Rovers v Canaries. Sat 12th Dec 3pm

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

4 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

 

 

If they are all fit I'd bench Lenihan and go with Ayala and Williams. Lenihan needs to learn mistakes have consequences.

[dallydally]

40 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

If they are all fit I'd bench Lenihan and go with Ayala and Williams. Lenihan needs to learn mistakes have consequences.

TM won't do that. He thinks the sun shines out of Lenihan. It will be Williams to miss out

 

[SBlue]

Mentally checked out of the football after the disappointment on Weds.

How's the mood? Positive?

We can do these imo

[only2garners]

7 hours ago, darrenrover said:

Another slight variation could be to go 352 midweek, exchanging Gallagher for Trybull, to beef up the centre of midfield against The Potters, leaving Elliot and Armstrong up top.

 

It's home to Rotherham on Wednesday - Stoke is Saturday 19th.

[Riversider28]

12 minutes ago, S8 & Blue said:

Mentally checked out of the football after the disappointment on Weds.

How's the mood? Positive?

We can do these imo

Before last Saturday’s game, I think most people would have been happy with a point at both Brentford and Bristol and hopefully a win against the Canaries. 
We did well to battle for a point at Brentford and I think we were lucky to only lose 1-0 on Wednesday given the number of missed chances they had. So, we are only one point short of our expectations and a win on Saturday will give us 5 points out of three very tricky games. Not too bad an outcome. 
Onwards and upwards. 

[joey_big_nose]

6 hours ago, darrenrover said:

I like the prospect of that formation and player selection too. I'd be tempted to exchange Dolan for Gallagher, even though Sam is showing signs of improvement in his overall contribution with the exception of finishing.

Another slight variation could be to go 352 midweek, exchanging Gallagher for Trybull, to beef up the centre of midfield against The Potters, leaving Elliot and Armstrong up top.

Our options these days are endless which is why it is sometimes difficult to understand Mowbray's reluctance to change things early enough, dependant on how a game's progressing.

I can see by he has been reticent to change. We have a new system in 433 and against back fours it has worked very well. I can see that he wanted to give it a a fair crack and see if it works against a back 3 over time as we adapt. While we plainly really struggled against Barnsley and Millwall we did quite fortuitously win both games. He recognised the problem though. Think he would maybe have changed to a back 3 against Bristol City but with Lenihan out couldn't do it as Sharp said.

It's tough one as while we have clearly struggled against back 3s it's not like we are getting beat off the park. We could have won Bristol City as it was an incredibly tight game. So it's not a crisis, more of an ongoing issue.

There is always the risk when you change the system you end up going backwards, you never know. But I think Stoke will be the time to try something new as we are not on a trajectory to top six at the moment.

I think we need 2 systems. It's really remarkable when you go through Whoscored how flexible teams are and are able to play multiple different ways. We are a bit one dimensional and not quite good enough to steamroller decent teams. Need to be smarter.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

5 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

I can see by he has been reticent to change. We have a new system in 433 and against back fours it has worked very well. I can see that he wanted to give it a a fair crack and see if it works against a back 3 over time as we adapt. While we plainly really struggled against Barnsley and Millwall we did quite fortuitously win both games. He recognised the problem though. Think he would maybe have changed to a back 3 against Bristol City but with Lenihan out couldn't do it as Sharp said.

It's tough one as while we have clearly struggled against back 3s it's not like we are getting beat off the park. We could have won Bristol City as it was an incredibly tight game. So it's not a crisis, more of an ongoing issue.

There is always the risk when you change the system you end up going backwards, you never know. But I think Stoke will be the time to try something new as we are not on a trajectory to top six at the moment.

I think we need 2 systems. It's really remarkable when you go through Whoscored how flexible teams are and are able to play multiple different ways. We are a bit one dimensional and not quite good enough to steamroller decent teams. Need to be smarter.

We could do with a few more goals scattered around the team. We lost between 6 and 10 goals when Mulgrew got dropped that we've never replaced.

[Uddersfelt Blue]

14 minutes ago, Riversider28 said:

Before last Saturday’s game, I think most people would have been happy with a point at both Brentford and Bristol and hopefully a win against the Canaries. 
We did well to battle for a point at Brentford and I think we were lucky to only lose 1-0 on Wednesday given the number of missed chances they had. So, we are only one point short of our expectations and a win on Saturday will give us 5 points out of three very tricky games. Not too bad an outcome. 
Onwards and upwards. 

I make it 4 points if we can beat Norwich. 
 

I don’t think we were lucky to only lose 1-0. On the contrary we were unlucky to lose 1-0

[rigger]

28 minutes ago, Uddersfelt Blue said:

I make it 4 points if we can beat Norwich. 
 

I don’t think we were lucky to only lose 1-0. On the contrary we were unlucky to lose 1-0

perhaps he meant that if we give Norwich a thumping the goal difference will be like an extra point ?

[Riversider28]

17 minutes ago, rigger said:

perhaps he meant that if we give Norwich a thumping the goal difference will be like an extra point ?

No, I just made a basic mistake. My Maths teacher at school said my lack of concentration and application would be my downfall. Seems he was eventually right. 

[Gone to seed]

We could do with a thumping result like this... (highly unlikely I know)

 

[Hoochie Bloochie Mama]

4 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

If they are all fit I'd bench Lenihan and go with Ayala and Williams. Lenihan needs to learn mistakes have consequences.

If we'd beaten BCFC I'd agree but we didn't. It was also a harsh sending off. 

[Clitheroe]

Ayala and Williams did not look comfortable together. Best partnership so far has probably been Lenihan - Warton. 

[Sparks Rover]

3 hours ago, dallydally said:

TM won't do that. He thinks the sun shines out of Lenihan. It will be Williams to miss out

 

This is amazing. You'd actually prefer Del to Darragh.? 

[Butty]

4 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

This is amazing. You'd actually prefer Del to Darragh.? 

I don’t think that’s a wild claim, at the start of the season when Del and Darragh were alongside each other Williams was the better of the two and it was Lenihan making mistakes. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

6 minutes ago, Clitheroe said:

Ayala and Williams did not look comfortable together. Best partnership so far has probably been Lenihan - Warton. 

Agreed but Williams was clearly off the pace. He's usually trying to come out from the back with the ball,but there was little of that. 

I think some have re-imagined the game against Bristol to one where they were on top throughout with us on the ropes. It was very tight,with us shading the possession,territory and chances, but alas not the most important stat, which is goals scored.  Williams and Ayala were well down the list of those who under performed, but they stood out because of the goal. The joys of being a defender! 

[joey_big_nose]

2 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

We could do with a few more goals scattered around the team. We lost between 6 and 10 goals when Mulgrew got dropped that we've never replaced.

Aren't we the highest scoring for this many games into the season since we won the Prem?

But I guess your point is Armstrong scores the lion share.

[Sparks Rover]

52 minutes ago, Butty said:

I don’t think that’s a wild claim, at the start of the season when Del and Darragh were alongside each other Williams was the better of the two and it was Lenihan making mistakes. 

Give over. Twice the defender is Lenihan.

[only2garners]

The other point is that whilst we are scoring for fun, we don't seem to be able to from set pieces and Mulgrew did bring that.

[rigger]

2 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

This is amazing. You'd actually prefer Del to Darragh.? 

Id prefer whoever is playing the best at the moment. This is usually judged by the manager at training

[Mashed Potatoes]

Lenihan should play - our record with him in the team over the last 2 and a half seasons is much better than when he is missing.

[Norwich Fan]

(Norwich fan here)

Just to give you an insight to how we might get on tomorrow...

Like yourselves, we've had a horrific period with injuries in the last few weeks with literally half (13 players) our senior squad missing the last couple of games which culminated in our loss away to Luton where we could only name 6 players on the bench instead of 9, with 5 of those bench players from our U-18 team, not even U-23. Never known a period like it.

We were lucky with the fixtures that after Luton we then had two home games against two massively out of sort sides in Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest, narrowly beating both. 

Thankfully the injury situation is starting to ease and we can now at least name senior players on the bench and can name a close to full strength starting XI with three exemptions; left wing, left fullback, goalkeeper. 

We're missing both pacy wingers that can play on the left, Onel Hernandez and Placheta who both have electric pace, but will miss this game. However, we've coped reasonably well here as we still have Emi Buendia on the right and youth product Josh Martin emerging on the left as well as Todd Cantwell now fit enough to make cameos off the bench. Sp we lose some raw pace, but gain extra creativity/smart link up play. 

Left fullback has been covered extremely well by a young Danish signing who got his first goal against Forest last match up in Jacob Sorenson. He's extremely calm on the ball for his age and has that touch of quality but is a def centre mid by trade and right-footed so can certainly be lined up by a tricky winger with pace. He's doing his very best to provide a stop-gap but it's far from an ideal position for him and is certainly a better place for you to attack rather than the other side where Max Aarons continues to grow his reputation and constantly looks too good for this league. 

This leaves by far our biggest weakness due to current injuries, goalkeeper. Tim Krul has been an absolute rock for us in recent seasons and back in the Dutch National team off the back of consistent form that sees him playing how he did in his Newcastle days. Unfortunately he got injured away to Stoke when we were 3-0 up, he goes off, and we won 3-2 in the end but it really should have been 3-3, Stoke had a very fair goal chalked off. The reason for that demise (partly Buendia's sending off) but also Krul's replacement, Michael Mcgovern. A great person by all accounts but the 36 year old has lived off one decent game for Northern Ireland against Germany. He's extremely shaky, brings little confidence to the rest of the defence and will definitely falter if you put him under pressure, either through aerial balls or pressing our 'passing out of the back' game.

TL:DR = We have most of our key players back but running on empty and have a make-shift left-back (who is right-footed and a centre midfield by trade) with a dodgy reserve keeper in goal. Norwich fans would be very happy to take a point and we actually expect to lose this. We're a totally different prospect with Krul not in goal. 

 

 

[Sparks Rover]

39 minutes ago, Yoogo said:

It was always prone to being a yellow at best, but given the position that Toney was in, I wasn't surprised to see it being a red. Had Lenihan not had his hands around Toney, Toney would have had a clear shot with only Kaminski to beat.

For me, Lenihan is a good defender at this level, but seems to pick up his obligatory yellow card every game. I don't mind if they are tactical yellows, but they're frequently reckless and pointless. Even if Toney had scored, at least we wouldn't have been clutching at the hope of a draw for the remainder of the match. It's something we'll always have to tolerate with Darragh, because he won't learn to be calculated in making fouls if he hasn't done so by now.

Lenihan gives us that bit of aggression that we lack across the team really....can't remember the game a few weeks ago where he was virtually offering their forward out....for me, we need that spirit but sometimes his decision making can be iffy.  

[darrenrover]

2 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

Give over. Twice the defender is Lenihan.

but sadly also twice the liability.

[roversfan99]

Our stats with and without Lenihan do a story, although for 2 years he has been the only defender we have had who leads and heads stuff away regularly, maybe Ayala can be a second.

Williams is not a defender I think youd want in the trenches with you.