We should turn into the old Bolton?

[DaveBWFC]

I'm not sure you can really say it cost us 3 points. Maybe it cost us a point though.

[texan dave II]

I suppose you are correct as always I was being a bit dramatic

[DaveBWFC]

Drama queen.

[texan dave II]

Did you need read
Manny is replacing you with the Queen

[DaveBWFC]

Hopefully he's right about that.

[texan dave II]

Can you do the job of the Queen

[DaveBWFC]

I'm not into that kind of stuff.

[H. Pedersen]

It was a horrible choice to bring Davies on.  Not necessarily because Davies is a bad player, but because it allowed Norwich to carve up our midfield.  Stupid.

[Jimbo]

I agree with your point about Ngog/Davies Largehat. IF I was bringing Kevin Davies on it would have been for Ngog rather than changing our entire system for the sake and taking Muamba off - which over the season has continually proven to be a weak decision that has cost us a number of points.

Still don't agree with the logic of 'two unrecognized/out of position centre-backs...Davies must have a field day' theory though, it was easy to see Ngog nor our midfielders were getting much change out of them, why an out-of-form forward was going to have any more luck, I've no idea.

The second sub was perhaps even more baffling to me though (I think we were a goal down by that point so it was kind of overshadowed) but we took Eagles off, who was the only player on the day who looked halfway capable of running at Norwich's defence and creating something out of nothing, and in his place we put Tuncay bloody Sanli.

[largehat]

I completely agree taking off Eagles for Tuncay. I thought Eagles had a decent first half and faded as the game went on - in all fairness this was a common theme and we can't ignore that it was three games in 8 days Bogdan, Wheater, Knight, Ricketts, Reo-Coker, Eagles, Petrov and Ngog. Plus Mears playing his first competitive game since May 2011.

Reo-Coker covered 9 miles in the first half on Saturday, 3 days after an immense performance against Arsenal. Our squad isn't strong enough to do 3 games in 8 days without fielding a virtual second string in 1-2 of those games.

[Squidgy]

I'm suprised Tuncay hasn't been given more of a run out. He get's 10 minutes to prove himself every other match and then ends up running around like a headless chicken. The  end result is his efforts smack of trying to hard.

[azreal88]

Largehat - I have to say, I disagree with the assertion that bringing Kev on was the right idea at all.  It assumes that makeshift centre backs will be most troubled by someone who will challenge them physically, I don't agree with that.  Players who are unused to a role are far more likely to have positional issues, and players filling-in at centre half usually struggle with their marking and tracking of runs - or at least that's my experience of watching players unused to that role.

The one thing Kev won't do is give someone a difficult marking job, or make runs that are hard to track.  So I think Davies was actually the worst choice to bring on, if you wanted to exploit the weaknesses Norwich had at the time.  If you were going to switch to 4-4-2, a mobile striker was the way to go, I'd have thought.

Easy to say now though, as hindsight is always 20/20.

[largehat]

Well, Norwich were playing with a defence consisting of three full backs and a winger. The two make shift centre halves were Kyle Naughton (5' 11) and Russell Martin (6' 0) so I'm not suggesting it was David and Sammy Lee versus Peter Crouch at centre half, but typically, full backs have some pace and are used to tracking runs. I think the rationale is that they would not be as adept at winning headers, correct positioning from set pieces and so on, and as they were unused to playing alongside each other in the middle, there would be an element of hesitancy and confusion.

We also have to remember that Paul Lambert, who has taken Norwich up from League One into the Premier League, described their performances as the best he has seen as Norwich manager, and he has seen some fantastic performances.