Just when we thought City had exhausted that long list of ‘how to lose a game of football’ they go and find a new one. To get knocked out by a side that played all of extra-time with ten men while having the game, and said opponents, metaphorically by the scruff of the neck was quite some achievement.
But if anyone can do it…
The post-match fall-out was typically calamitous and fractious but amidst the name-calling and venom were some valid and searching questions:
Why are City so terrible in the second half of games?
Last night they took this particular trait to a whole new level by failing to turn up in two second halves, but not before completely dominating in the first period of normal time and extra-time. And I mean really dominating.
So comfortable were they in the first-half of extra-time, during which they actually made decent use of the extra player, for anyone other than Norwich City it would have been an almost impossible position from which to lose a game. But they found a way.
Yet this was a side that had only Ryan Bennett, Robbie Brady and Alex Tettey starting from Saturday’s opening XI and so it’s doubly difficult to fathom without looking at what’s said in the changing room at the interval.
The first-half of normal time too was, at times, a passing masterclass and Alex Pritchard’s stooping header should have been the signal for City to take a vice-like grip on the game. But a few warning signs late in the half were not heeded.
Both second halves were typified by sloppy passing, lethargy and, of course, some truly horrible defending – none of which obviously formed part of Alex Neil’s half-time chat – but more significantly also by an all too apparent fragility of the mind. The body language suggests the players themselves question their ability to hold onto a lead.
Why are we continually so poor defensively?
While last night’s back-four was radically changed from the weekend, three-quarters of it was vastly experienced and had more than enough nous to see out a game that was there for the taking. Yet the problems persist, with Leeds’ second equaliser being straight out of the Laurel and Hardy book of defending.
It had the lot: poor positioning, poor marking, slapstick goalkeeping, lack of awareness. You name it…
But it’s not just last night’s defence, or Saturday’s defence, or the weekend before’s defence. It’s just how we defend right now, with individual errors invariably around the corner. And clearly it’s not just a back-four thing – it’s a team thing and about how the XI defends as a unit.
And, before I’m reminded, this is a riddle that’s not been solved since the summer of 2015 when, with two quality centre-backs at the top of the shopping list, we left it until January 2016 to get one.
I’m afraid I only know the question – not the answer.
Are they fit enough?
It seems a ludicrous question to ask of a squad that is cared for by sports scientists, data analysts and those whose sole remit is to ensure the players are super-fit, but from the outside looking in the answer appears ‘no’.
Without the ball some appear sluggish, lethargic and ‘blowy’, all of which I’m sure can be refuted by reems of statistics and data on the players individual fitness levels. But, whatever the reason, there’s often a lack of bite and sharpness, particularly late on in games. Perhaps it’s again in the mind.
Either way, there are questions to be asked as to why we rarely finish a game on the front foot.
Where’s the bottle?
Another ludicrous question to be asking of a team that sits in the Championship’s play-off places. But unfortunately last night was another excruciating example of the Canaries wilting when mental toughness, doggedness and bloody-mindedness were the order of the day. And again it appears something that’s permeated the whole squad.
Garry Monk, who knows a thing or two, would have been drilling into his troops the fragility of this City team and been reminding them that if they could stay in the game they’d, at some stage, be able to ‘get at’ their opponents. And they did. And it’s something that every Championship manager will have identified.
To use a cricket analogy, City are ripe for a bit of sledging. They buckle.
Quite how a fragile mentality can be turned into one that’s robust I’m not sure – it tends to be intrinsic in the individual – but now’s a good time for the sports psychologists to earn their keep.
Finally…why are we so cr@p at penalties?
See above.
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To some this may have the feel of a rant – and I apologise for that (it is) – but it feels like the season’s, perhaps prematurely, approaching a tipping point. The ship is rocking a little right now and needs to be steadied while we’re still in touching distance of the Toon.
Toxicity is never far away at this club and I’d hate for it to spill over – no-one’s the winner when that happens – but the best way to keep a lid on it is to see some remedial actions (maybe just ‘remedial tweaks’ are needed) to address some of the all-too-obvious failings.
To jog along as we are won’t be sufficient for a promotion push.
Oh, and if the players would care to thanks their supporters, many of whom had made a 340-mile round trip to cheer their team on, rather than slope off like petulant children that would be good. Fans have feelings too.
But, amongst it all, there was one positive. Louis Thompson again showed that he’s ready for a Championship start with another eye-catching display, and is breathing down the neck of, in particular, Master Tettey.
And. in truth, I’d happily swap defeat last night for a win against Leeds next Saturday.
So maybe there is still light, especially if we could go to Brighton on Saturday and win… with a clean sheet.
Just imagine that.
“On the Ball City…”
Thanks Gary this is really good assessment of the current state of play but the key question is what to do about it. Fans will each have their favourite scapegoats: Martin, Ruddy, Bassong et al but surely it is a deeper problem. Indeed yesterday’s team was almost a complete change. We do have good players who play with great skill at times but something is lacking in there.
The club took a big risk appointing Alex Neil and I fear that this is coming back to haunt us. Relegation cost the club a huge amount of money and whilst I understand the desire to see him succeed, the stakes are too high and the prize too big to persist unless he can take this talented group of players and get them performing to their full potential. If we are honest our performances don’t merit our position in this league.
We need to examine our style of play and perhaps get our fullbacks defending more and rushing upfield less to steady the ship. Whatever else we do we must not do nothing.
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Excellent, measured response to last nights latest horror show Gary. Listening to it unfold on radio Norfolk, even after oliveira goal and the revelation that Leeds had ten men I felt a Leeds equaliser was inevitable. Individually, there were some pretty disappointing performances, with both Murphy and canos ineffective, ruddy error ridden and shaky, the goals we conceded were absolutely shocking. Some of the football during the first half was good, barring the lack of a cutting edge and Thompson was in the thick of the action for two hours, probably would have scored a penalty if asked to take one. I doubt though that he did enough to break into Alex Neil’s closed shop. The toxicity to which Gary refers is evident when speaking to people and as I opined on another thread I feel that Neil is only a couple of games away from feeling the full venom of unhappy supporters. Quite who the smiths would replace the floundering Neil with sends a shudder down many a collective spine, perhaps some more yellow and green blood is needed? Lose at Brighton and the matchday atmosphere for the return date with lovely Leeds will match that of the hughton days.
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As you say since the inability to defend is 1) a whole team issue and 2) has been a problem since the summer of 2015. So doesn’t that suggest that it’s not just the perceived two centre backs we needed but also a couple of better, and fitter, versions of Alex Tettey?
Tettey himself was, in my view, excellent in the first half against Wigan, and after he disappeared with injury at half-time the Latics were back in the game. And it looked to me versus PNE, when he coughed up the ball to the opposition with monotonous regularity, that he is still not fully fit again – and perhaps may never be.
As for mental strength, well we did finish on the front foot last Saturday – but only apparently because we had gone a goal behind. That’s what it took for the penny to drop.
It seems to me there is a certain complacency that some of the players need to shake off. Some of the loose passing against PNE was just casual, and nobody seemed to wake up and recognise that they needed to be so much sharper in order to get away from Preston’s very effective pressing game.
Of course some like to blame Russell Martin as captain for “not providing leadership on the pitch”. That’s a load of botox in my view. As last night showed, when he isn’t around it’s no different. Perhaps we are seeing more clearly why Dorrans and Naismith, for example, weren’t quite good enough for the Premier League – got the skills, not got enough between the ears.
We’re not having a good spell and Howson’s absence is a major blow – he is one player who I think does have the mental strength we are missing. But at least it’s happening now and not in the spring.
Is it like the blip that saw the end of Adams? Possibly, but I doubt it because in the end Adams seemed to run out of confidence in himself – I don’t that will happen to Alex Neil.
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The look on Brady’s face after his penalty miss said it all for me – He looked like someone who just wasn’t that bothered.
Something isn’t quite right. I’m not suggesting that Neill has lost the dressing room, but I think there seems a lack of authority, which leads to apathy and that is spilling onto the pitch with some players.
How can this be addressed?
If Neill can keep the club with touching distance of promotion by January, bad eggs must be removed and players that have little potential or won’t take part in the team should be moved on. Plus Brady and Naismith to lighten the wage bill. We need a smaller squad of higher quality as the current squad is wasteful.
I don’t feel that AN is in total control, yet still has the respect of the vast majority of his players. How long Money gives Neill will show how ambitious the club is, but the board shouldn’t give him any more money. We need to get rid to spend and in the key areas. If that cannot be done, then you can forget all about promotion this year.
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well summed up, some excellent comments. cannot add a great deal. To me it points to a lack of coaching. Footballers are a funny breed, some need telling once while others every week some need an arm round and others don’t. But that was another back four from the usual line up, these are all capable players as proved against Everton. So it must be down to what is being done or not done.
OK this was the cup, so no points dropped but ending what could have put some money in the kitty. Just what will happen at Brighton is quite frightening. unless a miracle happens in the next few days, we are facing slipping further behind. That is 8-9 players being used in defence, but glaring errors are still there. Does Alex Neil know what his best set up is ? what was really wrong with Bennett/Klose pairing. answers I have not got. Just how much longer .. the sirens are starting this is not a one off or bad day at th office…it is far more serious
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The problems on the pitch are quite clear, but the reasons quite mystifying.
The main problems being: Why cannot whoever is in defence cut out their mistakes and close out a game? Why do some players look uninterested?
Any Answers Folks? – Maybe Alex Neil is too strict and is unliked by players? Too lenient with his particular favourites? Is he too controlling? Does he discourage them for thinking for themselves?
Last year in the Premier our team were calculated to be the among those running the least number of kilometres – these late goals and less exertion suggests some kind of physical and/or mindset issue.
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I think this chimes with my view, it’s not the quality that’s lacking, it’s a mental thing. We got relegated because players kept making simple mistakes, AN dropped them and the replacements did the same. From AN’s perspective is dammed if you do dammed if you don’t- you can’t keep playing players who constantly fail.
Before getting shot down i accept some do seem undroppable but I don’t think many and I reckon most have rotated out at some point.
How this can be resolved i don’t know but I remember two years ago Russ Martin saying after Christmas ‘it’s fine, we’re still in it well placed’ they’d just lost ten on the bounce, should have been well clear. If that mentality is there, that after Christmas being in the hunt is fine then Newcastle will be miles clear, we’ll really have a massive fight on our hands. I really think if this group really went for it the end of season could be so much better. As it is we’ll struggle. Maybe get up maybe not, but it’ll be tough, that’s for sure
OTBC
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I share Gordon’s trepidation about Brighton. Throw in the hughton factor and it looks like an uncomfortable afternoon for all concerned. As he states, it seems not to matter who is used in the back four, the end result is sloppy passing, poor marking, ball watching, bad positional play. Pan asks many questions pertinent to the run of form we are in. As he says, the answers are probably numerous and complex. The players. Some of them at any rate appear to be uncaring about the team, the results and the club. Bad apples? My tipping point with Neil was reached before Fulham when it became apparent Brady was picked ahead of Pritchard, only then for the same error to be repeated. most, if not all of our good results this season have stemmed from flashes of brilliance, improvisation, stand out moments, individuals doing something off the cuff. That has dried up somewhat, with poor chance conversion costing us results in the last three games and the initial fears most people had ha e been confirmed. For the first time I can remember, we have a team which is significantly less than the sum of its parts, picked off by better organised, technically inferior opponents that are trying that little bit harder to win. Most people can see that Pritchard should be a fixture, that Thompson deserves a run in the side, but certain players are undroppable and are guaranteed a place in the team, even if it appears they don’t want it. It’s poor, poor management from a man who is coming to the end of his tenure at the club unless something changes.
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It comes down to two things as far as I can see:
1) lack of genuine striking options to help us score the goals we need to defend with (because up till now we haven’t had enough goals to show for our dominance, which in turn would give us confidence and less twitchy when defending a small lead).
All of which is useless unless we have
2) Any sense of game management whatsoever. We are one of the best skilled teams in the league but when defending a narrow lead we have no skills between the ears. In truth we haven’t had for years – but then this team has several players in it who have been there for years. Surely no coincidence?
We need to learn that if our strikers aren’t going to score the three or four goals we keep creating chances for, then we have to keep the bell, frustrate teams and see games out.
Alex Neil’s naivety shows in the way he sets his team up – lots of creativity but all based around a strike force not capable of putting away crucial chances. Then we end up giving the ball away as the frustration mounts and we are too lightweight in midfield to stop the counters.
This team is crying out for an experienced leader on and off the field. Manager-wise, not a Chris Hughton who’s done a few years at a couple of clubs – someone with at least a decade of managing good, talented squads who can get inside their heads.
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Hate to come over as unreasonably critical, but one thing I omitted to mention in the piece is do we think City, if in the same predicament as Leeds, would have had the wherewithal to find a way to win that game?
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Quite controlled really Gary, considering. There does seem to be an apathy about some of the players, when persistence and determination is what is needed. We are also lacking a Grant Holt type figure, the epitome of doggedness and bloody mindedness, who would be able to galvanise the whole team.
I too am wondering what it takes for these new players to break into the first team. Louis Thompson has surely earned the right, and I really hope James Maddison is given a chance when he returns from Aberdeen. Without a doubt we are missing Jonny Howson, but he alone will not be able to make up for what appears to be missing.
Bring on Brighton, but a win and a clean sheet is probably being hopeful. Then again as Norwich City fans we always live in hope!
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Great piece Gary. Until recently I’ve never been on the Neil out bandwagon, but there more I think about it, the more I’m convinced there is something fundamentally wrong at Colney/Carrow Road. Other teams do not consistently and persistently lose points/matches from eminently winnable positions. To concede an equaliser to 10 men in the second period of extra time surely is little short of criminal? Don’t any of these guys know/understand how to close out such a game? the personnel was almost totally changed, bvut still the same problems persist. Then to have some £20m worth of Premiership(??) talent miss 3 penalties really takes the biscuit. These are grown men, being paid considerable sums of money to play a pretty basic game, and many of them just don’t appear at all bothered. One of the most telling aspects of what seems to be happening, or rather not happening at Norwich, are surely the performances of Nathan Redmond at Southampton. Very much an unhappy and sad-looking bit-part player for Mr. Neil last season, but this season playing a big part in Southampton’s improvement, and with a smile on his face. Brighton/Leeds are surely make or break for the current management set-up…..
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Not unreasonable to assume Gary, that if we couldn’t beat Leeds with a man advantage while a goal to the good, we wouldn’t win with ten men and a deficit. The team has no backbone.
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Great piece Gary, and as for your comment at 10; unfortunately definitely not. I cannot understand how these men being paid not unreasonable sums of money seem totally unable to do the basics. To those who say that we’re going to beat someone by five or six, can you honestly see that happening unless there are major changes at Colney/Carrow Road? Even with major personnel changes the same failings are there. To go 2-1 up in extra time, against 10 men, and not to have learned anything from the Newcastle disaster and the Fulham debacle is just not funny. And for £20m plus worth of “Premier League” talent to not be able to score a penalty between them almost beggars belief…
Surely with the supposed talent we have in the squad we should not be playing with only 1 up front at home? And why oh why when we have the genuine pace of the Murphy’s (and others now) do we continually pull every player back to defend corners and set plays? (Self-defeating see Preston’s goal, and many others).
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The one time Jeff could be on here with some just cause and he’s nowhere to be seen…
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John (12) refers to the form being shown by Redmond at Southampton. The same can be said for Gary Hooper at Sheffield Wednesday. A bit part player with us under Neil he was effectively swapped for Naismith. Hooper is now playing an important role in an effective Wednesday team whilst Neil cannot find a productive role for Naismith. The evidence suggests that a number of the players receiving criticism here will go on to play important roles in teams playing to their strengths!
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Having read all comments I can still see a problem as well as the prolific striker problem , as being the central defence that has been there actually for 4 years with only one inspiring defender signed our man Klose . When we revert to the failed combination of several years ago of Turner and Bassong there’s only going to be one outcome even with their so called years of experience. Keep on throwing Martin in the fold as well and never has been a reliable central defender and unfortunately now has no pace for the full back role . This can all only be blamed on management and our board. Bad decision making added to that and no positivity in the squad selection even whilst winning rather than sitting back also comes to one result. I still live in hope he may take a more positive approach maybe bumping his head or something 🙂 as already stated crucial games coming up to stay in touch rather than wilted!
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You almost got there Gary. Almost. Let’s face it, Neil isn’t capable of running a club of our size. He has lost the dressing room. To suggest it’s the same whoever plays at the back is a commonly odd theme throughout the comments. The whole point is, those failures that have been rewarded for too long have killed the want to fight. Most know there’s just no point in performing as it won’t lead anywhere.
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I’m not going to say more than….Brady and Naismith look like they are playing for a move out in January, and we have no leader on the pitch…..where’s a big Dunc or a Holty???
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I don’t think Neill has lost the dressing room from my sources (18), however, I would totally agree with (19). Brady should of been sold with Naismith before the transfer window. Norwich ‘doing a Robert Chase’ and holding out for too much money, means we are stuck with two players at the very least who don’t want to be here (until at least January) and that benefits nobody. They could and should of been sold and that lies with the board.
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@20 Darren – Not sure what evidence you have to support your suggestion that we held out for too much money on Brady and Naismith?
Irrespective of that, I do find it odd that, when we’re buying a player, many fans are almost demanding we pay the asking price in order to get the deal done quickly, yet, when we’re selling we’re just expected to roll over and accept a knock down price?
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It was reported at the time that the Naismith deal fell through because of personal terms, not the transfer fee. Brady is a disgrace, we must get as much money for him as we can and reinvest it wisely. Whether the man tasked with that reinvestment is Alex Neil is another matter. The board, Neil and a number of the players have a lot to answer for and need to take a look in the mirror. The squad has a lop sided look to it, performances have been patchy, yet it remains notoriously difficult to break into the team. Some eminently watchable players have been starved of action or in the case of Maddison, farmed out to Scotland. After the laudable efforts t Everton, I held out some hope that we might put a cup run together at long last. That is probably why in addition to the manner of the defeat, which was sickening and indefensible, I am still sore about our demise. We face a conundrum. I have lost faith in the manager and would like him removed and replaced with an experienced and able man with a good pedigree, the like of which I am certain we could attract with our support, squad and standing. However I have no faith in the board of directors no suspect that given the chance they would present us with another gunn or Adams and plunge the club back into the dark ages. With that in mind, the Brighton game is the most important of the season as a win would restore some confidence and possibly steady the floundering promotion ship.
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In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to have sold Brady & Naismith. However, if we had I’m certain the club would have been accused of lacking ambition. I’d assumed at the time that Brady would have gone and if someone really wanted him I think he would have done, but 2 relegations in 2 seasons doesn’t look good.
Chris (22) personally I’d stick with Neil but I’m interested in who people think would be better – who meets your criteria… other than Chris Hughton who I’m guessing you’re ruling out?!
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Dave, selling Brady and Naismith would have been acceptable if accompanied by the import of a good quality centre forward and tough high championship level centre half or perhaps two, and a quick, sturdy left back who likes a tackle. As for who would be better than Neil, the question could be who could be worse? You are correct, I am ruling out hughton, he wouldn’t come back anyway and will be found cruelly wanting if Brighton go up. I would also rule out the usual search of Europe and Mongolia via Timbuktu which turns up a loser like Adams or the sentimental claptrap and sheer gold standard crassness of hiring Bryan gunn. Naming individuals is pointless, supporters a rent privy to the process or availability of prospective employees. The criteria must be a cv which includes a measure of success, a level of experience, some common sense and gravitas, a man that can get hold of the dressing room and make it work. Most of the appointments over the last twenty years have been diabolical. Only the interference of McNally has thrown up the occasional success. We need somebody tough, resourceful, respected in the game with a hard uncompromising edge. Somebody who doesn’t score highly on Delia smiths “nice ometer ” would be a good start.
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