Loving the Norwich connection tonight

[crabbycanary]

Whitts, R Martin - current

Forster, Marshall, C Martin, Gibbs, Gilks - ex

Brown (same name as an ex Manager) - tenuous

Should be a footballing masterclass........

 

[Din]

Should be a footballing masterclass........

With Russell Martin at centre back, and Whittaker on the pitch? Not sure I agree with that

 

[crabbycanary]

Whitts looks good going forwards, two efforts blocked, but then a right backs game is not judged solely on going forward................. :wacko:

 

[Lake District Canary]

Thought Whittaker had a very good game.  A couple of fluffs on the ball, but other than that contributed well to Scotland's team performance - plenty of energy and enterprise. Martin always looked to play safe imo, but did ok too, no blame to him or Whittaker for the goals. 

 

[ZLF]

Scotland were poor,  and I struggled to anything positive in Whit or Martins performance,   slow, static,  unable to read a threat, and easily moved around (the other two defenders no better) and both poor in use of the ball.     The times rated them 5 & 6 respectively and particularly critical of whittakers use of the ball.   Hard to dsagree 

 

[Lake District Canary]

Scotland were poor,  and I struggled to anything positive in Whit or Martins performance,   slow, static,  unable to read a threat, and easily moved around (the other two defenders no better) and both poor in use of the ball.     The times rated them 5 & 6 respectively and particularly critical of whittakers use of the ball.   Hard to dsagree 

Really?   Whittaker was up against some fast, quality players and I thought he acquitted himself quite well, none of the goals were down to him - or Martin for that matter - and he got forward on plenty of occasions, had two good attempts at goal that were blocked and his passing was on the whole quite accurate.  Got stuck a couple of times with the ball at his feet, but given the occasion, I thought he did well on the whole.    Surprising how people see things differently - not saying I'm right or anything, but that's how it appeared to me.

The biggest difference I could see from a Norwich performance at that side of the defence was the way the right hand side midfielder was always on hand to help the defence, adding numbers and taking the pressure off the defenders.    Quite often when England attacked down their left, the Scottish defence had extra men back to cover.  It is something that we just don't seem to do.   Our defensive/midfield discipline is frankly poor.   An extra man on the right side (E. Bennett is excellent at tracking back when on the right) would work wonders.  I don't want to see Redmond in defence, but someone has to get take responsibility to get back in time to plug gaps. 

 

[Suffolk Canary]

Completely forgot Gibbs is ex-Norwich!   Him and David Bentley on loan.....those were the days 

 

[Salopian]

They were what they always are, very good going forward, if not quickly, but not good positioning in defence, and undone by pace.

Fortunately for them England failed generally to get round the back, but the Scots defence didn't pick up Oxlade-C for the first goal, they were like so many headless chickens for the second, and left looking at each other when Rooney scored the third. I don't mean just our two, but the whole of the Scottish defence.

There were some of the Scottish team who looked as if they hadn't recovered from their last game against the Irish. They take so much out of themselves by the amount of running they have to do forward and back. The result after 20 minutes seemed to be that England would win unless they made some mistakes, - they did once when Scotland scored. Quite simply England had too much pace and too much skill.

 

[Dubai Mark]

England certainly outclassed the Scots, who have improved under Strachan and I too couldnt really see much wrong in our two players performances, Whittaker had a very decent match.