I’ve watched our last two home games and we are not a form team and today’s game against Birmingham was further proof. Magazines can print what they like and you can quote whatever data you like but anybody watching today’s performance must wonder how we made the play offs.
In the off season it’ll be interesting to see if bids come in for Sara, Sargent or Barnes.
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Barnes for Wrexham?
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On the upside you’ve got Abu Kamara back from my lot. He’s been brilliant for Pompey, especially when playing right wing, and looks like he’ll just get better and better.
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Any relation to Chris?
If history is anything to go by, & your assessment is correct, we will doubtless sell him over the summer.
I don’t think so, @suzywong. That said ‘Kammy’ was presented to the crowd before a game recently and got a fabulous reception from all sides of the ground which I think really touched him.
I would have seen him play at FP. In ye olden days, I was a ST holder up the road at “the scummers”, but lived in Southsea/Milton (‘75-84) and went to FP as often as not.
We were probably in the ground at the same time on many occasions then @suzywong. I grew up in Milton and lived there until the early eighties. Happy days leaving Fratton Park after the game on Saturday’s and getting home in time for Sports Report on the radio.
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He came on as a sub once or twice near the end of last season. His movement looked good and I thought he’d be our next graduate to the first team. Pleased his loan was so successful.
“Form” is about results not performances. The D in form tables is not for “Dull” just as the “W” ain’t for wonderful. No one gives a damn about performances in the latter stages of a season. Results are all that matter. If you lose in the semi but play brilliantly no-one will either remember or care.
Our form to Christmas was decent. 2 unbeaten runs of note. Literally the ine decebt performance away at Notts County. Form fell off a cliff in January and February. February to May we lost at least a game a month. We won promotion on the back of a grand total of arguably 9 great performances but 36 points scoring games.
Not sure what magazines have to do with my post. The accepted span for the form tables is 6 games. Has been for 30 years or so now. NLP uae it. That’s a newspaper not a magazine. FLP do also. BBC show the last 5 only because 6 screws with page formatting (I asked). Footystats use 5/6/10. By all 3 measures you are the form team.
Saying I can quote what data I like as though I’m somehow choosing an obscure data set rather than the only data set - your teams results - is edgong towards parody. Quote me some other data I should use to ascertain form. There’s none I’m aware of.
Anyone else going to argue that any of the first 3 teams below are the form team?
You play 4-2-3-1 with Barnes in the 3. We play 3-5-2. Within our 5 we have a central 3 and where Barnes would play we have Andy Cannon. 7 years younger; faster; lighter on his feet. Whilst Barnes has 1 more assist than Cannon I doubt we’ll be exchanging for an older model any time soon. Barnes also has more than double the assists than Sarjent and a 2 year contract on the basis that if you go up he’ll be largely benched but a useful player to have around the squad and if you stay down he’ll remain the glue as Wagner bloods a couple more youngsters.
With a DDL I’m afraid our form has dropped off badly. More worrying two of those games were at home and we were played off the park by teams lower down in the league. When looking at form it pays to look at the performances behind the results for a truer picture.
As to Wagner blooding youngsters you must be joking. The only one he’s played this year is Fisher who played well at Sunderland and hasn’t been seen since.
Rowe was playing before Wagner arrived. When it comes to developing youth Wagner’s record is poor. In fact there are strong rumours that one or two of our promising academy players are looking elsewhere.
Sargent averages 0.75 goals every 90 minutes compared to Barnes 0.23. I’m happy with three times as many goals and half the assists compared to Barnes.
@JohnF let’s stick with facts.
You got good draws against teams renowned for possession football, so, games in which you would expect to have less possession and chances. You lost to a team fighting for their lives who, fortunately, fell short. Take a look at the results in the rest of the EFL and you will see literally loads of good teams in decent form who also struggled to beat or lost to teams fighting for their lives. There is no world in which successful teams always beat teams who are worse than them on paper. It doesn’t happen.
You got results without a player whose contribution you refuse to acknowledge but see nothing but negatives. All season you’ve seen nothing but tears around the corner. There doesn’t appear to be any aspect of Norwich City you’ve enjoyed other than what you perceive to be glorious failure twice in the EPL and, in the grand tradition of football paranoia, that was anyone’s fault except the manager. Please don’t bother answering this point. You’ve told us endlessly whose fault it was.
As your own manager says in todays FLP
“I would say I have learned that the opposite counts - momentum does not count. I think we won only 2 of our past 8 games at Huddersfield… and being favourites does not count… It’s a new competition and everyone has a 25% chance of success”.
His stats are well dodgy on the latter point but his general points hold true. Teams in poor form often get promoted so, even if you were correct, you have little to be concerned about.
Perhaps you’d also stop commenting on my posts, many of which are meant to be light hearted.
It’s a bit like watching Saints….you gotta have a sense of humour!
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I had no great expectations yesterday. The only thing I really wanted was a clean sheet - that’s what our successful run was built on and it’s what we’ve lost since the international break. Sadly we couldn’t manage that. Saints second goal summed up everything wrong with our performance yesterday & since the break.
We have zero creativity in midfield, there’s no point trying to put it there because we don’t have a single player with the required skills. So we need to get back to controlling the game, keeping shape, sitting deepish when required with the odd press at the right time and leave it to our front 4 as we’ve done all season. Next season we must start with a balanced squad. If we start with Bamford as our 1st choice number 9 & no ball carrying/goal scoring mid we’ll know we’re still rebuilding.
For the play offs we have to rely on our 604 formation & introduce 1 simple change - shoot on sight rather than rinky dinky all the way through to goal. I don’t mind being bored to death for 3 games. If we score first we won’t be as the low block (horrible term which sounds like something from the NFL) boys will come out and play.
Yet again, our defence was at its porous best yesterday. 
Too many players not seeing the runs of opposition forwards, and too many looking at each other rather than moving to cover the danger.
Something has gone badly wrong of late, and we don’t seem to be finding any answers.
M.O.T.
Absolute disaster! I was going to order our replay tickets when my wife says “confession time,” I’ve arranged for a family gathering and the grandchildren are coming to stay on the same day.
Pleased to say they all want to watch it on tv.
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We need an enforcer. We’re too nice. Every team kicks us up in the air. Referees offer little or no protection. Saints should have been down to 10 yesterday. We need to fight back.