Rotherham vs Norwich (Home) 25th April 2015

[The Great Mass Debater]

Doubt we'd bring him back for the final. He's lost his head at a crucial point. Let the club down.

...on the other hand you want all the fire power you can get.

Would Lafferty or the Wolf be eligible for the play-offs?

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

I feel like we're just a little too rough around the edges this season. Last couple of seasons at least we've known what we were trying to be, certainly in the Lambert promotion season. If its not to be this year I would certainly be very confident of going up under Alex Neil the following season. Give him a good budget from the inevitible player sales and let him build his own team. Still very positive

 

[Din]

Doubt we'd bring him back for the final. He's lost his head at a crucial point. Let the club down.

...on the other hand you want all the fire power you can get.

To be honest I think it would be a bit of a stupid move should we get to the play-off final to leave him out of the squad. When he's on form he's very hard to stop from scoring at this level, and to leave him out just because he did something stupid in one game doesn't make sense to me. Yes he's let the club down, but he will be punished by the FA in the form of a 3 game ban, and he'll undoubtedly be disciplined by the club, and then after that he's 'done his time' essentially and things should go back to normal. Besides, he's probably as angry with himself as the fans are with him. 

If it was Jerome, or Johnson, or Ruddy then no-one would even try and argue that we shouldn't bring him back for the final, see no reason why Grabban is any different. 

 

[GJP]

Interesting defending from Russell Martin for the goal.

Lucky his name isn't Whittaker.

 

[It's Character Forming]

Yes frustrating that we had chances to clear it and RM clearly at fault.

Also seeing the highlights Grabban clearly throws a punch at the Rotherham player's stomach however weak and it was right in the ref's eyeline so a soft sending off but understandable.

 

[TA Canary]

So playoffs it is then barring an epic miracle.

On the bright side we are still unbeaten away from home under Alex Neil which does give some hope.

 

[Suffolk Canary]

Interesting defending from Russell Martin for the goal.

Lucky his name isn't Whittaker.

Saw Martin with his family in Chapelfield today (he couldn't even mark his son, who kept getting away from him!  ), not that its relevant in any way.  

I completely agree. Martin at times has been really poor, but doesn't get criticised as he's such a good guy and is a good role model. Definitely an area to  be looked at during the summer

 

[SussexYellow]

Would Lafferty or the Wolf be eligible for the play-offs?

The answer will depend on the terms of the loan, but doubt either would figure whatever. Albeit a Ricky winner at Wembley would fulfil a romantic dream for many supporters. But both might need to look forward to more training sessions than they anticipated before hitting the beach.

But the player being discussed more as a possibility is Louis Thomson - but injury may bar his way.

 

[Boyerboy]

it is often said on here that foreign loans are not truly loans but are transfers with a return transfer built in.

That makes sense but would mean that the return transfer makes a returning foreign loan player ineligible for his contract club until the next transfer window.

 

[Boyerboy]

As for Russell Martin, I'm sure that all those players voted him one of the two best centre halves in the League because they agree that he is " such a good guy and is good role model".   But then again, they've only played against him and all the other centre halves to make the comparison so I suppose they are hardly in as strong position to judge his abilities as us fans.

 

[It's Character Forming]

Anyone else understand why we kept Hooper on when Jerome came on at the end ?  Our problem was that with the extra man Rotherham were making it hard for us to play the ball on the ground so we ended up going long a lot, and Hooper is never going to get much from long high balls sent his way - we mostly tried to hit them at BJ with a little success although JR sent several goal kicks straight over his head into touch.  On the rare occasion when we were able to work the ball out on the ground and get it to Redmond without him being closed down immediately, that was where we did well (including the goal). On quite a few long balls to Hooper, he didn't even challenge for it, just stood off and let the CB direct his header under no pressure.

So surely we could've taken off Hooper instead and Jerome is a good outlet playing on his own up front when you're down to 10 men... you can knock a long ball at him and he creates a headache for the defenders and has a decent chance of winning it, this opens up space so there's more scope to work the ball to Redmond etc etc.  I really feel that if we'd done this we'd have got a 2nd goal and 3 points which would've piled the pressure on Bmth who'd know they must win one and draw one to be sure of auto promotion and also watford still wouldn't be safe because a win for us and a defeat for them on final day would put us above us.  As it is Bmth know they can lose tonight and still guarantee promo by winning their last game.

I know it's all ifs and buts, just feeling a bit frustrated.  I know a shock defeat for Bournemouth tonight would re-open a chance for us but it's so slim, I wonder if it would be better for them to win and we know for sure we're in the playoffs ?

 

[TA Canary]

It's easy to say with hindsight but that was probably Neil's first real tactical error. When you're leading 1-0 and down to 10 men in such a crucial match surely for once the safer option of bringing on a more defensive player like O'Neil should have been preferred.

I can understand that he wanted to keep some pressure on Rotherham's defenders, it just didn't work this time.

 

[It's Character Forming]

Very true, although I did comment to my neighbour when Jerome came on and Redmond came off, that it was odd to put Jerome on our right wing with Hooper left up front.  I'm a big fan of Jerome but it's not the best place to put him and Hooper on his own up front isn't very effective in my book.  My preference would've been bring on O'Neill to play on the right if Redmond was tiring or felt to be defensively vulnerable, or swap Jerome for Hooper, or potentially both, (but I felt Redmond was doing a good job).

So I agree - first time I think AN has got a key decision wrong and it means we're almost certainly now into the playoffs rather than being one slip-up by Bournemouth away from the auto spots IF we culd beat Fulham.

I'll get over it in a couple of days....