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Rudolph Hucker

A Broader View

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Happy New Year one and all. I''ve been away and have just got round to watching highlights of our last five matches.

Usually, we all comment game by game with mood swings broken down to minutes of matches so it made a change for me to look at the team over the festive season as a whole.

Having previously seen the Swansea game live I felt the spirit in the side was good and this came across to me throughout the festive season matches. In terms of effort and endeavour we certainly got far less than we deserved and letting in only five goals in six league games gave us a foundation to get rewards and away from home we have been doing this since the west Brom game.

The problem is that we have only scored five in the same number of games although we made enough chances to score considerably more. Our goals for are clearly the issue this season and another three in the last six games or five overall would see us comfortably top half. But it has impressed me that the players aren''t moaning about their bad luck and are sticking to task. It would have been easy for them to do so after those two home defeats although only one of the three goals conceded was acceptable, the other two, like so many we have let in this season, are down to bad errors.

Bassong looked far too casual in too many of those games again. I don''t see how that is a fitness issue but our previously over-run midfield nowadays get a far more even share of the possession. It was nice to see Ruddy venting his spleen at conceding as earlier in the season he looked a tad too resigned.

So, the players are clearly playing for the manager who hasn''t done a whole lot wrong over these games. He can''t put the ball in the net himself and has been let down by wide player injuries and a disappointing RVW.

How soon we get injured players back is crucial as is a win.

Finally, I am a big Wes fan and it wasn''t lost on me how much and how well he played over these games. His inclusion didn''t see us left vulnerable to conceding, it made the opposition think about something other than attacking. Wes isn''t a player for a 4-4-2 but with one up front he should be playing. I pray we keep hold of him and play him although if he packed up and went to Villa I wouldn''t blame him on a number of levels it would be right for him.

We could and should have had 23 or 24 points over a very favourable period. On paper, this was a period which we needed to take advantage of. We didn''t and that is down to a lack of goals for. Solve that problem and we should survive.

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Firstly, the chances of us selling Wes to Villa (and Lambert) are zero. No chance of that one happening whatsoever.

With regards to our festive period. The mood in the squad seems fine. We just can''t get the results. I thought we were poor over the festive period. We needed to be getting 3 points at Sunderland and the introduction of the previously mentioned Hoolahan would''ve gone someway to trying to get 3 points, instead of being happy with 1 point.

The game against Fulham was poor, made worse by Hull beating them 6-0 two days later. A poor performance from us which heaps pressure on those last 4 games of the season even more.

The United game - not the team they were. A top 6 team now it seems. We should''ve got something from that again, but ended up with 0 points.

Palace away. Another place we should be going and getting all 3 points considering their squad compared to ours. I''d certainly expect a team who spent £30m+ last summer to go to newly promoted Palace and pick up all 3 points, but again, we fail to do that.

Our next three PL games at Everton, at home to Hull and home to Newcastle. I suspect we will achieve 1, maybe 2, points within these games.

We are in a relegation battle. No doubt about that. I''d take 17th now. That''s for sure. Unfortunately I have a big lack of faith in Chris Hughton. Wish he was the man for the job, but IN MY OPINION, he is not.

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"...has been let down by wide player injuries and a disappointing RVW. "

Same old anti-club rubbish by Wiz Lite. RVW, returning from an injury has played about 60 minutes of our last 4 PL games.

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Lets not forget, RvW wasn''t exactly prolific before his injury. Although still adjusting to the PL to be fair.

Whilst he''s been unlucky, I don''t think it''s unfair to say that I hoped for more than just one goal from him by now.

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I think that there is more than a touch of yellow tinted glasses there 1901.

Much as I would prefer it to otherwise, the hard truth is that the only match of these that we were favourites to win was Fulham. To suggest that we had the other games and gave them away is wishful thinking. We could have won three more and another time might have done but it would have been as underdogs.

I think it is this over expectation that leads so many posters to be dissatisfied with what were very good and useful draws at Sunderland and Palace.

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But, Cambridge, when your run of fixtures is: Sunderland (bottom of league), Fulham (bottom 3), United (decent but struggling), Palace (bottom 4, just promoted) surely you could be forgiven for expecting to get maybe 6 points from those games, perhaps 7 if you''re lucky.

I really don''t think that''s too much to ask. 2 points from those games wasn''t good enough, a very poor return.

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[quote user="YellowNets1901"]Lets not forget, RvW wasn''t exactly prolific before his injury. Although still adjusting to the PL to be fair.

Whilst he''s been unlucky, I don''t think it''s unfair to say that I hoped for more than just one goal from him by now.[/quote]He can''t be blamed for the fact that neither winger has the ability to supply him with the ball. We thrill to the excitement of Redmond and Murphy darting down the wing. There primary task is to supply the strikers not cut in and finish with a wild shot or tame cross too close to the keeper. The times yesterday he pulled back to edge of the area waiting for a pull back that never came. It makes you weep.

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[quote user="YellowNets1901"]But, Cambridge, when your run of fixtures is: Sunderland (bottom of league), Fulham (bottom 3), United (decent but struggling), Palace (bottom 4, just promoted) surely you could be forgiven for expecting to get maybe 6 points from those games, perhaps 7 if you''re lucky.

I really don''t think that''s too much to ask. 2 points from those games wasn''t good enough, a very poor return.[/quote]

Forgiven? Of course but let''s be real

Sunderland v Norwich for example comes up on the Fink Tank at dectech.co.uk as 44.8% home win 26.3draw and28.9 away win. The away win was possible and the draw was creditable. It is the expectation of a awin that I am disputing because we were statistically underdogs.

Just for balance, us v Fulham is 42.8% home win

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I don''t buy into percentages too much. A team can have 35% possession and still win a game of football. Not sure how often that happens though, perhaps find a percentage ;-)

Villa (a team in very poor form) went to Sunderland and won 1-0. That makes a nonsense of any percentages that your website pumps out.

It annoys me when fans shout down other fans who they perceive to have unrealistic expectations of what we can achieve. When your fixtures are Sunderland, Fulham, United and Palace - I don''t think 6 points is unrealistic. Not at all.

This period of the season has taught me a lot about Chris Hughton. It seems we can only ''go for it'' when his job is on the line. Until then he''s happy to scrape draws and put up with narrow defeats. It''s my opinion, may not be yours, but Mr. Hughton is just not good enough.

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Before I came to accept CH wasn''t going anywhere and NCFC might remove him I was highly critical, Infact I was probably one of the earliest critics. But banging my head against a brick wall is futile and so I look for the positives and have seen marked improvements in our overall play.

What I now see from fellow posters is the vitriol has diminished, perhaps they have become similarly resigned, and in its place, at games and on here is quiet resignation hence quiet atmospheres and tired, morose complaining.

Supporters are seemingly in the doldrums but it might be the wrong reaction too late. Having a break and a look back has given me more encouragement than I might have had closely following events.

Forget Hughton, back the players, they are showing the fight and spirit to deserve it. Why punish them with apathy. With a little luck and a few more chance conversion we can easily stay in this league.

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" Villa (a team in very poor form) went to Sunderland and won 1-0. That makes a nonsense of any percentages that your website pumps out "

They scored a goal based on absolutely suicidal Sunderland defending - I could not believe how lucky Villa were there. Failing that it would have been a 0-0 draw, same as us...

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YN1901 - saying I don''t buy into percentages then using a percentage describing an amount of possession to compare with one rating the probability of specific results is a bit like saying I don''t think English is much use to discuss whether we should keep Hughton.

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RUDOLPH HUCKER wrote the following post at 05/01/2014 8:28 PM:

Before I came to accept CH wasn''t going anywhere and NCFC might remove him I was highly critical, Infact I was probably one of the earliest critics. But banging my head against a brick wall is futile and so I look for the positives and have seen marked improvements in our overall play.

What I now see from fellow posters is the vitriol has diminished, perhaps they have become similarly resigned, and in its place, at games and on here is quiet resignation hence quiet atmospheres and tired, morose complaining.

Supporters are seemingly in the doldrums but it might be the wrong reaction too late. Having a break and a look back has given me more encouragement than I might have had closely following events.

Forget Hughton, back the players, they are showing the fight and spirit to deserve it. Why punish them with apathy. With a little luck and a few more chance conversion we can easily stay in this league.

Spot on Rudolph

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[quote user="YellowNets1901"]I don''t buy into percentages too much. A team can have 35% possession and still win a game of football. Not sure how often that happens though, perhaps find a percentage ;-)

Villa (a team in very poor form) went to Sunderland and won 1-0. That makes a nonsense of any percentages that your website pumps out.

It annoys me when fans shout down other fans who they perceive to have unrealistic expectations of what we can achieve. When your fixtures are Sunderland, Fulham, United and Palace - I don''t think 6 points is unrealistic. Not at all.

This period of the season has taught me a lot about Chris Hughton. It seems we can only ''go for it'' when his job is on the line. Until then he''s happy to scrape draws and put up with narrow defeats. It''s my opinion, may not be yours, but Mr. Hughton is just not good enough.[/quote] If you recognise it is a lot of worthless drivel then you will understand - or perhaps te Trevors and Colins who pull themselves silly over such nonsense could explain why different sources often have different figures however lets assume that they are accurate and set aside the point that when  ball is out of play the possession count is is favour of the team returning the ball to play, there is no great correlation between possession and the game, watch the game and you will judge then who ''deserved'' to winas to the comment yes I do not think it unreasonable to expect more than half a point from 4 games when three of those teams were as good as in the bottom threea bad day, a dodgy referring decision amissed goal, keeper error etc happens to all teams but we seem to be stuck with a constant stream of these excuses for Hughton''s failures week in week outBowkett talked of midtable mediocrity by the New Yearwe have one half of that ... for the past yearso was that a bench mark or an aspiration Mr Bowkett ?because if it is the former then there is only one course of action - and the question now is .. when ?

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[quote user="City1st"]a bad day, a dodgy referring decision amissed goal, keeper error etc happens to all teams but we seem to be stuck with a constant stream of these excuses for Hughton''s failures week in week outBowkett talked of midtable mediocrity by the New Yearwe have one half of that ... for the past yearso was that a bench mark or an aspiration Mr Bowkett ?because if it is the former then there is only one course of action - and the question now is .. when ?[/quote]

City 1st.  You really must get over yourself.   Who do you think you are?   "Hughton''s failures"  - finishing 11th and in mid-season trying to battle up the table - and lets see now - three points off tenth place so everything to play for.  But you?  Oh no.  You are such a great supporter that you would cause disruption, a new manager, would throw us into the uinknown with a manager who may or may not be able to do any better.  Are you really a Norwich supporter at heart or are you so bitter and twisted you can''t at least stop this tripe and recognise that the best way of supporting the club and team is to leave it alone, let the manager and team get on with it, get some positivity going amongst the support - and for once, just for once, try and see both sides of an argument.

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not such a good troll as you imagine LDCapologies for tricking you, but a better one I would have continued, much as with poor old wiz where the fun is in leading him up the garden path then pulling the plug (if you will excuse the mixed metaphors)I have my suspicions who is behind this one ... and i have a feeling you know that I knowstill if it fills your time imagining you are someone else then good luck, I am not a physciatrist

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[quote user="City1st"]not such a good troll as you imagine LDCapologies for tricking you, but a better one I would have continued, much as with poor old wiz where the fun is in leading him up the garden path then pulling the plug (if you will excuse the mixed metaphors)I have my suspicions who is behind this one ... and i have a feeling you know that I knowstill if it fills your time imagining you are someone else then good luck, I am not a physciatrist [/quote]

??  Time for bed, I think.

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