Norwich vs Middlesbrough 1-2 (Greenwood, Silvera)

[Brunners 9,063 25.5k]

5 hours ago, Georgewhitt said:

Another good result lads.

MC seems to have sorted your teething problems early on, and you're getting the rewards now. This place seems a lot happier than it was a few weeks ago.😁

Seen a few references to your upcoming game against Leicester. After our game against them last night, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it. They are beatable. Even without a striker, we weren't a million miles from getting something out of that game.

You'll be fine against them.

Yeah you got absolutely shafted on that penalty decision man, that was brutal reffing.

[Erimus 63 579 3.2k]

3 hours ago, Rob said:

yeah bolas fee must have been on the small side, 1m max i reckon and think plenty think it was much lower

A million pounds, plus wages is still a lot of money😉

[Downsouth 8,153 39k]

10 hours ago, Rob said:

coz the grown ups wont let us play with a jan transfer thread

Which can only be discussed from the beginning of December and to be honest I really do not think it will be populated that much in terms of previous January window posts.

@MRe we know the Stoke result so where is the Stoke match thread😉

[Rob 6,410 9.8k]

9 hours ago, Erimus 63 said:

A million pounds, plus wages is still a lot of money😉

yeah sure is, plenty of people thought it was closer to a quarter of that tho, still can't find anything online to say what it was 

[wilsoncgp 10,162 19.9k]

14 hours ago, LinoJo3 said:

We’ve got 2 LB and VDB can play there if really needed, why are we arguing over Bola lol

People are talking about the RB slot because of Smith's injury, mate. Only reason Bola is being brought up is because we were willing to sell him when it meant leaving us with one LB and there's a discussion of whether we'd do the same with Dijksteel.

[Guffie 1,670 2.8k]

Looking forward to the stoke game now. Stoke seemed to be picking up abit of form. Should be a test 

[Redcar Rioja 9,035 8.8k]

Going from memory but when we sold Bola weren't we extremely confident of Giles returning at that time?

The rationale and logic of keeping Coulson at the time is perhaps a bigger mystery, at least we know where Bola is.

[Bruce 3,109 2.5k]

3 minutes ago, Redcar Rioja said:

Going from memory but when we sold Bola weren't we extremely confident of Giles returning at that time?

The rationale and logic of keeping Coulson at the time is perhaps a bigger mystery, at least we know where Bola is.

As I recall, the scuttlebutt was that Giles had accepted an offer in principle. Although we were still in negotiation with Wolves it seemed like the outlines of a deal were in place.

Woodgate was a bit a fan of Coulson and the thought seemed to be that he could play the Giles role as a back up better than Bola. He had occasionally played as a left wing or  left-sided attacking midfielder while Bola was a more traditional left back. I guess, also, we could sell Bola for a bit of money while Coulson would have left for nothing if we hadn't agreed a contract and it was likely that he would be paid no more than Bola. 

There was a logic to the decisions. It was undercut by getting gazumped for Giles then Coulson not being up to the standard we needed. Both of these were not unpredictable outcomes though to be fair to Coulson he didn't do anything wrong in the games he played. (He essentially did nothing. Took up some space and made up the numbers.)

[Rob 6,410 9.8k]

Coulson will be on a tiny wage too, its not really much of an impact keeping him on the books, the upside if he worked out had far more value than the loss of keeping him on the books. potentially selling him on or loaning him out again we could probs easily recover any cost in january if we moved him on 

he's ideal as a 3rd choice back up tho for me and dont think he is going to rock the boat wondering why he is not playing even if that makes him a bit of a hanger on in peoples eyes, cheaper than having a old free agent

[macapes 2,909 3.1k]

5 hours ago, Downsouth said:

Which can only be discussed from the beginning of December and to be honest I really do not think it will be populated that much in terms of previous January window posts.

@MRe we know the Stoke result so where is the Stoke match thread😉

Sounds like a challenge. 900 pages of bad puns and crisp discussion incoming.

[Rob 6,410 9.8k]

yeah can we open a january new crisp thread instead, which may get derailed with transfer talk 

[Georgewhitt 1,509 733]

16 hours ago, Brunners said:

Yeah you got absolutely shafted on that penalty decision man, that was brutal reffing.

Win some, lose some mate.

[Rob 6,410 9.8k]

I've been enjoying the recent sunderland match ref decisions lately tbh 

[MRe 359 760]

6 hours ago, Downsouth said:

Which can only be discussed from the beginning of December and to be honest I really do not think it will be populated that much in terms of previous January window posts.

@MRe we know the Stoke result so where is the Stoke match thread😉

[p_mards 1,880 8.5k]

What an enjoyable win. Our structure out of possession is much better now as we can now absorb pressure and calmly get through tricky moments in games. We can't benefit from turning matches into wide open matches and outgun teams like we did last season, so we have to play a bit more organised and wait for our moments to exploit. I'm sure Carrick will have learned far more in the opening 7 games of this season than the whole of last season as he has had so many problems to solve, which he has done very successfully lately. Defensively we were fantastic. Fry was solid yet again. He seems to be stringing some consistency together and becoming a key player for us.

Greenwood took his goal incredibly well. There's obviously lots to improve on, but yet again, there's great potential there for such a young player. I can imagine him developing into a Ryan Fraser type of wide player who has great technical ability and end product. I especially like Greenwood's aggression and work rate when trying to regain possession - it fits in well with our pressing style which helps us regain the ball high up the pitch. There was a point in the second half when he was pressing incredibly doggedly and regained the ball in a deep defensive area, which was very good to see. You can tell that he's came through as a striker and is a natural finisher with the way he calmly tucked away his goal. Similarly his goal against Sunderland wasn't the easiest chance either. The way he has filled in for McGree has been fantastic. He's continuing to look a great piece of business by us, and Leeds' decision to allow us to sign him for £1.5 million looks very likely to come back to bite them.

The opening goal looked simple but it still took high quality from the team. Hackney was clever to force an error and showed high quality with his touch and quick pass into the perfect area for Coburn, who did well to bring the ball inside and picked out Greenwood to slot away first time. Greenwood anticipated the counter-attack and had started sprinting even before Hackney had won the ball - which led to him being unmarked to score. It's a little thing that easily goes unnoticed but it's excellent play by him to make up those crucial early yards to get ahead of Norwich's RB. The swift counter-attack shows that the cohesion in our attacks is now very good as we made it look really simple. Contrast that with that shambolic failed 4 on 1 against QPR earlier in the season and you can see the progress we've made. A random observation but the first goal was made between two 21 year old's and one 20 year old, which sums up the growing shift towards more youngsters breaking into the team. 

Regarding the bad news about Smith's injury, it's disappointing but I think we'll be fine. If anything, Berg seemed ahead of Smith before the Sunderland match as he started ahead of him in such a vital match, but got injured in the warm up so could be considered Carrick's first choice for that position. As we have Berg and also Dijksteel I don't think we'll need to dip into the free transfer market or even sign a RB in January unless we get another nasty injury in that area. Clarke returning at CB will provide another option to allow us to move McNair across to RB. Forss being injured yet again is a concern as he seems to be relatively injury prone.

Edited October 27, 2023 by p_mards