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Parma Ham's gone mouldy

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The aesthetes entertainment-versus-points-argument - used to condemn Hughton - is a recalibration of zero.

Oft-repeated, it has become a de-facto urban truth. I do not see the "negativity" and "boring" football and/or tactics that many solipsistically finger-type themselves into a frenzy over.

The football that I see has a maturity, a solidity, a repeatable consistency about it, blended with commitment, bouncebackability and an increasing desire to retain possession, gravitate carefully and purposefully into the final third. This is counterpointed with an awareness of the structural danger of possession turnover in weak areas and well-drilled opposition with pre-meditated counter-attack ploys.

There is an increasing tendency throughout the top division to focus on greater defensive discipline and - perhaps via resource inequality - many sides specialise (if not exclusively, then predominantly) on sharp counters from solid platforms. With many offering similar tactical formations - and controlled fluidity in certain areas - negation (rather then negativity) is prevalent.

Exposure to decades of Italian football - and a schooling in the Dutch way - simply cannot allow me to characterise our current play as a negative. Wet Wednesday''s in Stockport were - and no doubt still are - infinitely worse in every aspect. Sepia-tinted views of relatively recent memory have distorted the views of arrivistes who expect FIFA 14 fluidity, which has never existed.

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I believe Private Eye has a section for this sort of stuff mr ham

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Take no notice of City 1st.  Its well thought out, PHGM.  It is hard to persuade some though and although I agree with what you say, it still does beg the question - is premiership football becoming too structured  for it''s own good?    People pay money hoping to watch entertaining attacking football but it seems to be getting harder for clubs to do this.   Do fans have to change their attitude to it - or is it just that we need educating more about it?    

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[quote user="Parma Hams gone mouldy"]The aesthetes entertainment-versus-points-argument - used to condemn Hughton - is a recalibration of zero.

 Oft-repeated, it has become a de-facto urban truth. I do not see the "negativity" and "boring" football and/or tactics that many solipsistically finger-type themselves into a frenzy over.

The football that I see has a maturity, a solidity, a repeatable consistency about it, blended with commitment, bouncebackability and an increasing desire to retain possession, gravitate carefully and purposefully into the final third. This is counterpointed with an awareness of the structural danger of possession turnover in weak areas and well-drilled opposition with pre-meditated counter-attack ploys.

There is an increasing tendency throughout the top division to focus on greater defensive discipline and - perhaps via resource inequality - many sides specialise (if not exclusively, then predominantly) on sharp counters from solid platforms. With many offering similar tactical formations - and controlled fluidity in certain areas - negation (rather then negativity) is prevalent.

Exposure to decades of Italian football - and a schooling in the Dutch way - simply cannot allow me to characterise our current play as a negative. Wet Wednesday''s in Stockport were - and no doubt still are - infinitely worse in every aspect. Sepia-tinted views of relatively recent memory have distorted the views of arrivistes who expect FIFA 14 fluidity, which has never existed.[/quote]

Parma, it doesn''t surprise me that Lakey takes your input seriously. He has such a desire to be seen as Mr. Positive and allied with anything that resembles the same, that he doesn''t recognize a wind-up when he sees it. It starts with your teasing thread title question, follows on with your chosen use of the form of descriptive English that most on this forum, providing they had the interest and the patience, would copy and paste into Google translation to see if it made any more sense after being twisted and turned on there.

Now, just in case you believe any of the bits you have written that actually relate to Norwich City FC, I will only dedicate my football response to the part of your input that I highlighted, i.e., " gravitate carefully and purposefully into the final third ", to which I would respond by saying if we gravitate any more carefully and purposefully we will find ourselves posing for sculptors, which probably would be fine with you given your Italian exposure.

In our first season back in the Premiership we managed 30 goals after 20 games, last season that level fell to 23 goals and this season we are down to 17 goals. Far from being attracted to the opposing goal, we give every appearance of working ourselves into a state that it is a sacred thing that we should only approach at speed if given prior permission.

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It is absolutely mental how you''ve projected the way you personally want football to be played onto Chris Hughton and his team despite all evidence to the contrary. It is as baffling as your overwrought mangling of the English language. I''m not convinced you even watch us on the telly, let alone in person.

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If Yankee Canary followed Parma Ham''s posts over the last few months he would know his style.   Wind up? Maybe, maybe not, but the substance of the thread op is quite accurate.   How about addressing my questionYyankee,  rather than putting your prejudiced view of me personally over - given what Parma said - is the premership becoming too structured and limited for its own good?

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[quote user="lake district canary"]is the premership becoming too structured and limited for its own good?[/quote]No, it''s simply we have way too many managers nowadays who are scared to actually attack half the sides they will come across, so have instead resorted to ''parking the bus'' in far too many games, a method which may limit the damage done to their goal difference, but cause incalcuable damage to the satisfaction of the fans who pay their hard earned money to watch that tripe...If the modern game in the UK is destined to go through a ''catenaccio-esque'' period like they 50 odd years ago in Italy, then I won''t be watching much of it until we do come out the other side...

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Well done Indy.

The painful truth is that much of the entertainment on offer in the English League for a notable period has been based on a surfeit of errors and a limited application of tactics.

The propensity for harem-scarem, territory-based play led to unstructured goalmouth action and excitement for fans unable to recognise the difference between constructed chances and random event.

The influx of foreign talent on the playing and management side has gradually ousted over-priced under-technically skilled English players, who were not as good as their cheap-seats media portrayed.

The fame you watch now is not lacking in entertainment, it is different. It mirrors more careful, more thoughtful, more intelligent Italian football, that does not over-value attacking in relation to defending.

There are now better educated managers, staff and analysts - with access to far better technology - that are capable of calculating the odds of success of on-field actions and patterns of play.

That this does not chime with Sun- reading simplicity and skewed views of yesteryear in terms of entertainment is simply too bad. We have - like many others - chosen to replace low percentage territory-based forward-thrusting with a more controlled and controllable balance. Any poor chess player can "nearly win" by attacking dramatically at the game''s opening. In due course he of course loses. The glorious failure has been the English staple for ever.

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[quote user="Parma Hams gone mouldy"]Well done Indy.

The painful truth is that much of the entertainment on offer in the English League for a notable period has been based on a surfeit of errors and a limited application of tactics.

The propensity for harem-scarem, territory-based play led to unstructured goalmouth action and excitement for fans unable to recognise the difference between constructed chances and random event.

The influx of foreign talent on the playing and management side has gradually ousted over-priced under-technically skilled English players, who were not as good as their cheap-seats media portrayed.

The fame you watch now is not lacking in entertainment, it is different. It mirrors more careful, more thoughtful, more intelligent Italian football, that does not over-value attacking in relation to defending.

There are now better educated managers, staff and analysts - with access to far better technology - that are capable of calculating the odds of success of on-field actions and patterns of play.

That this does not chime with Sun- reading simplicity and skewed views of yesteryear in terms of entertainment is simply too bad. We have - like many others - chosen to replace low percentage territory-based forward-thrusting with a more controlled and controllable balance. Any poor chess player can "nearly win" by attacking dramatically at the game''s opening. In due course he of course loses. The glorious failure has been the English staple for ever.[/quote]I agree with all of that in general terms. I suspect I have been watching football, including in Italy, for longer than you, and that is the way I have always thought the game should be played.The problem is the blatant disconnect between that ideal and the hard facts of the football being played by Norwich City under Hughton this season. "Does not over-value attacking in relation to defending"? How come we are not only scoring fewer goals but conceding more and are heading for a potentially ruinous minus goal difference? Where is this tactical balance you claim to see? It is certainly not reflected in those statistics.If we were playing like Inter under Herrera, winning games 1-0, I wouldn''t complain. But we are a long way from there. If it is true that Hughton has ditched gung-ho football then he has failed to replace it with what you claim to see on the field but which is not apparent to many - if any - others.

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I am still not quite sure what you are actually trying to say with regard to the premier league.

The only side I would say that are showing any signs of this way of playing with any success is probably Chelsea and if I honestly felt that Norwich had as much will and endeavour to either defend or attack as most other Premier League clubs I could probably resign myself to it.

I regularly watch other teams on TV and I have to say that entertainment is alive and well in the Premier League sadly it struggles to make it up the A11. I used to think it was a matter of formation but that does not appear to be the case.

The lack of pace at which we play the game always allowing the opposition the time to get the defence set in front of us probably doesn''t help.

Perhaps it is jus that we do not have good enough players in Midfield to supply the kind of chances that our strikers can thrive on.

We needed a goal scoring Attacking Midfielder in the summer and whilst I think Leroy may be able to play this he is probably more valuable to us further back.

The team seem scared to me, certainly short on confidence they need someone to actually make them believe they can win a football game before they go onto the pitch. If Hughtons interviews are anything to go by he spends all his time saying how great the opposition is rather than giving confidence we can beat them.

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quote many solipsistically finger-type themselves into a frenzy over.

I get your wider point but also feel that you are making your theory fit into CH''s tactics and structures.

However would you mind explaining the point above as I don''t understand it fully. By solipsistically , do you mean in a self absorbed manner? Or that as posters we only exist in our own minds?

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we need 2 leroys! Like Man City needed 2 toure''s so one could defend and the other could attack so they bought Fernandinho.

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No is the simple answer and people harp on about staying up being the golden goose and primary goal, which is a given for the clubs financial sfaety and to progress on the current football structure.

 

I go back to 1992 and the start of the Premier League, it was sold to shed load of countires and households through Sky Sports and it was all about entertainment! If all games are as boring as some we have endured over the past 18 month''s at Carrow road (Not saying all, but large proportion of games) have been poor to watch. Even to the point that most on here moan about being last on Match Of The Day on most broadcasts, that must say something of how poor we have become to watch from a nuetral point of view!

 

Money runs football and it''s less about the product and more about the result and as such football suffers as most teams at our level are evenly matched and try to neutalize each other rather than go out to win games.

 

When thinking back to some of the better games, Cardiff at home, we were indeed unlucky, but we were entertaining as was the same for the first half against Man U.

 

I''m a beliver that football was better 25 years ago, teams and fans had more chance of pushing for higher league places and Cup matches mattered to everyone! So football has become boring because it''s too much pressure on the money gained rather than trophies won!

 

Yep I''m bored with football when I think back to the good old days of Bond, Brown, Walker & Stringer.

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[quote user="Parma Hams gone mouldy"]

The football that I see has a maturity, a solidity, a repeatable consistency about it, blended with commitment, bouncebackability and an increasing desire to retain possession, gravitate carefully and purposefully into the final third. This is counterpointed with an awareness of the structural danger of possession turnover in weak areas and well-drilled opposition with pre-meditated counter-attack ploys. [/quote]think you might want to get your eyes checked

none of this hyperbole matters, hughtons tactics dont win matches often enough

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I agree with Parma. The constant references to the football being sure are so overstated as to have become ridiculous.

In the modern age language has become about extremes. Everything is either brilliant or rubbish. Managers and players are brilliant or useless. We have lost the ability to describe or even think in shades. But life is mainly set in shades.

Our football is neither brilliant nor rubbish all the time though it has been poor on occasions. Mostly it varies between good and adequate. Certainly it was adequate at Palace because we scored a good goal and drew.

I get told Hughton is too negative as if that were self evident yet most of the time neither I nor the other person knows what that means. I guess it means more negative than necessary but how do we decide how negative us necessary?

We play a deliberate counter attacking game. We would rather draw than lose and sometimes Hughton chooses not to risk a draw to get a win. I doubt this occurs as often as alleged and you have only to consider the two recent away games. We tried to win at the end against both Sunderland and Palace but not recklessly so. The justification is in the league table. If we had taken more risks we could have two points less with Palace and Sunderland each having two points more. The table would then look very different.

It is not perfect. At times it is not good enough. However, Hughton is on the right track trying to get us to play an effective and what can be an exciting form of football. That is as much as he can do and seeing that is pribably the reason that the Board has faith in him.

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That may yet happen, JS, if there is any truth in this report:

http://carrowroad.net/cnews/index.php?post=the-mill-starts-with-abdisalam-ibrahim

As for the OP, I feel that it highlights many of the issues about the PL in general and City in particular. I think some people forget just how much kick and rush there was under Lambert (any who watched much of the Villa - Sunderland game can see it there as well). CH is working towards a more sophisticated style of play which requires the balance between defence and attack that Parma has highlighted. It is still a work in progress though, and heavily handicapped by the disruption caused by injuries this season. The disadvantage is the slow build-up, which can be very frustrating. IMO, it worked the best when we had Fer, Tettey and Howson in the midfield, when the ball was worked forward more quickly. My hope is that this sort of play can become the feature of the second half of the season.

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Since Hughton took over, only 6 of the 23 teams that have played in the Prem have worse possession figures than us. We have less possession under him than we had under the terrible kick and rush British anti-football of Lambert.Given this, we can conclude one of two things:1) Hughton and his team are trying to coach a possession based tactic, but are effing terrible at it.2) Hughton and his team aren''t massively fussed about possession, preferring to prioritise other things.Now personally I think its 2 but it seems Parma thinks that its 1 which is pretty insulting to poor Hughton.

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[quote user="Indy"]Money runs football and it''s less about the product and more about the result and as such football suffers as most teams at our level are evenly matched and try to neutalize each other rather than go out to win games.[/quote]Spot on.Far too many sides would rather sit back and defend than actually push for goals, now don''t get me wrong, this doesn''t mean I''d advocate going gung-ho for 90 minutes and hoping to god that we score more than we concede, but it does mean not sitting back for 90 minutes and hoping to scrape a goal from a set play or a bit of sloppy defending on their part if we deign to counter-attack them!Frankly it''s all a bit embarrasing, especially when in a lot of cases, the defenders simply aren''t strong enough to cope with being attacked by top class players for 60-70% of the game, week after week after week...

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Having watched some of the old games on ITV4 (& remembering Arsenal in the 60s) I would much rather watch modern football. Some of the skill levels exhibited in the old First Division looked about League 2 now.

Mind you, how much was due to the awful pitches & heavy leather footballs (amongst other factors) I wouldn''t like to say.

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This may come across as somewhat ignorant, but i couldn''t really care less about what the stats say with regards to our possession, or the amounts of money in the modern game, or our current injuries, or (in the context of this ''entertainment'' question) the current league table and the fact that there''s teams in a worse position than we are.Am i entertained?As a 5 year away season ticket holder, it''s a clear and emphatic no. I''m bored. And talking to the many regular away fans i see before, during and after the games on our travels, the vast majority agree with me.Don''t get me wrong - the regular away support will still go to the games, still support the club, still sing their hearts out. It''s just what football fans do. And if the current tactics keep us up (which i personally believe they will) then i suppose it''s a case of mission accomplished, regardless of how we''ve managed it. It''s an unfortunate fact of Premier League life that survival is all important, and as a fan of the club i''ll take it, whatever the means.But entertaining, we''re not. Not even close.

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As a matter of interest, which teams in the bottom half of the table do we consider to play - consistently that is - more entertaining football than ourselves?

Genuine question.

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To be honest I really do not care who plays consistently more entertaining football, I understand we cannot expect this in the premier league.

I just want a few games a season that I can think wow we played really well and deserved that.

Perhaps the statistic of the number of times we are last on MOTD is of more relevance than you''d think and maybe its not some big plot after all. We just play incredibly dull football.

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[quote user="Dandy Mountfarto"]Since Hughton took over, only 6 of the 23 teams that have played in the Prem have worse possession figures than us. We have less possession under him than we had under the terrible kick and rush British anti-football of Lambert.[/quote]
Lambert has shown throughout his career that he is a direct manager. During the 1 season he spent at Norwich in the Premier League, not only did Norwich play the most long passes per game (75) they also had an incredibly high number of long-balls as on overall percentage of passes (around 18.5 % of all passes under Lambert were long balls, which is up there with Pulis'' Crystal Palace and Stoke and Allardyces'' West Ham). This trend has continued at Villa, who play the second highest number of long balls per game, have the second lowest average possession of any team (42%), play the 3rd least short passes per game and have one of the worst overall passing accuracy in the league (73.7%). Long balls as a percentage of overall passes is 16.4%, the highest in the league. 
Read this article for more:

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[quote user="Phillip J Fry"]
Lambert has shown throughout his career that he is a direct manager. During the 1 season he spent at Norwich in the Premier League, not only did Norwich play the most long passes per game (75) they also had an incredibly high number of long-balls as on overall percentage of passes (around 18.5 % of all passes under Lambert were long balls, which is up there with Pulis'' Crystal Palace and Stoke and Allardyces'' West Ham). This trend has continued at Villa, who play the second highest number of long balls per game, have the second lowest average possession of any team (42%), play the 3rd least short passes per game and have one of the worst overall passing accuracy in the league (73.7%). Long balls as a percentage of overall passes is 16.4%, the highest in the league. 
Read this article for more:
[/quote]I know this, and I agree. Which is what makes it so unbelievable that Parma thinks Hughton is trying to implement a possession based tactic. Lambert, a manager who quite clearly doesn''t give a toss about possession, ended up with better figures in that regard, with cheaper ''inferior'' players, than Hughton has managed.Quite what he''s doing at Villa is beyond the scope of this thread, he showed a lot more versality in style of play for us than he has for them.

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[quote user="Dandy Mountfarto"]I know this, and I agree. Which is what makes it so unbelievable that Parma thinks Hughton is trying to implement a possession based tactic. Lambert, a manager who quite clearly doesn''t give a toss about possession, ended up with better figures in that regard, with cheaper ''inferior'' players, than Hughton has managed.Quite what he''s doing at Villa is beyond the scope of this thread, he showed a lot more versality in style of play for us than he has for them.[/quote]
Lambert''s figures are only slightly better than Hughtons. A +0.8 possession average and a -1.6 passing accuracy difference. There is a slight difference in the short pass/long ball figures with Hughton favoring more short passes a game and Lambert more long balls. I guess you could argue, using the increased passing accuracy statistics and the fact we attempt more short passes, that Hughton wants his side to try and keep the ball more when they have it, whilst Lambert wanted quick transitions into attacking areas hence the slightly worse passing accuracy and more long-balls, but any difference is relatively minor on a game to game basis. 

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Personally I don''t think Hughton is a negative manager.

I just don''t see much sin of any real improvement or imitative on the pitch, a lack of desire to replicate our best passages of play (our counter attack football against West ham after going ahead was superb. For example. But that was half an hour of play.).

His substitutions are poor. I don''t think at the moment I can even entertain the possibility of them being useful. Sure I saw a stat saying we are the only PL team to not have a goalscoring sub.

His team selection is often baffling. And doesn''t seem keen at all to drop what you may call his ''favourite'' players. Like Snoddy. He was no where near his usual standard up until that free kick this season. Barley even substituted off. And that was while Pilks and Redmond were fit.

I wouldn''t call myself a Hughton outer or inner. But I''m not looking forward to games as much as I used to most of the time. Have no idea why I''m going tomorrow. Felt in a number of games at a fairly early (or at least, too early) we wouldn''t get a result. Frequently worried about defensive mistakes. Taken a while to get out set piece mojo back. Just really don''t feel confidant in the current coaching set up.

But I don''t think we''re playing negative football, just confused, often lacking in confidence football. With a management team who don''t seem to have any plan B. Sometimes not even a plan A that has any chance of succes.

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