Norwich City vs Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[garyshawsknee]

Never recovered from the two quick subs we had to make. Missed Tammy when he went off, Alberts rate work. Smith will learn a lot from tonight. Axel was superb.

[Matt Collins]

It was classic hourihane wasn't it?

Generally very pedestrian and slow / one footed. But another assist with a great ball in

Ultimately I don't think he can play the sort of crisp passing game that Smith wants

[Tuscans]

I know it sounds daft but you need games like this so that Smith and his coaches can see just how shit some of our players are.

Doesn't sound daft, good point.

[wolfman999]

Another Bruce performance. If we get out of this fucking league this year, I'll be amazed. Early days for the new management but the squad is so poor in key areas and by January, we could be well out it. Passes always side to side or backwards and often given away.

[Rigadon]

We looked as disjointed as we ver did under Bruce second half.  Yeah, couple of injuries didn't help, but our crossing and shooting is criminally bad and yet again we get bullied by small town clubs with average players.

The bad:
Hogan - Shit.
El Ghazi - worse (they looked like they stopped passing to him after his first couple of touches which is deeply concerning)
Hourahane - pedestrian

The better:
Tuanzebe's best game.  Grealish tried to make things happen, but always looks like he's waiting to be clattered rather than making something happen.  He needs to sort that out quickly. 

Smith will get to grips with it I'm sure, but that was truly poor after the first 10 minutes.

[Sexual Ealing]

Grealish needs to take more responsibility. On around 85 minutes he beat two men to the left of the box, which was great, and then laid the ball off to Taylor when he was still in plenty of space himself. No good can come of that. If you're the team's best player you shouldn't be delegating final balls into the box to Neil effing Taylor, who, to be fair, as I understand it, was a dedicated and exemplary milk monitor.

Alternatively, we could try to sign some other players who aren't allergic to footballs.

[SoccerHQ]

Still only 3 points off top 6 remarkably which is one positive to desperately cling onto...

[London Villan]

Player for player it compares to any squad in the league. Our first choice back four should be adequate, the keeper Im not so sure. The rest though should be capable of creating chances and scoring goals. In Deano we trust.

[tomd2103]

Let’s not underestimate the size of the job in front of Smith. Second half was Bruceesque in its lack of quality.
Hourihane is just not the midfielder we want/need him to be.

Axel was our MoTM by a country mile.

Agree with that.  You just look it and think that squad has been assembled with little thought or planning.  The number of times we gave the ball away tonight was unacceptable really. 

[Grocer]

Poor second half. Injuries and the keeper mistake didn't help. Though that goal may have gone in anyway

Tuanzebe was very very good. Hutton, Whelan, Taylor and Elmo good too

Jack poor again. Delivery and set pieces awful

Hourihane was ok but faded

Hogan was utterly anonymous as is his wont

El ghazi was initially even worse but in the end actually started to do some things

Some very sloppy passing a clear need to work on attacking patterns of play

Disappointing. But this will take time

Abraham being out would be a blow. If he is, its got to be Kodjia surely

Fitness also clearly a problem

Perfect summary, agree with all of that.

[themossman]

Grealish doesn't ever seem to go forward anymore.

[Steve67]

Nyland at fault for the first goal, he didn't bother with the second.  Hutton and Taylor are poor full backs and need replacing.  Taylor was only less shit than usual tonight.  Chester making stupid errors.  Tuanzebe was good, covered a lot of ground.  Hourihane, if he doesn't score, offers very little.  Whelan is over the hill, grealish is trying but it's just not coming off for him at the moment.  Thats said, some poor decision making tonight, particularly from set pieces.  Elmo and Albert were average at best.  El Ghazi was pants, as was Hogan.  Try harder you pair of pansies.  Abraham going off hurt us in both boxes.

All in all, a very poor performance and I'm sure smith will say as much.  He needs a couple of windows to put this right as there are so many players who are not capable of playing the tippy tappy football he will want to play.  This season needs to be used to sort the squad out, rather than thinking we can really push for automatic promotion. 

[jwarry]

If dean is the man we think he is he will use this to start getting his message across

[andyh]

It was classic hourihane wasn't it?

Generally very pedestrian and slow / one footed. But another assist with a great ball in

Ultimately I don't think he can play the sort of crisp passing game that Smith wants

When he got robbed facing his own goal because he wanted too much time on the ball and ended up on all fours  watching the Norwich player run away from him, sums up too many of his performances.

[cdbearsfan]

Disappointing but not panicking yet.