I don’t know about you but I sometimes despair at certain sections of our fanbase. They love a scapegoat, don’t they? Someone to moan at, someone to seemingly blame every single problem at. If I’m honest, it’s maddening at times and it’s nothing new.
If I cast my mind back, there have been loads of them. Players who have come to the club and been given little or no time to bed in before being rubbished by certain people, slowly building up a head of steam. The bizarre thing for me is that this has been going on for a long time, decades, at least in my watching lifetime. Anyone else remember Gary Doherty once being booed onto the pitch as a substitute?
Scratching my head a little I can immediately think of Carl Robinson, Andy Hughes, Gary Doherty and more recently, Marco Stiepermann and Mario Vrancic. Yes, the same Mario Vrancic who has been on the lips of every fickle supporter since he scored all those goals in the 2018-19 Championship campaign and now, it’s Lukas Rupp’s turn in the barrel.
Or at least it was until the start of this season, when Daniel Farke started playing him in his natural position of central midfield.
If we consider the situation in which Rupp arrived in Norfolk, it wasn’t an easy time for the club. Stuart Webber paid Hoffenheim £500k for a player with huge Bundesliga experience last January when the Canaries were starting to struggle in the Premier League. In all honesty, could anybody expect that a player in that situation, moving from another country, having to get used to all the new surroundings, new team mates and club, the culture shock, the food etc, be the miracle to keep us up?
Not really.
If we use Mario Vrancic as a similar example, it took almost a full season before he got used to the physicality of the English Championship. There was an outpouring of exasperation and in some cases, abuse directed at the now recognised, stylish midfielder with one prominent Norwich supporter on Twitter, and this sticks in my mind, saying he should never play for Norwich again after a rather abject performance.
I think that his development since has shown how it can take some players, especially foreign players a little while to bed in. Marco Stiepermann is another example of that when he was used at left back instead of his favoured attacking midfield position in 2018-19 up until Christmas. We all knew he was a left-footed midfielder when he signed but plenty of us “forgot” that, when he was asked to do a job at left-back when Farke realised that Webber had been “sold a pup” in the form of James Husband by Middlesbrough.
The good form of Alex Tettey last season, as well as perhaps a dip in attitude by Emi Buendia saw Farke employ his new German midfielder, Lukas Rupp on the right of the three attackers behind Teemu Pukki. I could see that he wasn’t a right winger and I also knew he’d played most of his career in Germany as a central midfielder and lo and behold, he wasn’t brilliant there.
Quelle Surprise.
Rupp can also play at right back, apparently, but he’s not a specialist so let’s hope he doesn’t have to play there. Putting square pegs in round holes is not a good long term strategy for a football coach. Alex Neil playing Steven Whittaker in midfield against Brentford, anyone?
Whittaker was a specialist right-back and he showed that when Neil’s team went on that run to the play-off final in 2015.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that some players can take time to bed in and even more so if they are played out of position upon their arrival at their new club, like Lukas Rupp.
Lukas Rupp completed 36 more passes tonight than the four players who started in Brimingham's midfield did between them #ncfc 🔰
— NCFC Numbers (@ncfcnumbers) October 20, 2020
The last three games that I have seen him play for Norwich, he has ben excellent. He’s been breaking up play, setting up attacks and pinging the ball about all over the pitch. He also won the ball from Scott Hogan on Tuesday night that started the move in which Vrancic scored the winner against Birmingham. I know it’s only three games and I know that I could be jumping the gun here, but to me, Lukas Rupp has been great since he was played in his preferred position.
I’m sure you, the cultured, experienced, football watching readers of Vital Norwich can see that the same as I can. It’s just those others we need to change the minds of.
OTBC