Match Day Thread Norwich city versus Crystal Palace

I like Byram but Lewis is a far better option in playing counter attacking football.

I sit in the south stand and what is very noticeable is how right side orientated we are (Aarons, Emi) - when we are attacking the Barclay we see more action on the right side of the pitch than we do on the left side when we are attacking the River End. Hardly any attacks flowed on the south side of the pitch in the second half yesterday. Lewis would give us a better balance.

 

I agree OCF. Byram has generally been excellent, but he hasn't got Farkeball in his DNA in the way that Lewis has. As regards right sided orientation, that just illustrates how we have departed from the pattern of last season. A recurrent theme last season (and the later part of the season before) was left side overloading in the attacking third, with Aarons well forward on the opposition's exposed left flank, waiting for the long, cross field ball.

 

Farke has tweaked our tactics in recent games to improve our defensive balance without sacrificing attacking capabilities. What worked against ManCity won't always work against teams like Palace who look to choke the midfield area. Low percentage long passes are not the answer, but intermediate passes to an attacking player in space can be productive and that does suit McLean and Vrančic, who is yet to get back into his groove after a long absence. I'm less certain about Stiepermann in the PL, except against sides like Spurs and ManCity who want to play attractive passing football and allow us to do the same. I could see him coming back in at ManUtd with Trybull and Tettey in midfield.

As for LBs, Farke has restrained their licence to attack somewhat to allow Aarons to move forward without weakening the defence, as Tettey can cover the vacated space. I do think the better balance between defence and attack has improved us of late, even though the results don't always reflect that.

 

Farke will keep doing what he's doing because we don't have a squad of players that can park the bus , he has said this many times .
We have a young dynamic inexperienced squad learning as they go.

You can moan all you like about Farke and his selections and tactics but we don't have the squad to change much .

 

It's not a question of parking the bus; did we park the bus against Man City, against Bournemouth, against Everton, against Arsenal? And if we haven't got the players to play as we did in those games, how come we managed to do it in those games? This apparently ineradicable belief that sound defending means parking the bus is absolutely ludicrous. Leicester won the Premier League playing counter-attacking football based on sound defending. Did they win it by parking the bus? Every point we have earned this season, bar the three from beating a disorganised Newcastle side in the second game, has been earned by curbing our inclination to pile everyone forward and investing more effort into keeping it tight at the back. And if you look at why we managed to beat Man City and Everton but dropped two points against Arsenal and Tottenham, it was because we never dropped our guard against City and Everton but did so twice against both Spurs and Arsenal.

 

Maybe DF set up the team to play that way on purpose.

 

and from a medium to long term point of view the style we are playing is how we are intending to play in the future. Our players particular our younger ones won't get better at playing the way we want to in the future by playing differently now. The club is prioritising the future over the present. It's not like we're getting thrashed every week, actually with the exception of the Villa game we've competed in most games and when we've played with 2 experienced CB's we've performed pretty well.

 

You can continue to bleat on about defending as much as you like, but actually for most of the time when we've played with 2 experience CB's it hasn't been horrendous, if it was teams would be putting a lot more than 1 or 2 goals past us. The palace game was a classic example where we had plenty of chances to get a second goal and put the game beyond Palace, we didn't get the second goal and came under considerable pressure in the later stages of the second half, which we coped with for most of the time. Yes Palace scored, but the margin between winning the game and drawing was the size of Zimermann's foot. Yes we could do better, but we were hardly a million of miles away from winning the game.

I'm also far from convinced that the way we played in the games you highlight was that different from games, when results haven't gone our way. I think perhaps the main area where we have struggled and concede goals from is set pieces (especially when we only had one fit CB) and that has got nothing to do with how we play in open play. Players have also made individual, at times unforced, mistakes which have cost us, but I don't see a pattern of the same player continually making the same mistake, actually I think pretty much the mistakes are shared around the team. I believe we are improving at set pieces, but still have alot further to go and I accept that through continued coaching and development we need to reduce the number of individual mistakes. You keep suggesting that we habitually and continually throw players forward recklessly (which I don't think we do) rather than keep it tight at the back and then say you don't want us top park the bus. What exactly are you advocating we should do to improve our defending ? What does sound defending mean ?

 

Not so. Webber has frequently said that we have no alternative this season but to basically continue with the football that won us the Championship last season. We have signed players accordingly, and haven't the funds to now do anything very different. To paraphrase his words, we can do no other so let's just see what happens. Well, we are seeing what happens. We are playing in a way that, however entertaining, has led to us propping up the table at the midway point, 8 points adrift of safety, having been beaten by every other team in the mini league in which we are competing for survival. Webber is not such a fool as to not recognise when it's not working and that throwing everyone forward isn't the only way of producing entertaining football.

 

Well just because he said we have no alternative this season doesn't make my view incorrect. In fact if you look at the statement differently it actually supports my view.

 

If I was Farke we would of won most of them games by not letting in as many goals .

This board cracks me up

 

What, limit our attacking options to just the right flank ?

 

My point is that having no alternative open to us this season doesn't mean continuing in the same way in future. "Let's see what happens" is neutral as between "It proved successful, no great change needed" and "It proved unsuccessful so we need to review how we move forward from here".
In Farke's first season when things weren't going well, Webber got everyone together for a weekend of heart searching and analysis, from which they emerged still convinced they were on the right track football-wise (the self-funding model is not at issue). That was vindicated by what happened last season. If we are relegated this season, it is inconceivable to me that a similar review will not take place and any necessary changes to our style of play implemented for the next campaign. What we are committed to is entertaining football; Farkeball is one way of delivering on that commitment, but it is far from being the only way and ridiculous to regard it as such.

 

This discussion is at the heart of our present situation. Farkeball is flexible and has been tweaked over the season, but the injury crisis distorted our relative performance as the recent improvement has shown. The loss of Godfrey broke up the developing partnership with Zimbo and a new one has had to start all over again with Hanley, who I think has done well coming in after a long layoff, having only played with Zimbo a few times before.

The decrease in attacks down the left flank is partly to help us keep our defensive shape as well as to deal with dangerous players like Traore. We are conceding fewer goals from open play (none against Spurs where the threat of Kane and Alli was largely neutralised, as was that of Zaha). Farke has shown flexibility and grown with experience. He has also rotated players over the packed festive period and now has increased options for future matches. Instead of playing 3 at the back, he has used Tettey as a fill in CB when Aarons goes forward and that has increased our flexibility, as he can then move forward when we have the ball.

If we can keep the injuries down now, there's a real chance of improvement over the remaining games, though it would have to be considerable to allow the 'miracle' of survival. For me, it's enough that we're moving in the right direction and improving as the season goes on.

 

Well I don't think we did, but we may have prioritised that option over others and it may well have been a factor in our planing. If you look at it from a different perspective. Maybe DF identified Palace's left side as a weakness and set up a pattern of play to target this area by focusing attacks to our right side and consequently selected players accordingly. Or alternatively he identified that Palace counter attacked much more strongly when they turned over ball on their right side (our left), so focus our attacks on our right side, knowing that if palace turned over the ball the counter attacking threat would be less (i.e. limiting the Zaha effect). The difference between the 2 being whether you think DF's focus is on attack or defence. I could go on but I won't, because in truth our patterns of play will be much more complex and there could be many reasons why we played the way we did (i.e. Lewis isn't fully fit), including what you alluded to in your initial post, that there was no thought given to how we attack and he just prefers Byram to Lewis.