Norwood's defensive capabilites

[sitwell]

That's not my point. If you put it into perspective, the livepool and city game we played with Ampadu and conceded 2 goals. 2 GOALS against last years powerhouses. Then we start with Norwood and concede 4 goals. Now obviously not all them goals are down to Norwood but all your looking at are the stats. I'm not here to say if Norwood is good/bad/dropped ect. I'm here to say the thing I've noticed about him. This isn't a forum to say which CDM is better, it's a forum to say what've i seen about him. If you can't accept the fact that Norwood lacks something, then take your argumentative comments and shove em in some other forum where they're discussing the lineup of the midfield

Norwood gets blamed for 4 goals ,he wasnt even on the fucking pitch for 2 of them
So when someone thinks your wrong they are argumentative , maybe its your views that need shoving ?

 

[sitwell]

Norwood has scored one goal ( a penalty ) and provided one assist in his 43 premiership appearances.
The team have scored minimal goals no matter who is playing in centre midfield, I just feel that he is too much of a luxury player to be played at the moment.

Coutts didnt score or assist either ,they are not that player ,they are the player that starts moves and keeps the ball moving ,Berge doesnt score or assist either ,are you saying you would pick Lundstram in front of them ?

 

[Swannyblade]

If we had a full squad to choose from, complete with overlapping centrebacks and a fully fit Moose up top to provide the x-factor, then I think we could get away with playing a more defensive CM option in Amps/Berge. However with very little creativity in the side, it's a simple choice for me from the following two options:

1) Play Ampadu/Berge in CM in an effort to contain the opposition. Sacrifice any chance of controlling the midfield or playing the attractive style of play we have become accustomed to during recent seasons. In all likelihood we lose by a narrow margin, but maybe we scrape a draw by winning a penalty/scoring out of nothing.​

2) Play Norwood in CM in an effort to impose our play on the opposition and attempt to control and win a game. Runs the risk of being exposed due to defensive shortcomings, but gives us the best chance of winning a game. Also allows Berge to play on the right where he has looked more effective/dangerous. Gives our strikers a better chance of netting and building confidence.​

​

 

[bertieblade]

Let’s agree to disagree.
At the moment the TEAM are not performing, I.e. not scoring enough and conceding too many.
I feel that Norwood does not offer enough to protect our defence and is at the moment at fault in our offensive play.
You think differently, fair enough

 

[GeorgeLColdwell]

Norwood gets blamed for 4 goals ,he wasnt even on the fucking pitch for 2 of them
So when someone thinks your wrong they are argumentative , maybe its your views that need shoving ?

I dont blame Norwood for the 4 goals. I was basically saying how ridiculous it is to call berge out for the team not scoring. Your looking at the stats and this isn't a forum that compares midfielders or stats. Its a forum to say Norwood is defensively poor

 

[sitwell]

Let’s agree to disagree.
At the moment the TEAM are not performing, I.e. not scoring enough and conceding too many.
I feel that Norwood does not offer enough to protect our defence and is at the moment at fault in our offensive play.
You think differently, fair enough

But hes only played one game

 

[GeorgeLColdwell]

But hes only played one game

He started against Wolves and Fulham

 

[Lane Ender]

Ampadu and Berge have both played there and give us absolutely nothing going forward. Ampadu covered well ,I think Berge is very poor at it. We have offered nothing attacking wise when either play in that position either from through balls or using the wing backs. Now we have been playing the likes of Liverpool and Man City ,but against the likes of West ham or WBA we will have no chance if either of those 2 play there. Just look at the results ,we have never won when Norwood hasnt started and look how we completely fell apart when he came off at Chelsea. He is much better with Berge and Fleck to the side of him ,but he should be starting every game there.

Berge offers nothing going forward ? He’s the only one that does.

 

[sitwell]

He started against Wolves and Fulham

His only full game is Fulham

 

[Lane Ender]

Norwood has scored one goal ( a penalty ) and provided one assist in his 43 premiership appearances.
The team have scored minimal goals no matter who is playing in centre midfield, I just feel that he is too much of a luxury player to be played at the moment.

He is a luxury of a shadow of last season as is Stevens , Fleck and Lundstram (who needs drumming out of the Lane)

 

[sitwell]

Berge offers nothing going forward ? He’s the only one that does.

In 22 games ,2 goals (one pen), 2 assists, 4 shots on target. Not that Im bothered about that because like Norwood he isnt that player and stats are misleading ( he has an assist for the goal on Saturday for his mishit shot) but to say he is the only one offering anything going forward is bonkers.

 

[Lane Ender]

Norwood unfortunately leaves himself open to criticism.

He sits too deep

He is slow

He rarely plays a defence splitting ball as most of his passes go wide to wingbacks who by their nature at the moment recycle it until he gets it back

He loses his man too frequently

He gives the ball away in dangerous positions

When he is on his game he still requires someone to cover the man he has lost and rarely makes a tackle.

Rarely misses the first man when taking a corner

He is a good player when we are playing well as it gives him more time on the ball but unfortunately at the moment he is a liability

Decent summary

 

[sitwell]

He is a luxury of a shadow of last season as is Stevens , Fleck and Lundstram (who needs drumming out of the Lane)

Exactly what are you judging Fleck and Norwood on ?

 

[Lane Ender]

In 22 games ,2 goals (one pen), 2 assists, 4 shots on target. Not that Im bothered about that because like Norwood he isnt that player and stats are misleading ( he has an assist for the goal on Saturday for his mishit shot) but to say he is the only one offering anything going forward is bonkers.

I’m saying he’s the only midfielder who’s performing at the moment

 

[Lane Ender]

Exactly what are you judging Fleck and Norwood on ?

You can’t go missing in this league you’ve got to be 100%
When we were playing up tempo stuff last season they both put there two peneth in both go missing too much for me.
Lundstram I think we agree

 

[sitwell]

You can’t go missing in this league you’ve got to be 100%
When we were playing up tempo stuff last season they both put there two peneth in both go missing too much for me.
Lundstram I think we agree

Berge has altered our tempo ,he doesnt play at the tempo we need. You dont think he goes missing ? Norwood continually looks for the ball even when things arent going his way.
Do you think Berge performed on saturday ? I think for over 20 million he is massively under performing.

 

[Barney]

Norwood unfortunately leaves himself open to criticism.

He sits too deep

He is slow

He rarely plays a defence splitting ball as most of his passes go wide to wingbacks who by their nature at the moment recycle it until he gets it back

He loses his man too frequently

He gives the ball away in dangerous positions

When he is on his game he still requires someone to cover the man he has lost and rarely makes a tackle.

Rarely misses the first man when taking a corner

He is a good player when we are playing well as it gives him more time on the ball but unfortunately at the moment he is a liability

And if anyone wants to talk about his 'attacking' or 'creative passing' side of the game, have a guess how many through balls he played last season.

Spoiler: Answer

One

Source: https://www.premierleague.com/players/3924/Oliver-Norwood/stats

 

[Balham]

Berge offers nothing going forward ? He’s the only one that does.

To back up your point, Sheffield United PL goals this season:
McGoldrick 2
Berge 1
Sharp 1

And Sheffield United PL assists this season:
Baldock 1
Berge 1

Spot who's on both lists. Offers nothing going forwards

 

[Lane Ender]

Berge has altered our tempo ,he doesnt play at the tempo we need. You dont think he goes missing ? Norwood continually looks for the ball even when things arent going his way.
Do you think Berge performed on saturday ? I think for over 20 million he is massively under performing.

He’s well capable at playing at our tempo of last season he’s quality pity about the other signings.
Under performing no way apart from Ramsdale,Egan,Bash and Berge where do we start

 

[sitwell]

To back up your point, Sheffield United PL goals this season:
McGoldrick 2
Berge 1
Sharp 1

And Sheffield United PL assists this season:
Baldock 1
Berge 1

Spot who's on both lists. Offers nothing going forwards

Penalty goal
Mishit shot against Chelsea ,made by Baldock and Norwood.

 

[Barney]

To back up your point, Sheffield United PL goals this season:
McGoldrick 2
Berge 1
Sharp 1

And Sheffield United PL assists this season:
Baldock 1
Berge 1

Spot who's on both lists. Offers nothing going forwards

The goal was a penalty. I agree with Sitters that the majority seem to over rate Berge by quite a bit.

He has not done anything noteworthy in a United shirt so far, barring the one-off vs Spurs.

Last season he was playing timidly, not really getting that involved in the games he played.

He looked more confident this pre-season but again (partly due to the rest of the team) hasn't had much of an impact.

So far he has not shown a great deal that says he was worth £23m.

 

[Swannyblade]

If we're all honest our problems are not down to under-performing individuals, they are due to the absence of the overloads we create down the flanks. We've never attacked through the middle, Norwood's role was always to show for the ball and keep possession and transition the play from defence to attack (usually with diagonals out to the wingbacks or recycling the ball with the LM/RM). At present we don't pose any threat down the left, so if the opposition shuts down our right hand side they nullify our attack.

 

[sitwell]

And if anyone wants to talk about his 'attacking' or 'creative passing' side of the game, have a guess how many through balls he played last season.

Spoiler: Answer

One

Source: https://www.premierleague.com/players/3924/Oliver-Norwood/stats

His game , like Coutts ,Macdonald Berge is not about through balls and its not the way we play anyway. We were successful because he supplied the wingbacks who created, same as Coutts. That unfortunately has dried up since Berge came.

 

[Trafford]

The photo illustrates so many things that we are doing poorly at the moment:-

• Lowe is telling Lundstram to pick up the ball player, despite having no man of his own to mark and the fact that this will leave 24 free
• Stevens is ball-watching and consequently wrong-footed against 17
• Egan is marking 9 but opts to close 17 down, not realising that Basham is goal-side of him, which leaves 9 free to score
• Norwood is ball-watching
• Berge is ball-watching
• The nearest Chelsea player also appears to be instructing a wider player to create an overload, which Berge is unaware of because he doesn’t know who is behind him

Returning to the OP, Norwood is very poor at picking players up, he regularly lets them run past him without reacting until it is too late, and Berge does likewise. That’s why I don’t think that they can both play together.

 

[Balham]

View attachment 97706

The photo illustrates so many things that we are doing poorly at the moment:-

• Lowe is telling Lundstram to pick up the ball player, despite having no man of his own to mark and the fact that this will leave 24 free
• Stevens is ball-watching and consequently wrong-footed against 17
• Egan is marking 9 but opts to close 17 down, not realising that Basham is goal-side of him, which leaves 9 free to score
• Norwood is ball-watching
• Berge is ball-watching
• The nearest Chelsea player also appears to be instructing a wider player to create an overload, which Berge is unaware of because he doesn’t know who is behind him

Returning to the OP, Norwood is very poor at picking players up, he regularly lets them run past him without reacting until it is too late, and Berge does likewise. That’s why I don’t think that they can both play together.

Good points raised Trafford but I see a couple of small differences.

#17 is Kovacic, a central midfielder. His run should have been tracked by Lundstram and passed to Stevens. You can't blame Egan for trying to close Kovacic down once he gets on the end of Ziyech's through ball - the alternative is to leave Kovacic free in our area.

#24, also free, is Reece James. He's come infield and disrupted our marking patterns.

Mount (#19) makes a great run ending up on the goalline/six yard box junction. He drags Basham out of position and in doing so leaves Abraham free.

You're right, Lowe should be touch tight to Ziyech but equally Brewster should be closer give how far up the pitch Ziyech is.

In an ideal scenario, I'd have Brewster shutting Ziyech down, Lundstram picking up James leaving Lowe and Stevens to sort out the ball over the top.

Neither Berge or Norwood are defensively good enough and this picture is a perfect demonstration of that. They're both marking space which is fine if we've got the ball but we haven't and they're also far too far up the pitch given the situation.

In conclusion, Alan Knill has his work cut out.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

Norwood unfortunately leaves himself open to criticism.

He sits too deep

He is slow

He rarely plays a defence splitting ball as most of his passes go wide to wingbacks who by their nature at the moment recycle it until he gets it back

He loses his man too frequently

He gives the ball away in dangerous positions

When he is on his game he still requires someone to cover the man he has lost and rarely makes a tackle.

Rarely misses the first man when taking a corner

He is a good player when we are playing well as it gives him more time on the ball but unfortunately at the moment he is a liability

Must say, you touch on most of my own thoughts on Norwood with this post. However, I would disagree with your later thoughts that we look better when Berge plays there.

I think I've only seen him play well for one half of football (Southampton away) in that position, the rest of the time he's struggled.

Unless Ampadu is really showing things in training then I think Norwood is our best option in there for now.

 

[robbiez666]

One of the things we've been poor at this year is concentration. Stevens, in particular, but Norwood is also dodgy at it. We've not been on it mentally or physically. Every second counts at this level and we're all too often behind an opponent. The last Chelsea goal was an obvious example. The two quickest to react were their players. It's really hard to maintain against a team like Chelsea.

As for Norwood, I think the fact Wilder brought Berge in to replace him says it all. He seems to have lost a but of pace since the start of last season and has become a bit sloppy. We is our best distributor of the ball though but if we're boing to play him we need to play two holding midfielders. Let him 'quarterback' and let Ampadu do the running and tracking.

 

[GeorgeLColdwell]

Good points raised Trafford but I see a couple of small differences.

#17 is Kovacic, a central midfielder. His run should have been tracked by Lundstram and passed to Stevens. You can't blame Egan for trying to close Kovacic down once he gets on the end of Ziyech's through ball - the alternative is to leave Kovacic free in our area.

#24, also free, is Reece James. He's come infield and disrupted our marking patterns.

Mount (#19) makes a great run ending up on the goalline/six yard box junction. He drags Basham out of position and in doing so leaves Abraham free.

You're right, Lowe should be touch tight to Ziyech but equally Brewster should be closer give how far up the pitch Ziyech is.

In an ideal scenario, I'd have Brewster shutting Ziyech down, Lundstram picking up James leaving Lowe and Stevens to sort out the ball over the top.

Neither Berge or Norwood are defensively good enough and this picture is a perfect demonstration of that. They're both marking space which is fine if we've got the ball but we haven't and they're also far too far up the pitch given the situation.

In conclusion, Alan Knill has his work cut out.

I understand what your saying but the way the system plays is that the 2 strikers mark out the ball inside and the outside midfielder goes to the fullbacks while cutting the ball inside. Its not ideal because it creates space for the opposition inside and Chelsea exploited it, but thats why Lundstram doesn't track the kovacic run, understand your point tho

 

[CornwallBlade]

9th in the league says he is , why arent people looking at Berges contribution ? He is offering far less at both ends. Not saying he houldnt be playing or he isnt a decent player but he isnt doing it and our results are the proof. Norwood was by far our best midfielder at Chelsea but seems to be the scapegoat ,if Norwood didnt make the pass of the game we dont score but that gets overlooked. I would definitely be planning our team around him rather than berge or Lundstram.

For me, it would be helpful to stop all references to Lundstram in the context of options. He’s off ASAP, clearly doesn’t want to be here or play for us with anything more than token effort. I’m firmly in the CW must stay no matter what camp but I am totally baffled by his continued selection of the mardy git. UTB

 

[sitwell]

View attachment 97706

The photo illustrates so many things that we are doing poorly at the moment:-

• Lowe is telling Lundstram to pick up the ball player, despite having no man of his own to mark and the fact that this will leave 24 free
• Stevens is ball-watching and consequently wrong-footed against 17
• Egan is marking 9 but opts to close 17 down, not realising that Basham is goal-side of him, which leaves 9 free to score
• Norwood is ball-watching
• Berge is ball-watching
• The nearest Chelsea player also appears to be instructing a wider player to create an overload, which Berge is unaware of because he doesn’t know who is behind him

Returning to the OP, Norwood is very poor at picking players up, he regularly lets them run past him without reacting until it is too late, and Berge does likewise. That’s why I don’t think that they can both play together.

You do realise that Baldock is just out of the frame ?