Steve Morison

[The Great Mass Debater]

Saw some stats from one game and found myself wanting to watch Steve Morison's Norwich goals again to see how good they were. Youtube was not really obliging, but during my search I read this comment from April 2015:

'I've never known anything like it in football and I've played for teams scrapping for their lives - Millwall last year - and teams that have been promoted. I've played in the Premier League with a bunch of Championship players that should never have stayed up and the one thing we had ultimately was a team and team spirit.
'Sometimes you can get away with being very, very average - I would class myself as an average footballer - but I've had a team around me and it works.'
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3046059/Leeds-United-striker-Steve-Morrison-left-bemused-latest-chaos-Elland-Road.html
 
 
What do people think of his comments (he's clearly talking about us)? Fair assessment, or is he being a little denigrating?

 

[KeiranShikari]

I agree with him. Team spirit, momentum and a quality manager took that squad to 12th in the Premier League. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011–12_Norwich_City_F.C._season#Current_squad

How many from 11/12 squad would get into our team now?

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Yes, I suppose the team he was talking about were essentially championship players. Not sure I'd agree with the 'should never have stayed up' comment though. I agree if you're looking at the players purely in terms of quality and cost, but players dont play on paper, they play on grass and actually we stayed up pretty comfortably that season, as Lambert had a team, not just a bunch of players, and they were very effective at what they did in the way the manager played them.

Maybe thats exactly his point, I dont know why Im taking offence at it, just think that team more than proved itself and found it a bit disappointing. Probably just over-sensitive!

 

[KeiranShikari]

He agrees with you, he's saying that despite not having the best team on paper they made up for it with team spirit. Certainly not a dig at the club, although I do feel he's entitled to one the way some of the fans treated him. 

I did feel we were running on momentum that season, would have been interesting to see what Lambert would have done had he stayed. Think it would have been a real struggle 2nd time around.

Looking forward for next season. Good squad in a good mood.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Lambert certainly changed his approach with Villa - maybe thats what led to his ultimate downfall as he stopped being what had attracted Villa to him. Whether he'd have made the same change in approach with us is something Id really like to know

 

[Din]

Have to say I always felt a degree of sympathy with Morison. Yes with the exception of his first 6 months or so here he was pretty poor on the whole. Didn't have a particularly good work rate, and in the second season he really struggled for goals. But I think a lot of our fans forgot how good he was in the first half of his first season here. He consistantly scored goals and for that reason he kept Holty out of the team for quite a while. The only reason he lost his place was because Holt found some great form, and Morison was just unlucky that Holt was coming off the bench and scoring practically every game, and Lambert had no real choice but to drop him.

I agree with his comments there as well. It's important to remember that at the start of that season, players like Pilkington and Elliott Bennett had never even played in the Championship before, let alone the Premier League, and a lot of the others (Crofts, Ruddy, Fox, R.Martin, Jackson, Tierney) had only ever spent 1 season in the Championship before, which was the season before with us. On paper our squad was a lot weaker than the vast majority of teams, and yet we still managed to finish 12th, and as Morison said, that was largely down to the togetherness we had in that squad.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

I suppose what stuck in my craw was the suggestion that these players were only ever championship standard, bit unfair and dismissive - I thought they deserved a bit better than that. Yes some disappeared, but they earned the right to be there and proved themselves at Premiership level

 

[Scott]

I'll always remember that goal against Arsenal, he had been *bleep* before that for the majority of the season and christ, he went nuts when he buried that.