".

 

That was really his only moment. After that he offered nothing but that moment in itself was probably enough to pull the wool over peoples eyes.

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Howson/Fer/Tettey is really looking to be a good partnership.

Much prefer the Olsson/Pilks left wing combo.

Agree with comments Bassong lookin a little unfit, or out of form.

At this moment in time, if we had to bring one player into the team, either position on the right hand side would be the main focus.

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when we conceded from the corner Tetty had 2 chances to win the ball further up.

Willian had 2 headers unchallenged. I think Tettey is a lot stronger and had he have used his strength i doubt we would have conceded.

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Yes it did, directly in front of us on the halfway line in front of the jarrold stand Hooper out muscled David Luis as he held him off the ball for a good 10-15 seconds before laying the ball off, he didn''t like it & clipped Hoopers heels as he ran back to the middle of the pitch, interestingly he stayed over at the right side of a back three after that & hardly went near hooper again!

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Yes he did, directly in front of us on the halfway line in front of the jarrold stand Hooper out muscled David Luis as he held him off the ball for a good 10-15 seconds before laying the ball off, he didn''t like it & clipped Hoopers heels as he ran back to the middle of the pitch, interestingly he stayed over at the right side of a back three after that & hardly went near hooper again!

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Against Chelsea he had that moment when he went shoulder to shoulder with Luiz and he never really had control of the ball. Chelsea had it well covered. He did not muscle Luiz off the ball with "ease".

Not what I saw. Made mincemeat of Luiz on that occasion & came away with the ball under control.

I could not imagine RVW winning the ball like that. However, I do feel he is the better player in general.

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Well you could argue that when RVW challenged Luiz it ended up with Luiz on the floor. Whereas when Hooper challenged him Luiz just stood up to it.

 

But the reality is that Hooper went shoulder to shoulder with Luiz and it never really came to anything. The crowd loved it because it looked like he was getting stuck in (which he was at that time). But you''d be hard pressed to find any other good examples of Hooper causing Chelsea problems in that game or really laying down a marker to say that he should replace RVW.

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I''ve had a chance to watch a replay of the match and the Chelsea breakaway goal was the result of several errors. Martin and Bassong were both in the striker''s position and one of the should have run back quicker, instead they were both anticipating the ball being played back in.Tetty could have closed down earlier, but perhaps didn''t want to risk one of them running clear. It wasn''t a disaster that he didn''t intercept if he could hold up Chelsea''s central players, but Olsson ran out wide when he should have stayed back. Tettey was hence left on his own under pressure with only Redmond anywhere nearby.

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GJP:

"Well you could argue that when RVW challenged Luiz it ended up with Luiz on the floor. Whereas when Hooper challenged him Luiz just stood up to it.

But the reality is that Hooper went shoulder to shoulder with Luiz and it never really came to anything. The crowd loved it because it looked like he was getting stuck in (which he was at that time). But you''d be hard pressed to find any other good examples of Hooper causing Chelsea problems in that game or really laying down a marker to say that he should replace RVW."

Luiz ended up on the floor twice in rapid succession, & you could argue RVW was lucky not to get booked, because he fouled him in pretty crude fashion both times. That is not a useful attribute.

Hooper won the ball perfectly fairly by simply being stronger than Luiz. He came away with the ball under control. That is a useful ability to have.

If you read my post you would see I rate RVW higher than Hooper. Hooper scored 2 good goals against Watford, but I''m still not convinced that he is going to find Premiership opposition as accommodating. It is really still too early to tell, however.

But I am convinced Ricky is a class act & will shine for us as the season progresses.

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I''m not sure how anyone can rate RVW against Hooper as we have seen so very little of Hooper

I do rate RVW very highly, his movement is excellent and he is very good in the air, we seem to be taking a long time as a team to work out how to get the ball to him,in the structure we play, but once we do it will be bonanza time!

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John Ruddy - Behind Joe Hart for a reasonRussell Martin

- Would rather have Chris Martin from ColdplayMichael Turner - Would prefer either Ike or Tina TurnerSebastien Bassong -

Poor man''s Ryan BennettMartin Olsson

- Poor man''s GarridoRobert Snodgrass - Looks like an extra from the Grange Hill bikeshed scenesJonathan Howson - Poor man''s David FoxLeroy Fer - Poor man''s Dickson EtuhuAlexander Tettey - Poor man''s Jonathan HowsonAnthony Pilkington - A touch of glass, boom boom.  Useless.Ricky van Wolfswinkel - When the wind picks up I fear he''ll end up in the stands.Gary Hooper - On the bench for a reasonNathan Redmond - Headless chickenChris Houghton - It''s Horton FFS.

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[quote user="Doctorsleep"]Now then Mister, how did he crowd sound on Sunday?[/quote]Was hard to hear them over the commentary, but pretty good I''d say [y]

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