Lillehamring

But he's trying to teach them the basics of his system. If you're learning to speak french and get stuck on some complicated grammar, you don't switch to learning spanish, you persever, stubbornly, to learn the grammar that's stumbling you. Besides, it is working - dropping a few points, having a few set backs does not mean it has failed, it just means that it's progressing in a natural, expected way. The last six games we haven't been as good as we were but we've taken 10 points, that's a standard to gain 77 points over a season, even if we continue at that rate we'd finish on 89 points - it is too early to claim it is not working.

And ignorance.

Ifs and buts - had we not rested players and put out an unbalanced rusty backline we wouldn't have gifted them all but one of their best chances. If we hadn't rested kdh and nididi we wouldn't have had casadei and yunus wasting two places on the team sheet and would have had a decent press and created twice the chances we did. And yet, but for some poor game management, we were a minute away from three points. Was it really so bad?

No, it means we're in the championship and can neither afford nor need to spend hundreds of millions.

Oh come on - how can you evolve or revolutionise something that is so very much still in it's infancy! Everyone is still getting used to the system, these are players who have only been playing together for the most part, for a handful of games. The wheels have fallen off! This is all so new we're still using stabilizers! Saying we should beat any team, regardless of their league position, is the single most arrogant and ignorant comment anyone can make about sport.

It's just possible that enzo hasn't changed anything and that this is a reaction from the players. On the surface we don't seem to be doing anything any differently to the start of the season - the difference is that at the start of the season we were making the passes, we were taking the risks, the shots were all going in - it seems unbelievable that this is because of instruction from enzo, yet perfectly understandable that it's down to the players' mentality. That's not to say that this isn't enzo's problem - i don't think he needs to change his approach, but i do think he needs to sit down with the players and find out why performance quality has suddenly dropped.

If it's a problem how come we have the 2nd highest xG and the third most goals scored - they don't just appear out of thin air.

Of the 18 teams we've played none of them have 'worked us out' - leeds played better than us on the day, but still needed a set piece to score, and of the other teams that have taken points off us, hull we're outplayed but got a lucky deflection, boro were outplayed and scored a worldy, sheffield were outplayed and scored a scrappy last minute goal.

What is he doing wrong?

Well in that case - i seem to remember him doing that in a game where we needed a late goal and he brought on vardy but took off a #8 rather than nacho - i assume it worked. But right now, i wouldn't have nacho anywhere near the team, he doesn't look remotely interested - unless of course playing him here with another striker gives him the boost he needs. To be honest, i think all we need are for the players to start doing their jobs and if they don't, they get dropped. I'm not sure why mavididi seems to start every game, when marcal got booted so quickly. Praet is back but, obviously, far from match fit.

form is temporary class is permanent?

So are you suggesting that enzo getting a team that consists of players that have just been relegated, players who haven't played in england before, players on loan and players just up from the youth team to be top of the league and 8 points clear of third, 15 points clear of the playoff cut off, after only a third of a season isn't getting the best out of what he has? that sounds like pretty great management to me. Oh, and with this team also having the best start to a managerial career in league history? Seriously - do you think any of us can ask for more, or even in the context of a footy forum have the right to tell him what he should be doing?

I would argue that a good quantity of the poor play was down to having a large number of players coming in not up to speed and (here i am critical of enzo) not in their natural positions. but to be honest, the errors were only early on and we spent much of the game controlling the ball, moving it well, with more urgency and tempo than against watford, but - and this is the crux once again - with substandard individual performances in the final third. I don't think it's fair to say we crumbled - most teams we've played who chose to park the bus opt to throw in their chips for a final 20 minute hail mary phase of football - did we deal with it well, no, but we didn't crumble, we just didn't deal with the ball well enough - again, it comes down to individual subpar performances (JJ's non jump, numerous hacked or sliced clearances from others, indecision) - that's not crumbling, that's just not doing one's job. As i say, i think the errors were the result of playing at a quicker tempo with players who weren't quite with it - but these things happen, it's unreasonable to think that we'll go 90 minutes without making an error - for what it's worth the first two i recall that mads, on the first, got his recovery position spot on, the 2nd vestergaard reacted to make a good block - so the mentality is right in reacting to these situations, even if we shouldn't be letting them happen. And this was all early on, we sorted ourselves out fairly quickly and played relatively well for the next hour or so, culminating in a nicely worked goal - i certainly enjoyed watching that phase of the game. If people are prepared to give up watching us as we sit top of the league because of some dislike of the style of play then more fool them. given all that has happened, we could still be sitting mid table right now. Or we could be like norwich when they were in the prem, playing fast attacking football and losing week in week out. If you really want enzo to work, then give up this pipe dream that we are going to play a certain type of football - we won't - this is it, this is the way - but just keep in mind, this style is not natural to the players yet, and we don't necessarily have the right players yet; and maybe, as uninspiring as it might be for you, maybe it is the only way we'll succeed.

What ever you feel about the way the football looks, it isn't shite - our results and league position prove that. Fans who don't like the way we play really need to start accepting that that's the way it is, and maybe that's the way it needs to be to get us out of this league.

And let's face it we still really should have won the game - i think our game management was poor towards the end (as it was against watford). it was never going to be a great performance given that we made many changes and sheffield are a little resurgent and fighting for their season, but we actually played more than well enough to have held on for the 3 points, unortunately we got punished by a hail mary - sometimes that happens,

I'm not sure how you can say that given the results we've had. The fact is, we don't have a ferrari - we have a moderately priced van - a practical, unappealing vehicle that performs a tedious but necessary function - ie. getting promoted. and it's pretty clear that, so far, he has used the correct philosophy in the correct way -which is why we are top of the league. The mission is to get promoted, winning the league is a bonus, winning it comfortably is just gravy. Pace is a worthless commodity when you're facing ten men behind the ball, but i agree we lack the technical skill to use it - our counter attacking is very poor - but then, again, we're a van not a ferrari. I thought we started the game with far more urgency and a higher tempo than the watford game, and the result was a series of unforced errors. I wouldn't say we're fragile, or no more than anyone else - everyone is having disappointing/unexpected results. For everything that wasn't quite right tonight, something as simple as better game management could have got us 3 points.

Well, you'd hope that it is both - but i don't think our approach will change, we just need the application of the ideas to improve, and that will change things. I didn't personally find it an unpleasant watch, frustrating, yes, because it was a game where we had them on the ropes, and where we got caught by a very poor sucker punch when it was too late to react. We did enough of the groundwork to have extended our lead, but we didn't execute, and our game management at the end was, frankly, bottom of the league stuff - with hoofs and sliced clearances - but these are things that happen in sport, these are the things you learn from. We are so far from the finished article and yet, clearly, a lot of our fans can't accept that.

Do you mean one of the #8s? - the trouble is say you take out ndidi, who do you bring in alongside winks that's going to make us more creative - dennis praet? in which case i'd rather just see praet play as an #8 I think extra players deep is not the answer, i think they way we're set up has, by and large, proven successful at breaking down deep set teams - but, as you say, the personnel is the problem - tonight casadei and yunus didn't offer enough and mavididi and fatawu just consistently failed to execute well enough, they both got into great positions with the ball but made either horrible shot choices (fatawu), or failed to pick out an opponent (mavididi). Add to this vardy putting in another of his anonymous performances, and the few times he was released (with actually very good passes) he just didn't have the pace. Kelechi isn't the answer, he seems to have given up. i actually though mcateer looked good when he came on - i'd almost like to see him and marcal get a run out - genuinely can't be any worse...

There was a moment towards the end when justin passed to mavididi, both players running hard, and justin just stops, leaving mavididi completely alone.

Is this thread actually being moderated - none of these posts are discussing tactics, all belong in the post-match thread...

Do you honestly think that enzo sent them out at half time saying: 'whatever you do please don't score anymore goals; no - don't even try!' Apart from some sloppy play at the start, and the inevitable hail mary from the opposition at the end, we completely controlled the game tonight - the problem was our inability to get the ball in the box - and it wasn't because we didn't think we needed to, it was because the players simply couldn't make the right decisions or play the right ball.

It feels to me though, that it is individual performances that aren't good enough - some of our play on the ball tonight was excellent, but the quality of the final ball was woeful - we just seem incapable of passing or shooting past a defender, unless it's a horrible wild shot into row z. Whilst we might have the best squad in the league, unless they make the right decisions and play to the abilities, they're far from the the best performances in the league. As far as why we are not getting any better - well that's the nature of a learning curve - initial improvement follows a steep rapid progress, but as it goes on the curve flattens until the same amount of work has a far lower gradient of improvement And sometimes those improvements are hard to spot - they can be small details that we're not picking up on, or practical things that perhaps are to obscure to register (for example we're now a lot better coming out after half time than we used to be).

But the problem tonight was that we DID NOT have the quality - our decision making and execution was no better than Sheffield's. Goal aside, Fatawu was rubbish, mavididi not much better, in fact none of the front five played well.

I don't think it helped that the changes made no sense at the back, and left us lightweight in the final third.

Well at least it can't be said that we played too slow, sadly speeding things up led to passing errors early on, and a lack of energy in the final quarter. Pure and simply, we HAVE to get better at decision making and execution in the final third - 68% possession and 3 shots on target.