cityfanlee23

I honestly can't work out what Mads was doing there, he can't have not seen the player. What is going through his head? is it tactical? could he have been so heavily drilled into this idea that he HAS to build up from the back that he's waiting for options to appear ahead of him and ends up getting caught out? or did he just have a brain fart?

Stupid stupid error, but you can see the complacency creeping in for a long while before that. The moment we score we back off and let the opposition come in, and when we back off we somehow seem to think we can play however we want. Amateurish.

That is criminal from Mads there. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

Sounds feasible my only concern would be that there would need to be some sort of rule of a legal contract on that gift, since some owners would give the money as a “gift” then just asset strip the clubs to get their money back if they lost interest.

Yeah you’re right, it will be a battle to get rid of some, regarding Vesty I’m not sure how much he’s on in the champ but I assume he had a relegation clause so he might be affordable, and at this level he’s good enough so might be worth a contract since he’s been one of our best players, but wouldn’t be the end of the world to see him go.

In reality most of them will have to be shipped out, our financial situation is perilous and I think we will seriously be looking at moving on anyone who’s on over 20k a week. Hermansen will go to the prem or a top flight club in Europe. Ricardo, Vardy, Winks, Fatawu won’t sign, Albrighton Faes is getting minutes for Belgium so he will get a club somewhere Ndidi Daka Kristiansen has done okay at Bologna so he will get a move Iheanacho is gone Coady I actually think might stay, his options are limited after his failed move and I have a feeling a new manager will come in and utilise him. KDH will be the big money move Praet. I imagine going into next season of the players on our books who will be playing/bench if we stay down will be: Vesty Coady Souttar Justin Nelson Wanya Braybrooke Alves Mcateer Mavididi (gut feeling he stays) Hamza Cannon Danny Ward on a 10 year deal

Did he not take a pay cut for relegation? If he didn't it's absolutely criminal that we did not try to mutually terminate in the summer. But surely he had a cut in his contract?

Yeah I guess it’s contract dependent really, if we fail to go up can we afford to sack him? I don’t trust him to be able to make his philosophy work with even worse players, because I 100% don’t trust our scouting department to be able to find the 7-8 gems he will need. I sincerely hope he goes if we fail to get promoted. If we play the same way we did against Norwich though I’m still semi confident we can do it

And if he doesn’t replace them, he can go too.

Looks like we are going to need to find a new Pearson esque manager who can come in and build the foundations again on a shoestring and get a team who will run through brick walls for eachother. This is such a mess, promotion this season is the most important goal of our clubs recent history. Go up this season, cut the cloth and accept a hard relegation battle next season, probably resulting in relegation but on a much sounder financial footing. If we go up and Ipswich bottle it, I’d 100% take McKenna and allow him to get relegated and rebuild.

Yeah it was probably not the best example 😂

I’m not sure about height but I generally meant slimmer or a more smaller frame, more nimble players who are more technically gifted. I could be completely wrong on this it’s just the impression I have of it, I was expecting the championship to be far more physical, but I think premier league players are far more athletic and with that often comes strength.

Yep, if we manage to go up we need a massive (and very expensive if Enzo is still here) overhaul in summer. Regarding the Physicality I agree, we have a lot of light weight players who struggled in the premier league to hold off other players, and I think traditionally the Championship has been somewhere that players who are big and strong, but not quite good enough for the premier league or maybe not quite athletic enough have found a home, but in recent years it seems like teams seem to be focusing more and more on the tactical aspect, going for players who are technically sound first and foremost rather than big nasty players. It's the way football seems to be going in general, for example even teams like Milwall who traditionally went for players who would just chuck two feet in to let the opponent know who they are, nowadays they tend to be going for smaller more technical players like Flemming (who I think could easily step up to the premier league at a lower club).

The gap between the premier league and championship is absolutely massive,I’ve been quite surprised by the lack of quality to be honest, I’ve said a few times I felt like our defensive record when we were so far clear earlier on in the season felt a bit misleading, in the majority of games this season we have absolutely gifted our opponents clear cut chances that in the premier league would be buried in the majority of cases. The standard of finishing in this division is just so poor compared to the top flight now, that’s been the biggest shock for me.

Norwich were very poor, and there’s definitely an element of them letting us press them more and be more direct against them, but I think that was compounded by our approach, plenty of teams this season have been dogwater and we’ve managed to make them look half decent with our approach of passing it sideways for 75 minutes before eventually a mixture of tired opponents and our sheer quality seeing the game through, Norwich were definitely poor but we were a stark difference in approach to much that we’ve seen this season.

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone suggest the players completely ignored Enzo, I’ve seen multiple people myself included talking about the players ignoring his calls to slow down, and the reports from others that he was having a pop at fans in the stands about the speed at the beginning of the match and when we went down. Agree on the diagonal balls we have seen them all season so it was a good balance today between diagonal balls, direct fast play through the channels and through the middle and maybe 10 minutes of the usual all out ball control. Yesterdays approach was pragmatic and we changed how we attacked multiple times as Norwich adjusted, something we have not done very often this season, so Enzo deserves credit for that and we can only hope this is the start of him being a more pragmatic manager. As far as I can see nobody has suggested the players decided to completely ignore what the manager planned though. I find it quite strange though that even though yesterday was the same rough style of football that I’ve been calling for the entire season, and have been hounded by the Enzo fan club all season because what I wanted was “not his style” and I simply didn’t understand Enzoball, the moment we actually adopt what so many have been asking for and we actually go for the throat for 80 minutes and play aggressively with direct forward passing, suddenly that’s also now what Enzo ball is, I did find it quite a surprise to find out I’ve actually been an Enzoball fan all along.

And I’ve given up on the same names who constantly say regardless of how we play it’s Enzoball, Enzoball has to be the most dynamic system ever seen in history. Today was absolutely nothing like what we’ve watched all seasons it was exactly what so many have been calling for for months now, the moment we do it “oh it’s still Enzoball you just don’t understand it” cult behaviour.

To be honest I have considered that maybe it’s just a language barrier and he was maybe just telling them to compose themselves, don’t get carried away sort of thing, but it seems like most people saw it the same way I did that he was trying to slow us down again, some mentioned that he was having a few words with people in the stands because they were criticising the slow speed, which obviously contributes to me thinking he was trying to slow us down, hard to tell but frustrating nonetheless, they were there for the taking for a 5-6 goal game, more than happy with 3-1 though.

Yeah I have to be honest it really frustrated me, I’m really glad the players ignored it!

We don’t change the system regardless of the players, if we fielded 11 Danny wards he would still play the system. It’s gambling the future of the club. You play a system similar to the one you want, and over time make the transition, Klopp took 2-3 seasons to really dial in the gegenpress, even pep took a couple of seasons to build the style, today was a perfect example of what we should have been doing all season, we dominated the game because we ditched Enzoball and played direct attacking football, the only time we took the foot off the gas was in the 2nd half around the 70th minute when Norwich started to come back into it, that was the perfect moment to hold the ball and compose ourselves and it worked great for the 10 mins or so that we needed it, for 80 mins today when the vast majority of fans were excited and happy with the football, we had largely ditched the philosophy of passing the ball across the middle of the pitch to tire teams out, we were spraying balls diagonally and playing through the lines quickly. Something most of us that were complaining all season have been asking for. If we end up not going up because Enzo has stubbornly played a system that his players can’t play very well then he will never be forgiven.

I fear we won’t have a choice if we don’t go up. There’s no way I trust him with a full squad of run of the mill championship players when we have to get rid of everyone this summer.

But most of those players will be gone as they are out of contract or simply not good enough. so why are we so hell bent on a system when if he stays until next season will have to be completely restarted next year.

Regarding retreating at 70 mins I think we can all accept that as part and parcel of the game, there will always come a point where Norwich regrouped and started to get hold of the ball a bit more, and I think we agree that in those moments conposure and a reset it sometimes needed. We had a great blend today of attack, defense and control. And you are right, in a lot of way it was anti-Enzoball. hopefully we see it more often toward the end of the season.

Huge win, intensity, we defended as a team and attacked as a team, we mixed up fast play through the middle, to direct diagonal classy passes to the wings from defence, we also controlled the game for about 15 mins of the 2nd half with our usual ball control style. It’s amazing what we can do when we play pragmatic football. We attacked when we needed to and controlled the ball only when it was necessary when Norwich tried to come back. Great subs today also. Credit to Enzo but was very annoying to see him trying to get us to slow the game down when we scored. Overall one of the better performances this season. Drop the system, be pragmatic and we can win this league.

The usuals were well and truly proven right today