7 Centre Backs

[pete 371]

And not a decent one amongst them, too many silly mistakes and lacking in pace. Either get another one in or get Seb Bassong back in tandem. Not a fan but he does have the pedigree and is left sided and has pace. We have been with right sided CB''s all season, Miquel left sided but not up to it. Turner and Seb our best CB partnership with Ryan B in reserve. Cuellar not up to it another penalty again and Hoiveld another pedestrian. Russ M not a CB.

[havemyhowsonit 0]

By the way. We won 3-2

3 points and all that.

Prick!

[havemyhowsonit 0]

That was p rick

[damn that Ralph Coates! 74]

Ryan Bennett may only be out another fortnight, and then he and Turner are fairly solid combination.

Cellar looks very slow when confronted with pacy striker, and RM may be faster in there before that.

Presume Miquel is faster than Cuellar.

[Buh 0]

We won, sorry that annoys you but it''s a fact.

Cardiff were tough and we had some lapses

Still won though, so suck on that

[Paul101 191]

for god sakes Pete

give your agenda a rest for once

[kantata soul 0]

Alex Neil''s first job must surely be to strengthen the midfield. The defence tends to come under more pressure when we''re short in midfield, as has happened a fair bit this season. Plenty of central defenders in the squad, but fewer midfield options today with Howson, Vadis and Tettey missing.

[Newton 0]

pete wrote the following post at 17/01/2015 5:42 PM:

And not a decent one amongst them, too many silly mistakes and lacking in pace. Either get another one in or get Seb Bassong back in tandem. Not a fan but he does have the pedigree and is left sided and has pace. We have been with right sided CB''s all season, Miquel left sided but not up to it. Turner and Seb our best CB partnership with Ryan B in reserve. Cuellar not up to it another penalty again and Hoiveld another pedestrian. Russ M not a CB.

Pete u just about there:-

Turner ok with a partner with pace, the 2 x loan signings not up to & I agree from what I have seen San Miquel at 21 & £1.5M is league 1 standard

We need Bassong or another quality CB if we are to push for top 2 place

For the last 30 mins we made a L1 32 year old CF from Rotherham and some kid from the lower leagues look like world beaters

[Making Plans 957]

The OP is right, we have a conundrum that needs sorting.As I see it none of the CB''s that have been used this season are good enough, for one reason or another.Mainly, there is a lack of pace with all the options we have at our disposal.Based on performances this season RM is possibly our best CB but he''s also our best RB by far.Ryan Bennett has potential but he''s currently out injured & hasn''t played much at all this season.The others are not reliable enough when you''re pushing for promotion.Therefore we have 3 options - 1. We take a huge gamble with Bassong and hope that (a) he is fit and (b) his head is screwed on. Even then, he''s not the quickest CB in the World by any means so he''s probably not the answer.2. We hope that Ryan Bennett makes a quick recovery and plays to his full potential.This to me seems unlikely in the short to medium term.3. We go into the transfer market & spend some money on a decent, proven CB who is also a leader & an organizer.. Personally I don''t think Huth is that man as there are big question marks about him too.We''ve got 2 weeks before the window shuts and I don''t think that that is long enough to know for sure if Bassong can get back to his best or if Bennett can return to full fitness & ability.

[Barclay seats 4849 the 3rd 0]

Tend to agree with you MP ,, option 3 , hoping we can get Ryan Bennet back also .

[GJP 79]

I can''t believe that with all the centrebacks on our books (we surely must be the best stocked in the league) we haven''t got the players to make it work well enough for us.

 

From what I hear people saying we need a centreback (or centrebacks) who is commanding, dominant, composed, good on the ball and has pace...

 

I''m not sure we can get that player. We might not even be able to get all that covered from two centrebacks in a partnership. Because we''re Norwich City, in the Championship. We''re going to have to accept that players are going to come up short in some areas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chicken 0]

[quote user="Newton"]pete wrote the following post at 17/01/2015 5:42 PM:

And not a decent one amongst them, too many silly mistakes and lacking in pace. Either get another one in or get Seb Bassong back in tandem. Not a fan but he does have the pedigree and is left sided and has pace. We have been with right sided CB''s all season, Miquel left sided but not up to it. Turner and Seb our best CB partnership with Ryan B in reserve. Cuellar not up to it another penalty again and Hoiveld another pedestrian. Russ M not a CB.

Pete u just about there:-

Turner ok with a partner with pace, the 2 x loan signings not up to & I agree from what I have seen San Miquel at 21 & £1.5M is league 1 standard

We need Bassong or another quality CB if we are to push for top 2 place

For the last 30 mins we made a L1 32 year old CF from Rotherham and some kid from the lower leagues look like world beaters[/quote]

Where on earth do you keep pulling this from?

Please link a source that says we paid £1.5 million for Miquel. And who is the second loan player? Hoiveld being the first.

[chicken 0]

[quote user="Newton"]pete wrote the following post at 17/01/2015 5:42 PM:

And not a decent one amongst them, too many silly mistakes and lacking in pace. Either get another one in or get Seb Bassong back in tandem. Not a fan but he does have the pedigree and is left sided and has pace. We have been with right sided CB''s all season, Miquel left sided but not up to it. Turner and Seb our best CB partnership with Ryan B in reserve. Cuellar not up to it another penalty again and Hoiveld another pedestrian. Russ M not a CB.

Pete u just about there:-

Turner ok with a partner with pace, the 2 x loan signings not up to & I agree from what I have seen San Miquel at 21 & £1.5M is league 1 standard

We need Bassong or another quality CB if we are to push for top 2 place

For the last 30 mins we made a L1 32 year old CF from Rotherham and some kid from the lower leagues look like world beaters[/quote]

[Samwam27 606]

No team in the Champiosnhip has a solid defense this season, but it shows the extent of the problem when we agree the RM is our best CB (over the rest) and yet also our best RB!

[Newton 0]

Chicken here the San Miquel link

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2739627/Norwich-complete-Ignasi-Miquel-signing-Arsenal-agree-sell-defender-1-5m.html

He is a complete dud people say he in one for the future but he is now 22 DOB: September 28, 1992;

He is probably L1 standard at best

Hoiveld on season long loan from Southampton 6 appearances

Celluar 12 mths contract (not loan) 6 appearances

None much of an improvement of what we have all 3 combined probably a waste of money. at least we can off load the 2 x old boys in June but we are stuck with Moqel

Chicken and your point or view was - I think I missed it ?

[ZLF 335]

It is a quandary but in a position where consistency is a strength it is no surprise we dont yet have a partnership when it has changed 13 times in 26 league matches (excluding extra changes in cup games) using 6 different partnerships.

The longest run any partnership has had is just 5 games being turner & martin. It is the worst performing of the partnerships used more than once, conceding most, scoring fewest and with the fewest points per game with both the highest loss and lowest win ratio. It is a partnership that we should not see again, it does not work despite being used the most.

That is not to say Turner or Martin are the worst CBs. Boths records without the other is vastly improved - suggesting that they can play there.

Cuellar and Hooiveld have played 12 league games with either Turner or martin (never each other) and have lost just one match (Cuellar, Forest away) Cuellar Martin is the best combination for the team, closely followed by Turner Hooiveld.

To keep some perspective the defence is the 7th best in goals conceded and the best in stopping shots. We are doing lots right.

Finally there is strong evidence that the team is better with Martin at RB than CB. This does not mean he is a bad CB (best combination is him with Cuellar) but every metric (points won, games won and lost, goals scored and conceded) is 20% better with him at right back.

Give a consistent back 4, esp a cb partnership, time to embed and I suspect we will see an improvement. What we have seen so far we do have successful combinations with some limitations at the club - its just one of them is not Turner Martin. We can learn from it.

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 2,035]

Bassong and Turner at the back with Tettey and Johnson in front of them is as good and as solid as you''re going to find in this league.

although we''ve conceded stupid goals at certain times in games our overall defensive record isn''t that bad.

"if " we can get Bassong back on side and playing how we know he can ,there are bigger priorities elsewhere in the team.

...no.1 of them bring a left sided midfielder to counter Redmond.....a problem area that hasnt been addressed all season and one that if we get right, will unlock so many other problems throughout the whole team.