Bradley Johnson - are we contractually obliged to start him?

[Dcfc10]

Dont matter about is reputation its wot he's doing now. To many bad games to be having a bad spell he cant control and passing are s... he in the championship ffs and he looks the worst player on pitch most games and thats on both sides.

[Duracell]

52 minutes ago, Inglorius said:

Did he run over your cat or something 

That was him? It gets worse!

[RadioactiveWaste]

Are we contractually obliged to criticise him? Is it in the forum small print? Even if not, he is deserving on current form. There's championship sides he'd be great for, I love his character in interviews and seems a good egg, but he's really not doing it in the side at the moment.

[jagerbob]

As crap as you feel he is... he isnt the reason we are losing matches!

There are far more guilty parties than Johnson, that rams fans dont see with their rose tinted glasses on.

[Sparkle]

4 hours ago, Duracell said:

I think it's painfully obvious to anyone who has been watching us over the past few months that Bradley Johnson is completely the wrong type of player for the way we want to play, and is horribly out of form.

His passing is slow, and often inaccurate. He slows play down too much when we play him centrally, and can't dribble well enough or beat his man often enough to justify playing wide left.

If we signed him for £500k from a lower league side (and from what I've seen of him, there is NOTHING he offers that we couldn't find in League One for that fee), then would he still be in the team?

The whole Johnson transfer was such a farce. Morris almost seemed to suggest we signed him because we could, saying it was too good an opportunity to turn down. It's like going out and compulsively buying a new piece of furniture, and then thinking about how it will fit in your home once you've driven it back.

Except with this piece of furniture, 6 months on and we still haven't decided where to put it.

In our haste, did we just sign any old contract to get our man? The whole thing from start to finish seemed to take just a matter of hours, including the fact that BJ couldn't even get our name right. From what I can tell, he was happy at Norwich as well.

All that and the ridiculous fee makes me wonder, did the reluctant Johnson ask for some sort of clause in his contract that he had to start games when fit? Is this possible? Because other than political pressure to start him due to his fee, I cannot think of a single reason why he would currently be in the team.

Every time I think about him, I want to bang my head against the wall. Mel Morris sacked a manager for not abiding by the Derby Way, but was all too happy to break our transfer record and take the credit for splashing out on possibly the most un-Derby-Way player you could find for £6,000,000. The lad can't play in a position that exists in our team ffs!!! And there was NO EVDIDENCE that he ever could!!!!!!!! eofhweoijdfw[oaijdowkojwkjewjj!!!

When he signed I was hoping for a Robin Van Der Laan effect from him but that has not materialised has it, I didn't expect it to in reality as I had seen him in the flesh playing for Leeds many times and I wasn't impressed.

[Rev]

3 hours ago, Duracell said:

That was him? It gets worse!

Trouble is, it was your dog he was aiming for.

[toddy]

Duracell, who definitely need to change your batteries.

[Gritstone Ram]

5 hours ago, Duracell said:

Disagree, I think he always gives his best. Which in some way is worse. £6,000,000 for a huffer and puffer.

Could've bought 17.1429 Ben Davies for that money. What does Bradley Johnson do that Ben Davies couldn't? Ben Davies arguably had more quality, especially in dead ball situations.

Well I think Bradley Johnson is better than Ben Davies. Even 17 Ben Davies's ffs you can only play 11 unless it's Shaun Barker's testimonial. 

[G-Ram]

I just dont think he's playing in the right position. He's not a forward/ winger and thats what the left sided player up top in a 433 should be in my opinion. 

I see him more of a big lump that should be breaking up play and trying to pass forward or bomb into the box and get on the end of something. Whenever ive seen him play his running about and being a nuisance trying to break up play seems like the best part of his game. I thought he'd be given a robbie savage type role but with more ability rather than the role wassalls asking him to play. 

Johnson is taking up a position ince is better in (less effective on the right) and hansons playing out of position at rb. Might aswell try bucko as a CF next   

[m5912]

I have it on very good authority, a personal friend of Johnson's that there is a part of his contract stating a guarantee that Bradley Johnson must get at least a booking in every match for a needless foul.

 

#itk

[Duracell]

I have never singled out a player for criticism above all others before, so I hate doing this. I'm not a particularly critical fan either, and I'm far more likely to challenge the manager or coach before the team.

But let me be clear. I have said this on the podcast before, but I'm happy to say it again. If we keep starting Bradley Johnson, we will not finish in the play-offs.

He is not the ONLY reason we are dropping points, but when you're playing with 10 men in every game, it really doesn't help. We can't pretend to be a passing team and then play a player in such a vital position who cannot pass. It's not the end of the world that Shackell is a bit slow on the ball; but it is when it comes to Johnson.

[SIWY]

When we signed Johnson and he played his first few games for us I thought it was a great signing. In fact I thought he was the missing piece of the jigsaw to what we had been missing in previous seasons to gain promotion; someone with a bit of bite in centre mid to take the game by the scruff of the neck and help us win the battle in midfield. For 10 games or so he was great, then it all went down hill...

I'm not in the camp of those saying there's not a future for Johnson at Derby because I think there is. Personally I think he's in a spell of very bad form with very low confidence. I don't think it's possible that a player who scored 15 goals last season and many people thought was the Division's Player of the Season has become bad as if by magic.

There are two reasons I think this could have happened:

1) He doesn't suit our formation. As a left winger I would agree with this as I don't think he has enough pace to play there, however in a 442 on the left he looks decent (as seen away at Brentford)

2) Clement tried to turn him in to a player he's not and he hasn't yet recovered. Personally I think Clement tried to make players in to the players he wanted them to be and not the players they were. For example, he wanted Ince to be a disciplined winger who would track back etc... but had very little freedom. Another example is Martin who, as we all know, plays best when dropping deep and connecting the play with the midfield, however Clement wanted him to play high up the pitch on the defenders' shoulders.

The way I see it Clement tried to suck the life out of all of our team and Johnson may have been a victim of this. It's taken a while for Ince and Martin to find their former selves again but I think they've done it, both have probably been our two best players in recent weeks. Maybe Johnson just has to find his former self again but is taking longer than Ince and Martin.

I really hope we don't get rid of Johnson just yet. As bad as he may be playing at the moment I still think he has a lot to offer to this club. I will give my judgement on him next season because this season has been a write-off in so many forms.

[irobinson]

never heard of a contractual commitment

just give the guy a rest, it ain't working (and won't be helped by crucifying him) - change it for Tuesday - go with Camara

Also

Bucko for Shacks, Cyrus for Hansen

[RadioactiveWaste]

I do think Hanson won the shirt v Forest but probably lost it again v Cardiff. He wasn't terrible but Christie could've perhaps offered some threat down the right. Hanson's crossing was awful to boot.

I'd either drop Johnson and play Ince left JR right, or give Camara a chance. If we still must start johnson at least play him with Thorne and Bryson in midfield.

Thorne doesn't seem fit. I think he had the ol bicycle shorts on under his kit yesterday. If Thorne isn't fit, rest him and play Hanson there.

 

 

[loughboroughRAM]

his early performances for us suggested he was well worth the money we paid, but agree that somehow its taken an unceremonious nose dive. Hoping that he can turn it around as I do seriously believe he has certain attributes which can make him a colossus as we initially saw

[Sparkle]

Earlier in the season teams seemed to be afraid of us and we're not very adventurous hence the amount of draws or sneaky wins by us, this not now the case Birmingham city blew us out of the water and every team can see people are not good enough in certain positions and Johnson is an example of that, he may improve but he is no world beater.

[StockholmRam]

18 hours ago, Ramarena said:

Or did we sign a good player, who does not suit our system/style?

Right now he looks so poor. Struggling to make simple effective passes. All positivity from earlier in the season eroded from his game. I'm sure some players suffer when the coach or manager signs them gets fired which could be the case with BJ...

As I've said earlier I never rated him as highly as some even when he played at Leeds and Norwich. My thoughts always when watching those teams was that Howson, Snodgrass, Hoolahan were better players than him... But even so, I wouldn't have called him " woeful" then, far from it.. So something's going on with him. I hope he finds an upturn in form soon. 

[cannable]

Bradley Johnson was like Marmite: rubbish at passing. But even his detractors will have felt something shift at Norwich when his departure was announced. Dan Brigham salutes a very human hero

Ninety-eight days. That’s how long it took for puncture wounds to appear in the happy bubble that had looped over Norwich since the Play-off final win.

Norwich’s lack of signings on Transfer Deadline Day was met with a grumble, but that grumble turned into roaring anger when the news broke that player of the season and former top-knot hero Bradley Johnson had left to join Derby County. It’s like those scenes in a movie where the narrative shifts completely and no one has any idea what the hell is going on. Brad Pitt is Ed Norton? He sees dead people? Bradley Johnson is Keyzer Soze?

Even those who never rated Johnson particularly highly – and that’s me included – felt the Norwich world lurch a little. There aren’t many players over the last decade who have divided opinion quite like Johnson at Carrow Road. Earnest, wholehearted Ipswich-slayer or technically-stunted, sloppy, pass-fumbler? Truth is, he was both, and that's why he garnered so much affection. His mistakes made him more human, and last season made him a hero. It was an intoxicating mix – heroes with a dash of human frailty are always the ones you really root for.

Last year Johnson often looked like the only player under Neil Adams who was desperate for Norwich to be promoted, who would do anything to drag Norwich away from the same fate as Fulham and Cardiff. Alex Neil came in and called him a “real man’s man”, and the Norwich fans plugged into him in a way that hadn’t been seen since Grant Holt left. For nine months, he energised Carrow Road.

There was never going to be a repeat, though. Last season was always going to be Johnson’s apogee in a Norwich shirt. He’d hurled the team to the Premier League, but it came at a personal cost; his reward was to be demoted. Aside from the occasional heroic performance, he has never been Premier League class. The game moves too quickly for him at that level, and his itchy first touch is quickly exposed.

While some have suggested that something awry behind the scenes has led to his departure – and Neil’s quote after the Sunderland game that “Bradley did well last year, I don't think he's done as well as he should have done up until this point" seemed out of character for a manager who doesn’t make individual criticisms in public – the evidence was that in a midfield full of ball-players and deft touches, Johnson was a pug among greyhounds.

That Jonny Howson started on the left in Norwich’s last three games tells its own story, and with two genuine left-wingers in Robbie Brady and Matt Jarvis, Johnson’s days appeared to be numbered.

When news broke that he’d been sold, it was the moment the top was blown from a shaken bottle. Anger shot up, spewed, frothed and overflowed. David McNally was attacked, Alex Neil – Alex Neil! – was blamed for what some saw as a lack of signings. Take a step back, though, and Norwich have done some canny business in most departments.

The signings of Brady and Jarvis mean our left side is significantly stronger, while Youssouf Mulumbu will add a bit of ball-breaking to the midfield when fit and Graham Dorrans has provided a calm presence in front of the defence (which, again, is a big improvement on what Johnson provided in that position). We don’t know how Dieumerci Mbokani will do, but the quote from the BBC’s John Bennett – who knows his African football – summing him up by saying “he’ll miss a few, he’ll score a few, he’ll elbow a few” means we should have fun finding out.

It’s not all good, though. In fact, some of it is pretty bad. With Russell Martin and Ryan Bennett the only options to fill in the gap next to Seb Bassong (and it’s often a really rather large gap), poor John Ruddy has had a worse transfer deadline day than most. Carlos Cuellar and Jos Hooiveld were tried last season – and Ignasi Miquel looked dashing in the Christmas catalogue – but none came close to solving the problem.

Although the return of Bassong was a godsend, the problem is still to be solved. Buying a new centre-back always felt like the difference between survival and relegation, and after conceding eight goals in the first four matches, it still does.

To survive, Norwich are just going to have to score a whole lot of goals. So, no pressure, Mbokani. After all, Norwich suddenly have a vacancy for a new hero.  

http://www.thelittleyellowbirdproject.co.uk/articles/2015/9/1/farewell-bradley-johson

[Duracell]

Not doubting he's a good player for one minute. He's out of form, sure, but he's a good player.

But ffs, he was considered a bad passer last season in a team that wasn't interested in passing.

Seen someone say "but he was player of the season at Leeds and Northampton as well."

Ah yes, the swashbuckling football of Leeds United and Northampton Town of the 21st century, can't believe we didn't see what was right before our eyes when trying to build a team comfortable on the ball.

Sign players for the team you have and for the team you want to build. Not because they were good somewhere else.

[RedSox]

Someone posted on here back in late Feb / early March that they had heard one of the new signings wasn't happy here.  If there was anything in it, perhaps that could explain the drop in form of not just BJ but others too.  A fractured camp can do more destructively than a poor run of form can ever do.