There is little point in sugar coating it. That was every bit as horrible as Southampton or Villa or… I could go on.
While yesterday’s defeat at Swansea was merely the latest in a long line of abject away-days, where once there was a scent of victory (or even a draw) there now appears an acceptance of defeat. And that is a problem.
The hard fought draw at Selhurst Park on New Year’s Day now seems an age away and the away form guide since makes awful reading. Six straight defeats. Goals for: 4. Goals against: 17.
If we wind the clock back a few weeks the losses at Cardiff and West Ham were devastating, but in both games we could, possibly should, have won. Not any more. The last three, at Aston Villa, Southampton and now Swansea, were all dreaded no-shows. Not even a sniff of a point.
As ever, it is impossible to isolate what went wrong yesterday. The problems were many-fold with errors aplenty on either side of the white line.
Fingers will of course continue to be pointed in the direction of the dugout; the decision to persist with those who performed so well against Sunderland in a 4-4-2 being one that back-fired – big time.
We have long debated the merits of a five-man midfield and how, at least for Norwich, it enables them to make use of the extra man from a ball retention perspective. We don’t keep the ball very well, but with five in there we keep it just a little bit better.
Against the Swans ball retention is king. If you let them have it they will keep it all day if they feel like it. That’s how they play – their schtick. To go four v five from the word go was, even without the benefit of hindsight, suicidal.
Chris Hughton’s thinking was clear. He opted for ‘as you were’ in the hope – and I suspect that’s all it was – that the team would carry on where they left off last week. Logical enough in theory – and in truth if he’d changed a winning side and lost he’d have been castigated – but last week worked because Wes Hoolahan had freedom to float and Martin Olsson was able to bomb on and join in; making it a five-man midfield of sorts.
With Swansea’s penchant for keep-ball that was never going to happen yesterday. Wes found himself having to play as a traditional left-sided midfielder and Olsson’s forays forward were limited in the extreme.
The result was an extra white shirt in the middle of the pitch which they used to perfection. If we’re honest, such was the movement and fluidity, there looked to be more white shirts than yellow all over the pitch.
To cede the midfield in such a way strikes me as a mis-judgement on the part of Team Hughton.
And let’s remember, this was a Swansea team who, prior to yesterday, had not won in nine. Good old Norwich.
As ever when on the road, few players covered themselves in glory either. I’m no body language expert but given the importance of the occasion in City’s fight for survival I saw little to suggest the players recognised it.
I saw a lot of flailing arms, moaning and petulance but little to suggest they were really up for the battle. Instead I saw a team who, before a ball had been kicked, had already decided it was going to be a tough afternoon. I’m loathe to say it but, one or two exceptions aside, I had a sinking feeling that it mattered more to those of us who bleed green and yellow than it did to those who were wearing it.
Perhaps that’s a tad unfair. Generally they come over as a bunch of decent pros who do care, but then the alternative is that some of them are just not good enough. At least away from the comfort of Carrow Road where technical deficiencies can sometimes be overcome by the momentum afforded by a home crowd and a few thousand clappers. Maybe that’s it.
Either way it was not good enough.
As hard as I try to resist, while sitting through yesterday’s array of under-hit, over-hit, misplaced and aimless passes, I could not help but think back to the much-lampooned bloke who would phone Canarycall and and quiz poor old Neil Adams on what the players do in training. Admittedly it’s a cheap shot, but after yesterday…
But, it’s done now. We’re not going to see off-field changes between now and the end of the season so it feels as if we have no option but to ‘bunker down’ and gear ourselves up for seeing the job through in the Fine City. Pull the coaches in close and rely on ourselves and the clappers to ‘push’ them over the line.
I’m tired of saying it, but what else can we do but dust ourselves down and move on? This has to change. The cycle has to be broken. The travelling Yellow Army deserve better.
I wasn’t there yesterday but as you say, with the way Swansea play & the team we put out, it doesn’t take a football genius to work out what happened. I’m not sure if Hughton daren’t change a winning team for fear of being accused of being negative or whether it’s a case of he doesn’t know how to play away. There could be another reason but any which way you look at it, it’s simply not good enough.
Eloquent and accurate, Gary. Let’s not dance around the issue – at the end of the season Hughton must go. He has suffocated this club with an ineffectual, inept and uninspiring ‘brand’ of football. And it isn’t working. If we don’t get relegated this season under this wretched coaching team, we sure as hell will do next. Get rid.
Another season when our survival depends on the misery of others, we need to control our own destiny, not rely on other worse form
Last week there was much joy at not only a great result for us but equally good results elsewhere- all our rivals lost. But what looked so good then has been swiftly undone. We are hanging on by our fingernails held up only by others who seem just as bad, I struggle to suggest worse.
While I know crystal ball gazing is inevitably wrong, I struggle to see us gain more than 35 points, I struggle to to see if this will be enough. I think it will be mighty close and desperately worry if our goal difference will doom us
OTBC
I wasn’t there and didn’t see it, but when you hear terms like abject surrender you worry.
Hopefully we’ll stay up and try and regroup with a new manager and some new players. If we sink most of us will think it’s deserved. Ok we’ve not had luck with injuries but we always felt that with Lambert we gave it a go and that fortune favours the brave (tho he ‘s not doing much better at Villa).
How can they do it, a great performance last week and ‘abject surrender’ the next?
RVW is he the wolf or winkie?
Where are the leaders on the pitch? Are they so constrained by Hughton’s tactics?
Have we (sorry, I)just become jaded with the EPL where about 10 clubs scrap it out at the bottom (that’s been true this and last season). I would imagine that virtually everyone of those clubs has a few negative posters after every defeat, but as many as ours?
A bit of stream of consciousness and no analysis here …sorry. It’s not as though I think we have some sort of divine right to EPL football, but just the idea that maybe there’ll be some pleasure in watching the team (but then Spurs and Sunderland and Man City games did give pleasure).
I suppose we even have the prospect of us going down and Ipswich going up now (I wonder what odds the bookies would give on that). Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to goal difference.
Not sure Hughton could have done much about yesterday – once the players step on to the pitch it is down to them and they didn’t perform. I think losing Yobo really didn’t help but he was there for the other horror shows so who knows? It should be said that we aren’t the only ones who look good at home and terrible away.
In all the hurrah last week of beating Sunderland many people overlooked one simple factor. Sunderland were terrible. They looked and played like we do away. We beat a Championship side.
Yesterday Hughton served up his favourite meal. A starter of ‘fighting talk’, a main of ‘pitiful football, lite on the goals’, with a desert of ‘vanilla excuses’.
I’m getting tired of eating the same c**p every other weekend.
For all the Wessi-lovers out there (e.g. James K. – 27th article), his presence in the away games has not had the pivotal effects that have been claimed. Vllla: 4-1 down before he was replaced, Swansea: 2-0 likewise. I’m not putting all the blame on his shoulders for these defeats but I’m afraid he’s a ‘home-banker’ only.
Someone said our ‘luck’ would run out at home – 1 pen conceded in 6 games is not down to luck. We’ve been exceptional at home in that period and hopefully will continue to the season end.
Away..hmm, change of plan is needed (obviously).
As regular readers know, I’m not quick to come down on Hughton – but I’d be critical of him as well as the players yesterday. I was at The Emirates on Tuesday, where Swansea out-played Arsenal. Surely CH and/or his scouts were there too, and can’t have missed the thing that jumped out at me: Arsenal needed a Bradley Johnson to break up the Swans’ game.
We have a Bradley Johnson, and chose to leave him out in favour of keeping the formation which worked against a totally different team last week. The point isn’t how well or badly Sunderland played; it’s the way they set up. Our formation worked perfectly against them, but was never going to work against Swansea.
I wonder whether Hughton was over-influenced by fan opinion, as in the other game where his selection was crazy: the 2 up front at Everton. If he was, it’s a lack of professionalism that I’m disappointed in.
The irony of these two clear mistakes, of course, is this: for all the criticism of Hughton being cautious, his biggest selection errors – in my opinion – have been cases of being over-positive.
I still believe we’ll stay up. But we all agree there are big questions to be asked; hopefully they’ll be the right ones.
Tactically inept!
Morris – seems a bit harsh to single Wes out for recent away defeats, as I recall he didn’t even play against Southampton. Gary’s excellent article and the comments generally suggest yesterday’s defeat was a result of the numbers in midfield.
7 – that diet might explain your constant regurgitation of the same indigestible comments.
When we do win, you always put it down to weaknesses in the opposition – Sunderland have been tough to beat under Poyet and ran Liverpool close earlier in the week. Just to dismiss them as Championship fodder is simply lazy and cheap. The same accusations were made when we beat Palace and Hull – in the mix with us but nobody’s fools this season.
The away form of late is very poor but the home form is very good – it’s a menu for a tight finish to the season but let’s sit up straight, dig in and stop whining about the service for the rest of the season.
Morris C (12): good luck! Every word you say is true, but Dave is very resistant.
(11) As Gary and others said, Hughton’s error was starting with too attacking a formation – how many times has that approach been called for?! Our more noteworthy, battling away games have had Bradley ‘the enforcer’ Johnson in there who was sorely missed on Saturday (before we were 2-0 down). He’s received a lot of barracking this season – think on.
(7) No apologies for being a pedant but a ‘desert’ is a large barren, arid area usually covered in sand.
May I ask a question of our learned writers and commentors?
How often have we scored from a passage of play that we’ve actually dictated?
I’m talking about building play from five or more passes and scoring – not from set pieces, wonder goals or opposition mistakes.
To my recollection, we have scored very few goals this season through our own making. Sunderland handed us goals on a plate but we still couldn’t score from any build up, as did Spurs with our win against them. Stoke was a set piece. I could go on.
It seems we are not set up to score goals the conventional way. Which begs the question, why did we buy two out and out strikers?
@14 Tommy Gunn
It was a typo, but it still works.
15 – there haven’t been enough clearly but you’re being a tad forgetful. The goal against Spurs was a great piece of open play – RVW to Johnson to Snoddy..bang. Hooper’s against Palace was a decent move I seem to recall and the two we scored at the Hawthorns were very respectable.
Free kicks, corners, deflections off beach balls..they all count.
Cityfan (15): it’s really all about definition, our first goal against Sunderland being a prime example. If you want to give City credit, you’d say we had them under real pressure, Olsson played a great ball into the danger zone which a defender had to clear desperately, Elmander controlled it and cooly set up Snodgrass who made the perfect run. In other words, a fine end to a passage of play which we clearly dictated. If you don’t want to give City credit (I’m putting myself in Dave B’s mindset here) you’d say it was a clear defensive mistake, handing the ball to Elmander on a plate.
Take your pick. I’d challenge even Dave B, though, to deny that the winner against Spurs was of our own making.
@18 Stewart Lewis
The Spurs goal is EXACTLY the type of goal we should be scoring more of with strikers like RVW who should be getting fed balls behind the defence.
My question is why do we have to pick out odd occurrences? Is anyone confident we can recreate that goal regularly?
But even the Spurs goal came from them giving the ball away! Ok, ok, it was RVW hassling and getting the ball, and it was well worked, but again, it wasn’t a well crafted passage of play from five or ten passes. All goals are welcome but my point is CH seems content to snatch goals rather than make them. Hence our poor ‘goals for’ tally. And so when we need to create goals / build on leads and advantages – rather than throw the kitchen sink – we haven’t got a game plan.
Some of City’s players are clearly not good enough for the Premier League. Many have been riding on the wave of enthusiasm generated by reaching the premier league. As this has dissipated, technical deficiencies are revealed which the squad away from home has not been able to overcome.
Injuries have played a part. Both the strikers and the better midfielders (Howson, Tettey and Fer) have not been able to play in a settled environment. But when we survive, a hard look has to be given at all players and those who have regularly fallen short should be moved on.
Relegation is a terrible prospect. Above all we do not have enough goals in the team for a realistic shout at coming back up.
So the team should fight for their lives on Saturday and at Fulham. How fantastic it would be if we sealed our retention of PL status at Craven Cottage, exorcising the memory of the 6-0 defeat under Nigel Worthington.
Cityfan (20): Blimey! By that logic no-one in the Premiership has scored a decent goal this season.
Dave B (19): Yes, you’ve caught me out. To find those ‘odd occurrences’ I had to trawl all the way back to … 2 of our last 3 home games.
Douglas (21): Hear, hear!
21 – So our away performances are due to the players that got us promoted being found out as not good enough? This seems a strange argument to me. We won5/6 away games (apologies cant remember the excact number) in the first season under lambert. This is Hughtons team and the only remaining member of the promoted team still in there riding a wave as you put it is Russell Martin.
Away from home we move the ball slowly, get limited numbers forward and show very little desire to press the opposition. I dont believe there are great technical defficiencies with our squad at all theyre just setup badly.
20 – can I suggest you support Barcelona instead!
@22 Stewart Lewis
“I had to trawl all the way back to … 2 of our last 3 home games.”
I know we all want to forget our away games, but only counting home ones is a bit disingenuous.
What Cityfan is trying to say is not that the spurs goal was a bad goal, it wasn’t, but how often do we start from the midfield, move forward as a unit with build up play, and it end in a goal from a well timed run, brilliant one touch football, or a player driving at the defence?
Very infrequently.
25) Dave B – thank you – we are in complete agreement. Every one seems to suggest its now asking too much that we build up a passage of play and score. Which is odd, because it wasn’t so long ago we achieved back to back promotions and a fantastic first season finish doing exactly that.