MATCHWATCH : Norwich City (h) sponsored by as tough as it gets

[bcubed]

That was a horrible refereeing performance. It almost makes me hope we don't go up because it was just like trying to play twelve men every week in the premiership. It's not just the big decisions, it's the drip-drip-drip of the benefit of the doubt being given to the more illustrious side every time there is a 50:50. Despite his performance I still just assumed he was going to book the cheating Norwich bastard for diving when the penalty came.

Luckily we don't have VAR: they would have spent three minutes chalking off our goal for invisible handball then three minutes awarding the penalty because the complete lack of any contact whatsoever wasn't obvious from every angle.

Yep he was shocking
And I agree every decision is important. Especially when you are really up against it and need to try to stop their momentum whenever you can.

[Notts Royal]

Baldock is stealing a living. Imagine if we could spend his wages on somebody useful.

No one who works as hard as Baldock does is stealing a living.

He’s being asked to play a role that he can’t do, that’s not his fault. Needs must at the moment. He needs to play as a part of a front 2. Certainly not a player who can play the lone striker role. He gets a lot of stuck on here I think unwarranted. He just doesn’t fit into what we are trying to do. Hopefully he gets a move in January and we can bring in someone more akin to our style.

Would be interested to see if Noel Hunt or ALF would’ve got as much stick if they were asked to play as the lone striker when they were at the club...neither would’ve been very effective.

Yes he’s considerably weaker than both Joao & Puscas. But does it say more about Paunovic’s lack of flexibility to change the formation than it does about Baldock?

[WestYorksRoyal]

No one who works as hard as Baldock does is stealing a living.

He’s being asked to play a role that he can’t do, that’s not his fault. Needs must at the moment. He needs to play as a part of a front 2. Certainly not a player who can play the lone striker role. He gets a lot of stuck on here I think unwarranted. He just doesn’t fit into what we are trying to do. Hopefully he gets a move in January and we can bring in someone more akin to our style.

Would be interested to see if Noel Hunt or ALF would’ve got as much stick if they were asked to play as the lone striker when they were at the club...neither would’ve been very effective.

Yes he’s considerably weaker than both Joao & Puscas. But does it say more about Paunovic’s lack of flexibility to change the formation than it does about Baldock?

Can't doubt his effort. But he's ultimately not very good and is unsuited to how we play. I stand by my view he's a waste of wages for us, and we can hopefully bring in a striker who offers more when his contract expires.

[CountryRoyal]

As others have said no shame in losing to Norwich, especially given our current injury crisis. Even though we weren’t dominated I did think 2-1 flattered us a bit. On another day it’s probably a 3 niller.

The worry for me is that I just don’t see where goals are coming from. Set pieces/wondergoals/lucky deflections but we just don’t ever look like creating chances. Not expecting a great return from the coming games but hopefully we don’t lose confidence, so long as we’re in touching distance when we get Joao and Meite back we will be in with a great chance.

[CountryRoyal]

Side note - what does Esteves offer? Because I don’t buy his “attacking threat”. Think there was one decentish ball into the box? Lost the ball in a dangerous area and they hit the post, then all he seemed to do was run on the ball a few yards and pass backwards. For all this supposed skill he’s basically a long haired Gunter.

[Notts Royal]

He’s being asked to play a role that he can’t do, that’s not his fault. Needs must at the moment. He needs to play as a part of a front 2. Certainly not a player who can play the lone striker role. He gets a lot of stuck on here I think unwarranted. He just doesn’t fit into what we are trying to do. Hopefully he gets a move in January and we can bring in someone more akin to our style.

Would be interested to see if Noel Hunt or ALF would’ve got as much stick if they were asked to play as the lone striker when they were at the club...neither would’ve been very effective.

Yes he’s considerably weaker than both Joao & Puscas. But does it say more about Paunovic’s lack of flexibility to change the formation than it does about Baldock?

Can't doubt his effort. But he's ultimately not very good and is unsuited to how we play. I stand by my view he's a waste of wages for us, and we can hopefully bring in a striker who offers more when his contract expires.

Yes I agree - as I said he’s not as good as the other strikers at the club. He doesn’t possess the same skill set and doesn’t fit the style we play. It was a baffling signing at the time, especially having signed McNulty at the same time. But the club are to blame for signing players and not using their abilities or playing them in the right formations. Similar issue to when we had Grabban too. Also we were stupid to hand out such a big contract to Baldock meaning we couldn’t shift him and leaving his contract has understandably not been enticing for him

[Westwood52]

If we stood any chance tonight then Rino and Laurent were going to have to play out of their skins.Unfortunately they probably had their worst games of the season.Laurent’s lack of mobility was badly exposed by Norwich s sharp passing.Coupled with playing two inexperienced CB s in unfamiliar positions.It was all too much.
I get what people say about not playing to Baldocks strengths;that said on those rare occasions when it’s his game ;he consistently comes up short.On Saturday he missed getting on the end of opportunities in the box and tonight he was totally unable to exploit two very slow CBS when put clear.

[bcubed]

Side note - what does Esteves offer? Because I don’t buy his “attacking threat”. Think there was one decentish ball into the box? Lost the ball in a dangerous area and they hit the post, then all he seemed to do was run on the ball a few yards and pass backwards. For all this supposed skill he’s basically a long haired Gunter.

Nowhere near that good

[Zip]

I would rather Melvin-Lambert was now given a chance rather than persevere with Baldock. He has no attacking instinct at all which isn’t great when he’s playing the line striker role.

[Mr Optimist]

I would rather Melvin-Lambert was now given a chance rather than persevere with Baldock. He has no attacking instinct at all which isn’t great when he’s playing the line striker role.

I agree 100%.

We could’ve done with someone raw with a bit of pace up front as we were always going to be trying to hit Norwich on the break tonight. Would’ve scared the living daylights out of Grant Hanley. He looked really slow, just looked his age up and can’t believe he is still only 29, he runs like someone who is 59 and smokes 40 a day.

[Stranded]

I would rather Melvin-Lambert was now given a chance rather than persevere with Baldock. He has no attacking instinct at all which isn’t great when he’s playing the line striker role.

I agree 100%.

We could’ve done with someone raw with a bit of pace up front as we were always going to be trying to hit Norwich on the break tonight. Would’ve scared the living daylights out of Grant Hanley. He looked really slow, just looked his age up and can’t believe he is still only 29, he runs like someone who is 59 and smokes 40 a day.

To be fair, we put a pacey raw player on with 10mins to go. Unfortunately bar winning a free kick in injury time all Onen added was a yellow card.

[Hendo]

If we stood any chance tonight then Rino and Laurent were going to have to play out of their skins.Unfortunately they probably had their worst games of the season.Laurent’s lack of mobility was badly exposed by Norwich s sharp passing.Coupled with playing two inexperienced CB s in unfamiliar positions.

Are you sure you watched the game? Laurent was probably our best player tonight... also Holmes and Gibson were perfectly fine and mostly untroubled. Gibson got done by an unreal touch for the penalty that probably 90% of left backs in this league also get done for.

[Hound]

Thought Gibson and Holmes were excellent generally

Laurent - I’d agree he wasn’t quite on top form - was passed around a bit at times, and we lost control of the midfield second half. But he also did some really good stuff

[Snowflake Royal]

Side note - what does Esteves offer? Because I don’t buy his “attacking threat”. Think there was one decentish ball into the box? Lost the ball in a dangerous area and they hit the post, then all he seemed to do was run on the ball a few yards and pass backwards. For all this supposed skill he’s basically a long haired Gunter.

Nothing. I don't think I've really seen any attacking threat from him.

[Snowflake Royal]

If we stood any chance tonight then Rino and Laurent were going to have to play out of their skins.Unfortunately they probably had their worst games of the season.Laurent’s lack of mobility was badly exposed by Norwich s sharp passing.Coupled with playing two inexperienced CB s in unfamiliar positions.

Are you sure you watched the game? Laurent was probably our best player tonight... also Holmes and Gibson were perfectly fine and mostly untroubled. Gibson got done by an unreal touch for the penalty that probably 90% of left backs in this league also get done for.

Agree except Gibson didn't get done by an unreal touch he sold himself. He ran too tight wrong footing himself and over committing giving the guy a simple but not easy, touch inside into acres of space. Dreadful defending. Just took himself out the game.

Otherwise pretty good.

[Snowflake Royal]

I would rather Melvin-Lambert was now given a chance rather than persevere with Baldock. He has no attacking instinct at all which isn’t great when he’s playing the line striker role.

I agree 100%.

We could’ve done with someone raw with a bit of pace up front as we were always going to be trying to hit Norwich on the break tonight. Would’ve scared the living daylights out of Grant Hanley. He looked really slow, just looked his age up and can’t believe he is still only 29, he runs like someone who is 59 and smokes 40 a day.

To be fair, we put a pacey raw player on with 10mins to go. Unfortunately bar winning a free kick in injury time all Onen added was a yellow card.

Bit of a bizarre comment from those two seeing as Baldock was often looking to run on the shoulder but rarely got a good enough pass to do it and was mostly asked to play with back to goal against them or compete for headers with them.

He's not great but he's almost never given any service he can do anything with.

[Snowflake Royal]

I would rather Melvin-Lambert was now given a chance rather than persevere with Baldock. He has no attacking instinct at all which isn’t great when he’s playing the line striker role.

I agree 100%.

We could’ve done with someone raw with a bit of pace up front as we were always going to be trying to hit Norwich on the break tonight. Would’ve scared the living daylights out of Grant Hanley. He looked really slow, just looked his age up and can’t believe he is still only 29, he runs like someone who is 59 and smokes 40 a day.

To be fair, we put a pacey raw player on with 10mins to go. Unfortunately bar winning a free kick in injury time all Onen added was a yellow card.

Bit of a bizarre comment from those two seeing as Baldock was often looking to run on the shoulder but rarely got a good enough pass to do it and was mostly asked to play with back to goal against them or compete for headers with them.

He's not great but he's almost never given any service he can do anything with.

[Zip]

Thought Gibson and Holmes were excellent generally

Laurent - I’d agree he wasn’t quite on top form - was passed around a bit at times, and we lost control of the midfield second half. But he also did some really good stuff

Gibson’s distribution was excellent but he got beaten twice and it left us exposed. The second time the pen was the outcome.

When teams high press we have to play differently. I don’t see other teams gifting the type of goal we conceded last night when we try and pass our way upfield. I also don’t see any other teams pass back to the keeper so often. Too many times Rafael has to make a rushed clearance which ends up going high into the sky and not making much distance or going to an opposition player.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Norwich are a good blueprint to follow. The way they recruited and used the Maddison money to strengthen was excellent. We should aim to do the same with Olise.

I do think our first XI would have given them a better game, but they simply have the depth you get from several years good recruitment and development. I like to think we could do the same with Pauno (though the Dais will probably ruin it all by sacking him after a playoff loss and spunk a load of money on big name mediocrity).

You really don’t do yourself many favours wyr. The mental spending on shit players was gourlay. Our recruitment over the last couple of years has been good. And every manger change under the dais have been correct (manger incomings not so much) but I really can’t fault the dais leadership to this point.

I'm not convinced. This summer was a farce and from the outside Paunovic looked like a big gamble which has paid off, but which could easily have turned into another Gomes. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe they spent months scouting potential managers and lining up a good fit but it didn't look that way. Bowen was treated very badly after doing a decent job. I agree our owners have good intentions and back managers financially, but I do think they're impulsive and at times badly informed.

[Zip]

I agree 100%.

We could’ve done with someone raw with a bit of pace up front as we were always going to be trying to hit Norwich on the break tonight. Would’ve scared the living daylights out of Grant Hanley. He looked really slow, just looked his age up and can’t believe he is still only 29, he runs like someone who is 59 and smokes 40 a day.

To be fair, we put a pacey raw player on with 10mins to go. Unfortunately bar winning a free kick in injury time all Onen added was a yellow card.

Bit of a bizarre comment from those two seeing as Baldock was often looking to run on the shoulder but rarely got a good enough pass to do it and was mostly asked to play with back to goal against them or compete for headers with them.

He's not great but he's almost never given any service he can do anything with.

He is not good enough to play the lone striker role. He had service last night and messed it up. He was in a great position to either shoot or attack the defender on the edge of the penalty box and chose to do neither. He also managed to be flagged offside on a rare a counter attack where Norwich were stretched. He does make good runs but they take him down one side of the pitch and he hasn’t the ability to do anything with the ball than pass it back. There is then no-one in the penalty box to attack any cross so momentum is lost.

It said it all that with all our senior strikers injured Pauno didn’t want to start him. Baldock has been terrible value for money. A miserable ten goals in his time with us.