Norwich City vs Huddersfield Town (home) Friday 16th December.

[morty]

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Norwich City vs Huddersfield Town​

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Championship Fixture​

16th December 2016 Kick Off: 7:45pm​

Carrow Road​

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[morty]

Huge?

Huger than Tuesday?

Alex Neil says win this, and its 3 wins from 4, and we'll be over our slump.

Jerome fit again. No other injury issues.

 

[Canaryboy]

This is a huge game. 

I think the outcome decides whether Alex Neil gets another transfer window or not. 

 

[ZLF]

This is the biggest game for a long while.   At some stage we have to beat a team from the top end of the table,  draws against fulham and weds and losing to everyone else simply not good enough to gain at least a top 6 slot.  Add in the managers 3 from 4 and winning two on the trot the feel good factor going in to two tough away games before new year it a pivotal game. 

As seems to have been the case for 3 seasons now we can win but could lose; I find this impossible to predict with any confidence, as it all depends upon which norwich turns up;  if its the grafting or attacking finesse version from villa or brentford then i have confidence,   if its the one going through the motions we will lose.

I dont expect any team changes,  Nelson should retain his spot,  the back 7 were robust if they can repeat that intensity;  its that attacking trio that may need shaking up,  perhaps 4 pieces of creativity all game from them wasnt enough on tuesday, being too slow, predictable and inaccurate using the ball (their def contribution couldnt be faulted).  I doubt it will happen but howson right, jacob to the bench and one from naismith, wes or pritchard to start at 10 may give us better ball use if slow foot speed.

The same subs bench with Jerome in for Lafferty and that is a very strong 18.

Yelllows!

 

[Canaryboy]

Just read this on a Huddersfield forum, is it true?

"Norwich might well have 33 points and 10 wins this season, but.........31 of those points and all 10 wins have come against clubs in the bottom half of the table and only 2 draws from their 9 games against clubs in the top half of the table. They've also conceded 21 goals from those 9 games.They have yet to beat any team above 13th place in the league"
 

 

[Canaryboy]

Just checked and it does appear that every team we've beaten this season are in the bottom half currently.  

That puts a new perspective on things for me, should we fail to win tonight. 

 

[SussexYellow]

Just read this on a Huddersfield forum, is it true?

"Norwich might well have 33 points and 10 wins this season, but.........31 of those points and all 10 wins have come against clubs in the bottom half of the table and only 2 draws from their 9 games against clubs in the top half of the table. They've also conceded 21 goals from those 9 games.They have yet to beat any team above 13th place in the league"
 

I think that is fairly accurate. But you also need to take into account the pattern of games.

Like last season we have had the supposedly lesser teams at home in the first half of the season. Last season that was not a good pattern as it meant we had most of our winnable games in the first half of the season, and I always thought we needed quite a few more points at halfway than we actually had - despite having a reasonable haul at halfway, 23 pts I recall. We were always going to be going backwards in the second half of the season and we had just not gathered enough nuts.

This year I conversely initially thought it would be a good pattern. In the second half of the season we could turn over a number of the top teams at Carrow Rd and interrupt their seasons whilst picking up a handy number of points away at teams at the lower end. With the big dip in form I started to question that view and thought maybe it could be a repeat of last season, going backwards in the second half as we struggle to get much at home whilst not doing as well as anticipated away.

Which of those two scenarios it turns out to be will depend on our success or not at turning top teams over at Carrow Rd in my opinion. Villa despite their poor start to the season will I think end up being there or thereabouts for the playoffs. So Tuesday's result needs to be seen in the context of a victory over a top team. Tonight's game is equally big and will give us an indication as to whether we can make the trip to Carrow Rd something for the top teams to fear. 

The pattern of games may also require us to set up robustly rather than expansively for much of the rest of the season.

Couldn't make Tuesday's game, but will be there tonight. It could be an indicator as to how the rest of the season will go, Some help from the crowd would not go amiss, let's hope the fans are also up for it.

OTBC

 

[SussexYellow]

Well that did not offer much encouragement for the rest of the season!

 

[morty]

Well that did not offer much encouragement for the rest of the season!

No, it really didn't.

 

[GJP]

But no sign of ending the madness. 

 

[morty]

But no sign of ending the madness. 

I don't know what to think about it any more. I have gone through anger, despair, disbelief, and have kinda arrived at resigned and apathetic.

 

[Canaryboy]

I don't know what to think about it any more. I have gone through anger, despair, disbelief, and have kinda arrived at resigned and apathetic.

So you feel like a 28 year old remain voter  :lol:

 

[GJP]

I go through most seasons without missing a game. I even avoided missing a game when I got married and went on honeymoon. 

This season I have missed 3 or 4 games and I could have gone if I had really wanted but for me there's something missing at the moment. And it's been missing a while.

 

[Canaryboy]

I can't be bothered to bang the Alex Neil Out drum, pointless saying what most people are already thinking and we've left it too late anyway. 

The point in sacking a manager in late-November / early-December is to beat other underachieving teams to the best of the unemployed options and to give the new man enough time to work out what changes he needs to make to the squad in the transfer window. 

We've been too slow to react again. Even if we sacked Alex Neil on Monday and unveiled a replacement on Tuesday, we are giving a new manager 10 days to look at his squad before other teams beat us to any decent available players 

Unless Moxey has quietly been sending DVDs of our games to Kenny Jackett for the past few weeks, which is the best we can hope for I guess. Possibly not wanting to move too quickly in case we get hammered for poaching? 

 

[morty]

I can't be bothered to bang the Alex Neil Out drum, pointless saying what most people are already thinking and we've left it too late anyway. 

The point in sacking a manager in late-November / early-December is to beat other underachieving teams to the best of the unemployed options and to give the new man enough time to work out what changes he needs to make to the squad in the transfer window. 

We've been too slow to react again. Even if we sacked Alex Neil on Monday and unveiled a replacement on Tuesday, we are giving a new manager 10 days to look at his squad before other teams beat us to any decent available players 

Unless Moxey has quietly been sending DVDs of our games to Kenny Jackett for the past few weeks, which is the best we can hope for I guess. Possibly not wanting to move too quickly in case we get hammered for poaching? 

I'm going round and round in circles with it. Because it really isn't just the manager thats the problem, the players really have to shoulder the blame.

Take last night, for instance.

There was lots of effort, which tells me the players are still playing for him, but we lacked quality in the final third. If you took last night, entirely in isolation, we were narrowly beaten by a technically superior team.

I know the time may be coming where a change is unavoidable, but I'm really not convinced another manager would get much more out of them.

 

[Canaryboy]

I don't see what we have to lose now by seeing if somebody can come in and salvage something out of this season, because I just can't see Alex Neil getting us in the top 6. 

There is no doubt that he's been let down by a few players, some of whom he brought in. But he is either underachieving with this squad, or he has built a squad which isn't good enough with plenty of financial backing, so either way it is a fail. 

I personally think we should give Kenny Jackett a short term deal until the end of the season, let him bring in a couple of loans, and keep him on if he can get us in the play-offs. He has a good relationship with Moxey and found himself having to take a job at Rotherham, so its not like he's going to turn his nose up and demand a 3 year deal with a club like ours is it.  

An interim manager feels like the way forward. 

 

[morty]

I don't see what we have to lose now by seeing if somebody can come in and salvage something out of this season, because I just can't see Alex Neil getting us in the top 6. 

There is no doubt that he's been let down by a few players, some of whom he brought in. But he is either underachieving with this squad, or he has built a squad which isn't good enough with plenty of financial backing, so either way it is a fail. 

I personally think we should give Kenny Jackett a short term deal until the end of the season, let him bring in a couple of loans, and keep him on if he can get us in the play-offs. He has a good relationship with Moxey and found himself having to take a job at Rotherham, so its not like he's going to turn his nose up and demand a 3 year deal with a club like ours is it.  

An interim manager feels like the way forward. 

I have in the back of my mind "What if we make the chance, and we're still $hit?!"

 

[Gaffer]

I'm going round and round in circles with it. Because it really isn't just the manager thats the problem, the players really have to shoulder the blame.

There's no point saying the players have to shoulder the blame. What can be done about that? Sack all the players? Of course the players are to blame but it's the manager's job through training, motivation and tactics to get the best out of them and he's clearly not doing that so needs to go. 

 

[morty]

There's no point saying the players have to shoulder the blame. What can be done about that? Sack all the players? Of course the players are to blame but it's the manager's job through training, motivation and tactics to get the best out of them and he's clearly not doing that so needs to go. 

The players really have to accept some of the blame though.

Robbie Brady really looked like he couldn't be bothered last night, to name one.

 

[Gaffer]

I can't be bothered to bang the Alex Neil Out drum, pointless saying what most people are already thinking and we've left it too late anyway. 

The point in sacking a manager in late-November / early-December is to beat other underachieving teams to the best of the unemployed options and to give the new man enough time to work out what changes he needs to make to the squad in the transfer window. 

We've been too slow to react again. Even if we sacked Alex Neil on Monday and unveiled a replacement on Tuesday, we are giving a new manager 10 days to look at his squad before other teams beat us to any decent available players 

Unless Moxey has quietly been sending DVDs of our games to Kenny Jackett for the past few weeks, which is the best we can hope for I guess. Possibly not wanting to move too quickly in case we get hammered for poaching? 

Don't underestimate how totally clueless Delia is. Her excuse for sticking with Hughton was that there was no one else available by the time she'd finally figured out that something had to be done. The board have given their very clear backing to AN and I can easily see them keeping him till the end of the season.