I don’t subscribe to the ‘it was only Norwich’ viewpoint. How many of us were bricking ourselves that we would lose this one and that we’d be the perfect opponents for Norwich to finally get their season started? I admit I was. Yesterday ended a run of eight consecutive PL away defeats for us, so we’ve got that off our backs now. With the squad we have, and the budget and yes you could argue our coaching staff too, I feel it’s highly unlikely we will see the sort of performances such as the 3-0 victory over Liverpool where we were simply outstanding. We will play well at times, but we will have to scrap for every point possible. Yesterday we just did that, and yes while there were a few negatives and things not perfect, we banked three points and climbed the table. That will do. Our front three look decent, a nice mix. King’s first assists in the league for two seasons. Sarr may prove me wrong when I said last week nobody will hit double figures in this side. Dennis has scored twice in five games, an above reasonable return for the money we paid for him. Rose is growing into the season. Cleverley wouldn’t be in my starting eleven but yesterday he justified his selection, the man for the moment that Xisco needed. He played a big part in both Sarr goals. Sometimes it’s easy to see only what we want to see with certain players, our minds already made up. Sissoko looks the good addition we hoped he would be. Oh and our first match of the season so far without a yellow card. Another small plus when winter kicks in and players get close to suspension. There were a lot of positives yesterday, but the biggest was the 3 points. Massive for our campaign. Now to build on it next weekend. A strange quirk of the fixture list that this will be our third consecutive game against a side without a win this season. We obliged for one, but didn’t for the other yesterday. Let’s give more of our squad valuable playing time on Tuesday night and select our strongest starting eleven to face the beleaguered Geordies on Saturday, because it’s another huge winnable match in our bid to stay at this level.
Those two are a decent pair indeed. Only worry for me is we lack some speed in the middle of the park. Not so sure about the formation change for the latter part of the game (4231, as quoted by BBC). Early on Norwich were able to play past our pressing players though, leaving Sissoko to defend against two players getting the ball in the hole infront of him. That changed towards the end and maeby it was because of the resuffled formation. Pukki lives by those kind of passes. He has scored numerous goals from same kind of situations for his national side. He is very clinical and will score many more if Norwich can feed him in future games. He is good in his movement and keeps defenders on their toes all the time. And I think he is guite fast and clever using his speed.
Yeah this is something which came up in discussions a lot last season as well, for instance when some posters on here questioned whether Toney would have scored anywhere near as many goals playing for us as he did for Brentford - the point is/was that good strikers often turn a decent ball in to an excellent one by virtue of their movement. We used to create loads of chances in the Champ and also in our relegation season which a decent forward would have done more with.. Dennis has pleasingly shown that he has a sharpness that has been missing up front in recent seasons, though I think King still lacks it; it's not that King's a particularly bad player as we saw when he was given a bit more time and space to find a pass, but he just seems to need a bit too long to do things and is missing that extra yard of pace which can get a striker away from defenders and get their shots away.
Can anyone who actually knows about these things tell us why Rose is still potentially unfit in mid September? I thought it wasn’t as noticeable yesterday. My layman’s opinion is that he really should be pretty much fit now, even if he wasn’t at the start of season.
I do apologise @Clive_ofthe_Kremlin yes he did. Sorry. What I should have said was that none of our likely regular starters got carded. Yellows to date in the league.. Etebo 3. Dennis 2. Kucka, Rose, Sema, Sissoko, Cathcart 1
I thought the changes helped, bringing back Foster into the team relieved some pressure on the defence. TC was brilliant and showed us what we all knew, that we can't just play Kucka, Sissoko and Etobo together with no one pushing further forward. Rose's experienced showed, think the fans really helped him towards the end as he was flagging. Kiko and Sarr link up very well, must be a relief for Sarr to have someone on his wave length.
Great result yesterday. Doesn’t matter that I was Norwich, an away win at this level is always a great day. It’s going to be a difficult season but I think our start has been ok. Played well against Villa and Norwich, ok against Spurs abs badly against Brighton and Wolves. I would say it’s pretty par for the course. 6 points after 5 is not a bad return for a promoted side.
I made the point after the Wolves game last weekend that our midfield was all wrong and we had no creativity in there. Games away from home where teams will look to take us on will allow our front three space to operate in, therefore that creative spark isn't essential but the more workman like midfield of Sissoko, Kuca, Cleverley/Etebo etc will be what's needed on the road. At home I would EXPECT the likes of Louza & Ozan to be playing regularly to link the midfield to attack when some teams come and sit in and give us no space. We will need to unlock defences to create something. Hopefully we will get the mix right. I'm still worried about our defence. Come January I would expect us to sign a quality centre-back, but I won't hold my breath. Great win yesterday, yes Norwich were sh*t, but you can only beat what's in front of you. Need to follow it up with a win against Newcastle next weekend.
A great win. Sissoko, Cleverley and Rose outstanding in a strong team performance. No coincidence that Sarr had one of his best games of the season with Kiko back in the side. A win against Newcastle and we're pretty much safe
Is that the first time we have had a disallowed goal overturned by VAR in our favour? Think we have had them confirmed either way and ruled out but not ruled in that I can think of. Sure somebody will point one out though.
You can 'search' the Wolves thread from last week for a fully fleshed-out debate on this hot-button topic if you so desire.
No coincidence that Villa and Norwich let him play, Brighton, Spurs and Wolves did not. We do have to have a plan B for the latter-type games
It’s going to very very difficult for anyone to beat Derby’s record low. Sheffield U got only 2 points from their first 17 games last season but still managed to average a point a game from then on to finish with 23. To be consistently useless over a whole season seems unlikely, even for a promoted team who clearly were half decent to get up in the first place.
I think 6 points from our opening five matches is the same as we had the last time we were promoted? That time it was one win, three draws and a loss to Man City.
I just watched the extended highlights and I still can’t understand why the push on Sema near the end wasn’t a certain penalty. It looked it live on the day and still looks it to me on the replay, even given the more lenient VAR interpretations this season.
Basically every time we win a match we think we're staying up and whenever we lose we think it's the last nail in the coffin.....
however the pass/cross for Sarr’s first goal was exactly what we have missed in previous seasons, you could see him looking at the situation and the pass/cross was first class, maybe something they have been practicing in training! For Sarr to score in that situation the pass has to be 100% correct that’s one certainly was!
Only thing I can think of is that the ref didn't give them a pen for the Rose challenge in the box which he looked lucky to get away with, levelling it out?
As I say, he doesn't seem a particularly bad player, he clearly still has some quality, but he seems lacking the extra pace, sharpness, or poacher's instincts which decent goalscorers have.