I'm in two minds after that.

On the one hand, as Common Sense Police has rightly focused on, we didn't have defensive midfielders available today. In that sense, Gary O'Neill is more culpable for the result than anyone else. If he hadn't been sent off at Stoke, we'd surely not have lost today.

Plus, well, we looked good going forward. Really good, with Naismith slotting in lovely and Mbokani going from strength to strength. But...

... It's like when we strengthen offensively, we're automatically weaker at the back. That balance we had between Swansea (h) and Southampton (h)? It's gone. We look horribly soft-centred again.

I'm actually delighted to see so many Wrathers so angry at what happened. It'd be so easy to say we were playing Liverpool, we scored 4 goals, it was a wildly entertaining game... but it's s**t losing like that. It's awful. The fourth and fifth goals were horrific. It's a little glimpse of the default Norwich I railed against under Neil Adams.

But it's not even today that worries me as much as:

1. According to the BBC, in the final half hour of games, Norwich have conceded 6 goals more than any other side in the league

2. We have the second worst defensive record in the division

3. Those stats SCC was posting last week about us doing so much less running than anyone else

I don't know why that is - is it our fitness? If so, why? - but it's a real cause for concern. At Stoke, even allowing for us being down to 10 men, I thought we looked totally out on our feet near the end... and it was only January. And when a side is physically tired, it makes mental mistakes, as we did today.

We've got to get defensive cover in by the end of the window. DEFENSIVE cover - not players like Pinto who are great going forward but will take ages to get up to speed at the back. If we don't, we'll just beat ourselves and go down - and what an absolute crying shame it'd be if we do.

The manager will know what the problems are. He'll be worried too. But can we fix them?

Posted By: thebigfeller, Jan 23, 19:05:12