Norwich (a) - 20/3/21

[Hoochie Bloochie Mama]

Just now, 47er said:

Yeah,good point! What is a false 9? Someone who can't play there?

In Tony's world, yeah.

I always thought of the Dalglish/Rush combo as being the perfect strike partnership. Dalglish dropped in to space got the ball and played Rush in. 

Mowbray would just play Dalglish and call him a false 9 .... Rush would be on the wing. 

Madness. 

[matt83]

In Tony’s world a false 9 is probably someone who isn’t good enough to play striker nor fit enough to play midfield. 

[CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber]

Great result, fair play to the boys that was some effort. 

I can't decide if the worst part is that Tony has no idea why it worked today or the fact he'll dine out on this for months. 

[tomphil]

I'll sit here now and tell anyone who wants to listen that even if he keeps this squad together and signs a 20 million pound striker in summer it won't make any difference.

There'll be something else the reason for the under performing, the 5th choice defensive mid being out or a new brand of tea bags at the training ground or something.

[47er]

3 minutes ago, tomphil said:

I'll sit here now and tell anyone who wants to listen that even if he keeps this squad together and signs a 20 million pound striker in summer it won't make any difference.

There'll be something else the reason for the under performing, the 5th choice defensive mid being out or a new brand of tea bags at the training ground or something.

3 probable reasons at least:

The team is chopped and changed every game, players who played well don't feature---they get disheartened.

The squad is so unbalanced--we have no wingers and no central strikers other than Armstrong who is too small to play up there on his own. Therefore we can't score goals.

Players out of position, no idea what they are meant to be doing.

All adds up to demoralisation and most players going backwards including Elliott.

Nothing will change while Mowbray is the mismanager.

[tomphil]

Someone tweeted there was 19 changes in the last game and this one. 

Riddiculous, everything he does season in season out flies in the face of gaining any kind of consistency, or balance.

[47er]

Good old Chris Sutton!!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9383975/Chris-Sutton-wears-hilarious-half-half-jersey-colours-Blackburn-Norwich.html

[IrelandsRover]

Chris Sutton looked well in half of our home kit on BT Sport 🔵⚪️🟡

[AllRoverAsia]

7 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

They needn't worry about the Prem, once they go up, I am sure that their manager will announce that they arent expected to compete and they will happily get relegated, defeating the point of the promotion, just like last time.

Well I will not be in their corner a second time if that happens - and it's odds on their plan is to be a YoYo

[@roverseas]

Well Tony delivered a performance for the memory bank, now watch us follow in North Ends footsteps and lose to Wycombe Wanderers.  Anyway, good way to enter the international break...  

 

[TheRoversReturn]

I don't understand some of the responses about Norwich. They've just won their last nine matches. So they had an off day today, they were due one. Even so, they were ten minutes away from winning a tenth game, hit the woodwork twice and Kaminski pulled off some great saves. There is no indication that the championship is a poor league this season, it's just not got a few runaway teams (which seems to be confused with strength of the league as a whole, surely the more competitive a league = the better? Not a couple of teams way out in the lead?) and, in reality, this has made for an exciting season if your team is not managed by Tony Mowbray. Teams taking points off each other left, right and centre.

This was the perfect season for a Rovers challenge. We've blown it spectacularly, like when Bowyer had Cairney, Gestede, Duffy, Hanley, Rhodes, Marshall, King, Conway and so on. Mowbray has blown our chance like Bowyer blew it (Bowyer being a better slightly manager than sacked-by-Celtic/Boro/Coventry City-as-not-good-enough-Mowbray, at least got us in the top ten) before then but then it was regression.

We either sack Mowbray, and sack him soon, or we'll be in full-on relegation battle mode rather than just flirting with it sooner than later. We're at our fork-in-the-road moment. 

[TheRoversReturn]

8 minutes ago, @roverseas said:

Well Tony delivered a performance for the memory bank, now watch us follow in North Ends footsteps and lose to Wycombe Wanderers.  Anyway, good way to enter the international break...  

 

"A performance for the memory bank?" What the...? I know we've been bad recenty but dear me, get a grip, man. 

Norwich had an off day but still had nearly all the best chances and hit the woodwork twice. Let's do keep in perspective the bigger picture. Twelve games = a tiny bit over a whole quarter of the season. This is what we have done over this past quarter of the season (and with the squad Tony has, this is truly, cataclysmically, embarrassingly SHITE) =

[Exiled_Rover]

7 hours ago, riverholmes said:

First Norwich attack in the highlights shows a breakaway leading to what looks like a seven versus four (+ goalkeeper) situation for Norwich. Their goal arose out of a simple pass that created a five versus four (+ goalkeeper) situation for them - albeit, in this case, some Rovers midfielders were close behind.

I don't know how representative of the whole match these two incidents were but I think they highlight that, despite, a better defensive shape in recent matches, the defence is still getting mightily exposed. 

Kaminski's body language at the moment seems to say it all. Every time he pulls off a good save, he seems to look around with disdain and resignation. He's made mistakes, as has the whole defence, but a seven versus four situation against the top team in the league, relatively early in the match (I presume), puts the defence in a desperate situation.

I

Don't watch he highlights to the end - they we're literally queuing up to score in the dying minutes.

Mowbray can't set a team up to defend at all. It's embarrassing at this point.

[Moptop1]

And that’s why we will never get anywhere with Tony. We can’t defend!!! 

[Ossydave]

We defended pretty well for the most part yesterday? Pukki is easily one of the best strikers in the league and HB did a job on him.

[joey_big_nose]

21 minutes ago, Ossydave said:

We defended pretty well for the most part yesterday? Pukki is easily one of the best strikers in the league and HB did a job on him.

For 90% of the game yes, but we had several moments of total defensive lunacy where we were lucky to only concede once due to a mix of poor finishing from Norwich and defensive heroics from Lenihan and Kaminski.

Rothwell and Douglas both gave the ball away in really dangerous areas, and we got outnumbered on the counter several times...

I would say we would have had a much better season if 

1) We had a steady fit quality partner for Lenihan - we've got one now in H-B but it's taken 70% of the season

2) we had an effective defensive left back - Douglas has improved offensively but defensively he is absolutely shocking. I'd honestly rather have Bell.

3) We had some tactical flexibility to change things when we play against teams who set out to nullify us, and be prepared to focus more on defending than attacking in some games and counter attack. Next team who we play who decide to 343 us like Preston or Barnsley will batter us. Sure Wycombe will do this as their manager will have watched the videos since we battered them and figured out a simple change is all that is required to turn the tables....

Also - I'm sure no matter who we appoint as next manager from the entire world of football we won't be seeing Gallagher on the wing and Buckley/Elliott at CF. I mean it is absolutely insane.

[Ossydave]

2 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

For 90% of the game yes, but we had several moments of total defensive lunacy where we were lucky to only concede once due to a mix of poor finishing from Norwich and defensive heroics from Lenihan and Kaminski.

Rothwell and Douglas both gave the ball away in really dangerous areas, and we got outnumbered on the counter several times...

I would say we would have had a much better season if 

1) We had a steady fit quality partner for Lenihan - we've got one now in H-B but it's taken 70% of the season

2) we had an effective defensive left back - Douglas has improved offensively but defensively he is absolutely shocking. I'd honestly rather have Bell.

3) We had some tactical flexibility to change things when we play against teams who set out to nullify us, and be prepared to focus more on defending than attacking in some games and counter attack. Next team who we play who decide to 343 us like Preston or Barnsley will batter us. Sure Wycombe will do this as their manager will have watched the videos since we battered them and figured out a simple change is all that is required to turn the tables....

Also - I'm sure no matter who we appoint as next manager from the entire world of football we won't be seeing Gallagher on the wing and Buckley/Elliott at CF. I mean it is absolutely insane.

Yep fully agree on point number 1, shame HB wasn't brought in at the start of the season, I dare say we'd be a good few places further up the table at least. Likewise if Wharton didn't get injured too but it is what it is. HB and Lenihan actually played a part in the goal yesterday too indirectly. Hanley and Gibson clearly told to mark our centre halves given their aerial threat, which left Sorensen picking up Gallagher and he made a right hash of it.

[tomphil]

To be fair not many teams will go against Norwich and not concede a number of chances to them if not goals.  Fortunately they'd lost their shooting boots and we defended well. 

He got that bit of it right yesterday but again playing these kind of sides suits us better than the blood and thunder ones. There's more of them in this div than the Norwich types.

We've defended a lot better recently and i think THB is a big reason in that there's quality about that kid. Recruitment dept have done another good job there what a pity they weren't calling the shots to recruit forwards !

Edited March 21, 2021 by tomphil

[tonyoz]

16 hours ago, Tom said:

Tony points out the difference in their final third compared to ours 

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19175864.what-jumps-you---mowbrays-verdict-norwich-draw/
 

Tom points out that Brereton cost £7m and Pukki was a free transfer

Good grief!

Brereton was awful. He looked knackered from the first minute. On 42 min. I almost put my foot through the tv as our commentators debated how well he’d played!

[tonyoz]

16 hours ago, Ossydave said:

Starting to think Armstrong might be a bit of a bad apple 😕

Certainly wasn't missed today again and whilst we weren't as amazing as some have made out, we were certainly better against the best team in the league than against an awful Bristol team.

HB was far better than Lenihan IMO, although Lenihan played ok defensively his passing (long balls to Dolan) was awful.

Todd Cantwell is still an absolute nob on another note.

Trouble is Dave......looks like he’s the only guy that can put the ball in the net more than rarely. I thought Lenihan had a great final quarter though. Some ‘proper’ robust challenges.

Edited March 21, 2021 by tonyoz

[Stuart]

Just now, tonyoz said:

Trouble is Dave......looks like he’s the only guy that can put the ball in the net more than rarely.

It’s a fallacy Tony. The way we set up is form Armstrong to shoot at every opportunity. His strike rate isn’t actually that great.

We have the players to create chances and score but need a manager to get the best out of them.

Our Achilles heel is not scoring ability but a a lack of consistency at the back - largely due to lots of chopping and changing. Nyambe having to make way for Bennett and then JRC for example.

[chaddyrovers]

 

[Sparks Rover]

42 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

 

That's great, we have let him develop at our expense like Toisin,  and never benefit from the fruit of this...he will be at a Watford or Palace next season in his next stage.....Nice one Tony.....always a friend to the superstar managers. 

Meanwhile, Tony gets the  next adolescent off the taxi rank from Livchester .....  

[Fraserkirky]

2 hours ago, tonyoz said:

Good grief!

Brereton was awful. He looked knackered from the first minute. On 42 min. I almost put my foot through the tv as our commentators debated how well he’d played!

He was absolutely dreadful yesterday. Second to every ball, poor touch, lacked pace when put through at one point. Very disappointed in him yesterday.

[Exiled in Toronto]

3 minutes ago, Fraserkirky said:

He was absolutely dreadful yesterday. Second to every ball, poor touch, lacked pace when put through at one point. Very disappointed in him yesterday.

He was. The early season optimism about him has well and truly evaporated. If he was going to come good, he’d have pushed on this season, he’s been on the pitch pretty much every game. His tendency to go down far too easily seems ingrained now.