Norwich City home match thread

[TV Tom]

1 hour ago, Bazooka Joe said:

Why is it that whenever someone reacts to a defeat or poor performance, you and some others consider it "over-reaction"?

It is simply a reaction. That's the point of having a forum. Posters can criticise and praise.

You call it "over-reaction" simply because it challenges or contradicts your opinion/point-of-view/belief.

Bit like when Jon Lansdown said the fans "over-reacted" to the sacking of Pearson.

No, they didn't "over-react". They simply reacted.

He considered it an "over-reaction" because the blinkered/out-of-touch Lansdowns mis-read the room.

There are plenty of people of the opinion that Lansdown didn’t “mis-read the room” quick enough. 

Right or wrong regarding NP it’s time to get behind the team instead of constantly whinging, I remember being in mourning for months in ‘91 when Jordan left us, trust me, it’s not good for your health !!!!!

 

 

 

[maxjak]

2 hours ago, Barrs Court Red said:

See I’d see Feb/March as a knee jerk - I guess we all have different tolerance levels. 
 

The guys got a difficult job, but I think by this time next year it will give us a better idea if he’s up to it or not. 

Fair enough............but by March we will surely have an idea of our ongoing progress or otherwise?    We ARE talkin 3/4 months?

[JP Hampton]

Well my opinion fwiw is this. If we had won today I think overall we played ok and enough to win. Tbf the last twenty minutes were all City and Norwich’s goal definitely came against the run of play. It felt to me that players were quite rigid in their positioning, in fact everyone except TGH (why oh why was he subbed) kept their positions to the point of inflexibility. Dickie who was my man of the match at the last home game, seemed to stick like glue behind the mid line today.  At the last home game he was taking the ball much further forward and really created some great play. Sykes is so much better on that right side and ok maybe LM may not have our experience of that.
 

  If the play continues and losses likewise, it will mean one thing to me and that’s, that it does strongly suggest that it wasn’t NP that was the problem, it was everything that people here and elsewhere have suggested. Lack of investment and lack backing forPearson, from the board in a psychological sense. He knew they weren’t behind him. 
 

The board had to give the top six nonsense because they had to have an excuse to sack NP, to give the impression that he wasn’t achieving top six football .  

[sh1t_ref_again]

Not read all the thread, but decision to play Skyes left was a disaster as he looked lost and no understanding with Pring. The knock on effect was Tanner every time he received the ball, ending up go backwards and no threat at all down the right.

Can understand the concept of what Manning wants, but when you create the opening you need to move the ball forward and hurt the opposition, but we don't seem to have that yet, coupled with poor finishing from Conway when we do.

Hope Manning has learnt from today and does not put our most attacking player out of position again

[luke_bristol]

55 minutes ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

Not read all the thread, but decision to play Skyes left was a disaster as he looked lost and no understanding with Pring. The knock on effect was Tanner every time he received the ball, ending up go backwards and no threat at all down the right.

Can understand the concept of what Manning wants, but when you create the opening you need to move the ball forward and hurt the opposition, but we don't seem to have that yet, coupled with poor finishing from Conway when we do.

Hope Manning has learnt from today and does not put our most attacking player out of position again

That’s all I’ve seen from Tanner all season, seems to panic if he’s on the ball past the halfway line and turns in or back and makes a safe pass, which is a shame as he seems solid in defence.

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 hours ago, TV Tom said:

There are plenty of people of the opinion that Lansdown didn’t “mis-read the room” quick enough. 

Right or wrong regarding NP it’s time to get behind the team instead of constantly whinging, I remember being in mourning for months in ‘91 when Jordan left us, trust me, it’s not good for your health !!!!!

 

 

 

The proof will be in the progress or otherwise.

Short of TGH bring made permanent or some cash from a sell on or whatever, dunno whether Manning should get any more cash in January.

Let's see how injuries permitting Manning can improve this solid albeit middling squad. To coach, develop and grow.

[Swede]

We'll have another slice of the Scott money to help play our hand early for transfers. The concern for me is that we were set up as a counter attacking team under Pearson with players identified who could play that way. Now we're looking to play a more posession based game with the exact same players. A totally different proposal and one that requires movement, technical ability and tactical awareness. I may know jack about coaching but I just don't get the dynamics in changing the whole team ethos mid season. Its either a very clever masterstroke and we have a genius in head coach or complete and utter folly. I know which side I'm tending to lean against.

[Davefevs]

3 hours ago, Barrs Court Red said:

The expectations placed on him far outstrip what can be delivered in the short term. 
 

Ordinarily you’d expect a new manager to come into failing team. In this case, I think broadly speaking the fans were generally content, with green shoots starting to flourish.  So straight off the bat, Manning isn’t faced by a low bar.
 

Coupled with the nonsense talk of “top 6 squad” (to paraphrase, before people pick up on the semantics) he has to deliver results while being dealt the same hand that Nige had, with the added complexity of the impact that the upheaval has on the squad. 

Ta, that’s what I thought you meant / hoped you’d say.

After his appointment in one interview JL did say something like - obviously if he doesn’t achieve promotion that’s not gonna mean we get rid of him - so they must’ve talked about hopes and expectations, but even then I still think they’ve lumped expectations on him.

I haven’t seen any of today’s stuff, so I’m still positive.  One game, one interview wouldn’t change my view anyway.

 

[hinsleburg]

Didn't want to start a separate thread on this as may have been discussed elsewhere, but why on earth didn't Vyner bring down Idah when he had the chance and take the red card?

If that was at the other end you know for a fact Duffy would have had no issue taking the red and saving a point. Awful, awful goal to concede and completely preventable (even before we consider just taking him down)

[Mr Popodopolous]

33 minutes ago, hinsleburg said:

Didn't want to start a separate thread on this as may have been discussed elsewhere, but why on earth didn't Vyner bring down Idah when he had the chance and take the red card?

If that was at the other end you know for a fact Duffy would have had no issue taking the red and saving a point. Awful, awful goal to concede and completely preventable (even before we consider just taking him down)

A problem is that we are so light.

Red card means suspension, Dickie and

??

Most of our CB partners would be out as it stands in your scenario.

Vyner, Atkinson, Naismith, Roberts and King.

Some of whom genuine, some of whom stopgap.

You could put Dickie and Pring together but then you'd be light at full back.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[The Exiled Robin]

On 03/12/2023 at 15:34, 2015 said:

I hope the likes of Exiled Robin, Tony Wilkins, Ian Gay, Matt Withers are all happy and entertained this afternoon. *******

Not sure what you mean by this?? 

[Mr Popodopolous]

Extended highlights for those who are interested.

Booing at the end is really noticeable!

[Davefevs]

First half thoughts.

Zak Vyner skinned on his outside twice in the opening 10 mins.  He’s either got to go tight and physical, or he’s got to anticipate the spin by his opponent and drop off, then tackle as the player turns into him.  Makes a good recovery tackle, but shouldn’t need to.

Our press in the opening 15 minutes was as passive as you can get to being almost non-existent.

Look at the difference between how we shaped up w/o the ball in the top pic, as opposed to the bottom pick.  We set up 442 w/o the ball, and the 4 were totally disengaged from the front 2.  If we are gonna do that, why not play 2 forwards, and Knight back in midfield?  Stacey and Giannoullid able to play high, Sara and whoever dropped in with him, acres to receive and turn.  Also Norwich CBs starting 25-30 yds from their goal.

This is not “front foot, high press football”!

But look how much better it is in the bottom pic, James engaging Sara, Sykes on Giannoullis, TGH happy to split Barnes and Gibbs (I think) but also mark in front of them.  It’s more adventurous, but when Norwich are playing from deeper than their penalty area, you can do that.

This is more like the press we’ve been expecting.  But it took us 17 minutes to do so.  Why let Norwich get comfy at AG?

On 18 mins after resorting to playing amongst our back 4 in deep positions and O’Leary clearing deep, we finally got James onto a short pass.  We then knocked it around for 30-45 seconds.

We got Vyner 15 yards into their half, we got Tanner and Pring into better positions.  Perversely it ended with a bad touch from Sykes and Stacey going in to get a shot off - but it was the first time we’d played from the back, and it got us playing in their half.  Look how Norwich are now forced into two banks of 4, and 2 forwards very deep.

The tempo of the game increased and although Barnes had his chance in this period, we had grown into the game and gradually had got on top.

With City now having a bit more of the ball and importantly more ball in Norwich’s half, we then start to see the willing movement of Knight coming to the fore, appearing wide on both sides (not at the same time!!!) to create the opportunity to outnumber our opponents.

It sucked Norwich to one side and then meant we could go “back out the other side”.  If we did it quickly then the pitch is opened up.

Snd that is what happened as that move continued.  It went back to Dickie, but it went quickly out to Tanner who put in a great cross that nobody could guide get on the end of.

We saw Sykes and Weimann swap over in this spell too.

What I’m not sure of is why which side Weimann played, that side’s full-back played higher.  I’m not convinced it was because Weimann played “inside” per se, just think it was a case of that’s the side we are gonna be high lop-sided on.  With Weimann on right, Tanner high, when Weimann on left, Pring high.

And through this spell, and Knight’s movement causing Norwich problems we saw Pring invert, we saw Weimann invert, and we looked more fluid.

And then we scored.

Dickie finally got a straight pass into Knight, first time to Weimann (Sykes is RW, so Weimann is now roaming), out to Sykes, saved, Knight with rebound.  You might argue WTF was Weimann doing there!!!

We continued this fluidity:

MS to AW to TC - weak shot

RD to MS to TC - shot on the run, well saved.

HT: 1-0 and deservedly so.

(second half pics to draw)

 

 

 

 

 

[Davefevs]

Second half:

Started passive without the ball.  Back into the 442.

Top half pic, 2 CMs marking nothing, two wide forwards can push on.

Bottom half pic, Norwich play out through their LB and LF.

In between, City played some nice patterns, just the impetus was lost a bit from end of first half.

After their goal we started to press individually and got picked off.  We eventually settled and got TGH and James to condense things.

From that point on we controlled a lot of the second half, working our patterns, but didn’t quite get the killer chance.  We moved the ball wing to wing.

As we got into the final 15, we were well on top, Norwich struggling to stop us controlling,

Norwich players bypassed by our passing.  It didn’t quite break for us around the box unfortunately.

Vyner got run behind twice by Idah in the second half.  He didn’t heed the warning, as he got done for the third time as we lost in the 5th minute of injury time.

FWIW I thought it was a decent performance….punctuated by two spells (start of each half) where we were passive.

Knight had an excellent game, as did Dickie.

Vyner was poor.