Norwich City vs Leeds(away) Saturday16th December

[morty]

A wee bit of optimism has returned with a few more players being available. 

Will be interesting if we see anything of Jamal Lewis, as Farke has been raving about him. Icing on the cake would be Tettey being fit.

 

[Fenway Frank]

Lewis May make the bench, I don’t expect to see Tettey until the Brentford game. I think you’re right about feeling a bit more optimistic but we all know what happens in these situations 

 

[morty]

Presser news :-

Tettey fit and travels with the squad! Jamal Lewis will probably have another U23 game before coming fully into contention. Naismith trained all week and will likely be used over the busy Christmas period, but not yet. Implication that not much will be changed from Saturday's team (I assume the one from the second half)

No actual bad injury news!

Mentioned Louis Thompson, still looking like March/April before he returns, real shame for the lad.

 

[OldRobert]

Le's hope for a last Saturday's second half performance for both halves for a change.

 

[morty]

 

[morty]

 

[Canaryboy]

Usually go to Leeds away but skipping this year.  

£37 to freeze my balls off, plus on the antibiotics so can't drink. 

 

[Fenway Frank]

Got a sneaky feeling Marley Watkins might get a goal tomorrow, whether that will be enough is another thing altogether though

 

[Din]

Obviously good win last week but to follow that up with a result here is gonna be a really tough ask. To be honest if we put in a good peformance and shift and only lose by the odd goal then I won't be too gutted, though I'm obviously hoping for better than that!

Think I'd go with the same team that started the 2nd half against Sheffield Wednesday, with Watkins replacing Josh in the XI. I imagine that's probably the team we'll go for as well. I wouldn't mind seeing Trybull in there for a bit more bite, but not sure who we'd take out. Vrancic maybe? Would be pretty harsh on him considering he's been much improved recently. Reed as well has been excellent.

Gonna try and watch the game but if not I might have to just keep up with it on the radio. If we could just nick a draw here or somehow even a win (which tbf isn't unheard of) then that'd put us in great sted going into a run of games where we could potentially get a lot of points (Brentford, Burton, Birmingham and Millwall). Some good results there and we'll propell ourselves to the edge of the play off picture again, but I need to not get ahead of myself to be fair seeing as we haven't even played this one yet but yeah COYY!

 

[OldRobert]

Go along with your thoughts re the team Din.  Don't want to see Murphy start, imo there are better options.

 

[Din]

A bit unlucky there, thought we did enough to earn a point. On another day Pritchard in particular would've a goal or two to his name. Generally I thought we were decent defensively as well, but once again we were undone from a set-piece which has become a real issue for us. Hanley as well was very lucky that his terrible back pass wasn't punished.

Not too disheartened though. We went away to one of the best teams in the league and with a little bit more quality in the final 3rd would've got a point. As I said above we've got a run of fixtures now where we simply have to be picking up a lot of points. I think in all honesty if we don't get at least 8 points from the next 4 we have to accept that play-offs are gone. If we perform like that though we'll stand a good chance.

 

[GJP]

 I think in all honesty if we don't get at least 8 points from the next 4 we have to accept that play-offs are gone. If we perform like that though we'll stand a good chance.

Look at the league table. Look at the points and the teams between us and the play-offs.

We were in a better position when AN came in, he got the benefit of new manager bounce and had a much stronger squad.

What have we got now to make that kind of surge up the table? Not enough.

 

[hogesar]

Play offs are gone.

 

[GJP]

Play offs are gone.

It will be intetesting to see what they do in January. With promotion gone I would not be surprised if they tried to sell 2 or 3 big players.

 

[Canaryboy]

Would have liked to have seen Cameron Jerome start that game considering how fired up the Leeds fan would make him (after the racism row),deserves a chance now that Pritchard is back. Club was probably hoping for an Oliviera goal to add half a million to his transfer value just before the transfer window  h34r:

GJP that wouldn't surprise me either to be honest. Can easily imagine Oliviera and Klose being sold, and Tettey leaving for a small fee.

Raggatt will come into the squad if we can sell Klose, will go out on loan for another 6 months if we don't. 

Morsy + a couple of million on a striker coming in. Raggatt, Morsy + Striker all be on a lot less money than the departees. That's what I'm expecting to happen. 

Makes sense to me for it to happen to be honest, perhaps changing too much in one summer firesale would be a bad thing and that integrating a couple of new players for six months would leave us better off? 

 

[morty]

Actually a decent game with the usual issue of not being clinical enough in front of goal.

Am losing patience with Oliviera now, to be honest, but the trouble is when Jerome came on he looked horribly rusty (great afro though) so that leaves us pretty short of options. I think Jerome could work in holding the ball up better, bringing the likes of Pritchard and Maddison more into play.

Maddison had a quiet game by his standards, I think teams are sussing out that he is one to give special attention to. Harrison Reed was my man of the match, he was everywhere, harrying and winning the ball, probably his best game I have seen him play.

The table doesn't lie, Leeds looked top six, we looked mid table. 

 

[Canaryboy]

Sell Oliviera if we've got any good ideas RE: a replacement. 

Somebody is going to be sold in this window, feels a bit obvious. Just really hope it isn't Maddison, Pritchard or Pinto because no chance of replacing any of those three with equal quality / equally effective players. 

I mean, we won't be able to replace Oliviera with equal 'quality'... but 'effectiveness' is another thing isn't it. 

I could handle Klose leaving and Raggatt coming into the squad, if it means we've got funds to sign Morsy or similar and then allow Tettey to leave. That just feels like good forward planning. 

I could handle Oliviera leaving as long as we're confident we can sign a good striker with the proceeds, after whatever Webber needs to deduct from the fee + wage liability for next season. 

I'd go on a three day bender if we managed to get McGovern or Naismith off the wage bill, and would probably have a stroke if we could do similar with Jarvis. 

 

[morty]

Klose has never really made noises about leaving, and I'm not so sure people will be lining up to sign him either. At least he is contributing to the team. I'm really not so sure people will be biting our hand off for Oliviera either.

I think if we can get a small fee for Tettey he'll be off, and we bring Ben Godfrey back into the fold. Same with Hoolahan, if we can get a bit of money for him and get his wages off the books, I'd take that, he was utterly ineffective off the bench yesterday, get the lad Phillips on there in his place.Naismith, in theory if he was fully fit, I wouldn't mind having around the squad, but he isn't, so some sort of deal to Rangers where we pay part of his wages maybe?

Jarvis we're stuck with, McGovern we will need for experience when Remi Mathews is our number one next season.

 

[GJP]

The table doesn't lie, Leeds looked top six, we looked mid table. 

That was also what I took away from Derby and Wolves. The gap between us and the better sides in the league is pretty big. Bigger than it should be.

 

[morty]

That was also what I took away from Derby and Wolves. The gap between us and the better sides in the league is pretty big. Bigger than it should be.

It depends on your perspective / levels of patience. The clear out had to happen, and it was hoping for a bit much if anyone expected it to be fully working and firing after 6 months.

We have beaten decent teams this season, and there has been improvement in recent games, including in Farke's ability to effect games with subs / formations.

But it's delicate, we have a squad thin on quality and we need every single player fit, and playing to his max.