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Salopian

A new dawn?

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I think not, or at least not yet.

I think that the defensive frailties are still there at the Hawthorns. But for Ruddy''s heroics, we could have conceded another four. This despite good games by Turner and Bassong. They must have had the best partnership for some time. WBA crossing was generally poor, and there were too many instances of corners flying right through the length of the six yard area without interception. Fortunately Long and his colleagues wasted good heading opportunities.

The frailty I mean is the way in which the Baggies wide men, and others were allowed to run unchallenged into the penalty area. I can''t believe that CH has ordered the fullbacks to stand off attackers, so what were Martin, Whittaker and Olsson doing?

I have suggested recently that we might need to sign a centre back in January, but now I wonder if it should be a good fullback.

The midfield was good, if rather overrun in the second half. I thought that Howson was the standout player in the first half, but overall Fer was MOM, although perhaps wasted on the left wing. The partnership seems to be getting better and better.

The strikers did not have many chances, with most of them falling to Redmond. He was wild with his shooting. Elmander did well as a target player, although eventually his marker won more by the simple expedient of pushing him, sometimes violently, in the back or neck. As usual the main threat came from Redmond, who had two opposing players on him for the whole match. Despite this, it is difficult to remember many times when he did not get right past them, predominantly on the outside. Frequently he was there before any other Norwich player arrived, so he regularly had no option but to take the ball along the by-line towards goal.

It was a much needed win, but I fear that it would not have been achieved if the WBA attackers had been even a little better. Our defence still looks capable of conceding four or more.

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Some of the attempts to clear by the full backs were frightening. That one right across the crowded 6 yard box by Olssen stands out as the worst. Luckily there were no attackers close enough to tap it in.

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Have to say I agree with most of this. We seem to give the opposition far too much time & space in midfield. I wonder if this could be a confidence problem though? Let''s hope yesterday''s result will give the players a boost & they close down more efficiently without being terrified of being skinned by a Suarez clone.

Olsson had a complete ''mare yesterday. Shame because he''s been looking quality till now.

If we can muddle through until the injured players return we''ll be OK.

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Who said they let us down?

The FBs were shaky but it didn''t cost us this time so it was like a ride on a rickety old rollercoaster. Frightening, but we made it out alive.

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I want it to be a new dawn and there were a lot of good things that came out of yesterday which indicate to me that it might be. All the points of good performances from certain players, poor performances from others can be debated as nauseum, the critical point for me was that a team that has been thrashed time and time again away from home went out and played with passion and a level of commitment which made me proud. Any questions which I had in my mind about players not responding to the manager were answered. We could easily have caved in yesterday but under enormous pressure in the second half players did their jobs and kept a clean sheet.

More of the same please!

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An accurate summary of what I saw too, Salopian. I''m sure all Norwich fans are overjoyed that we have picked up some recent victories, particularly against teams around the bottom of the table. Helps us and hurts them.

However, the reality is that we are still making horrendous errors in giving the ball away cheaply and basic defensive errors. Actually, although I''m sure many will disagree with me, I thought we performed better as a team in the Liverpool match. Fortunately, yesterday, we were not up against a team with clinical finishers, otherwise posters would not be on the board with rhetoric of relief. Yesterday, WBA players would not have been able to finish a near empty bottle of water in a desert.

The good news for me, which I think will stand us in good stead in coming games, is some of the clinical finishing we have seen from Hooper and Fer. A team lacking in confidence will often see their players snatching at chances but they have been calm and cool in finishing the chances available.. I think this could positively impact our other forwards, including RVW when he returns.

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Firstly, RM played about 1 minute, so not sure why he was include in OP post. however as I said in another post;

Not sure the approach was chnaged too much from the Liverpool game, when we had more possession, more shots and more shots on target than we did against WBA. The difference was WBA don''t have the quality Liverpool have.

So it could be argued that we perfromed better against Liverpool than we did against WBA apart from the fact our conversion ratio was better.

We need to defend better and ensure more possession (the best form of defence being attack) in both these games we had approximately only half the possession we let the opposition have.

Defending is the job of not just the defenders but the entire team, close them down in midfield and the defenders job is made easier, given the number of shots they had (more than Liverpool) I''m not sure we did that any differently yesterday.

I''m not suggesting we change the players but we change the way we think about defending, which it appears we haven''t if WBA can have a higher possession percentage than Liverpool!

So essentially I agree with Yankee''s point(s).

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We all know that with Hootin in charge it could again all go ''tits up'' next weekend.[:S]

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In fairness, some of the less looney elements of the "Positives"; Lakey for example, are recognising that , valuable those 3 pts are, there''s still a hell of a lot to be concerned about, and we are by no means out of the woods. I hope he''s wrong, but Wiz may have a fair point about next Sun.

As no doubt I ''ll get accused of "not seeing the bigger picture", "manipulating facts", and other such nonsense from the less reasonable elements of that group,I do recognise that there are at least half a dozen (probably 10) clubs who are as precarious as us. That''s why it''s so important that CH grasps the nettle firmly and continues in a more positive vein, hopefully eliminating the defensive cock-ups, as we have a real opportunity over the next 3 weeks to put some clear daylight between us and the bottom 3.

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I notice your banner is shrinking. Us that the only thing that''s shrinking after this weekend?

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[quote user="Buh"]I notice your banner is shrinking. Us that the only thing that''s shrinking after this weekend?[/quote]

 

Its only smaller because, imo, it looks neater, Chops also has an old one of mine, and I had that ''shrunk'' for the same reason too.

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I''d say your confidence is shrinking too

Like a sad looking bouncy castle

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Saturdays game was the first I haven''t managed to see this season so I can only comment based of listening to the radio Norfolk commentary.

Fantastic result and looking at the other results one we really needed as we didn''t manage to get further away from the bottom 3.

Nice to see what have been saying all along, give our strikers the ball in the right areas and they will score (long may it continue)

Once again we see mr H with a more fluid formation and once again we get a positive result, maybe it did take a year and a half to sink in.

I must presume our biggest problem currently must be ball retention otherwise we wouldn''t be hanging on and facing such an onslaught from the opposition with such week possession figures.

However hopefully the team can take some confidence from the last 2 games and start to improve this.

I still dream of a convincing win, I cannot class any from this season in that category but there are signs of improvement.

A proper no10 in January and hopefully we will not have to chose between defence and attack.

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I would argue at least in Olsson''s case that his poor performance can be excused due to Fer playing on his wing. Fer, as brilliant as he is, was desperate to come narrow and influence the play- and that left Olsson 2 on 1 down the west Brom right for most of the game- and there''s not a full back in the world who comes out of 90 minutes of 2 v 1 looking good. I don''t believe it was worth playing Fer on the wing as his goal and assist came from central positions- I think we''d have had a slightly more comfortable ride had our left flank consisted of Garrido with Olsson LW. However, there is an argument that had we done that, with Hooper excelling in feeding off Elmander, Fer would have had to sit deep and been less available in forward areas to protect Howson.

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