My Football Writer Norwich City news… comment… analysis
Norwich City – news, comment and analysis
Canary chairman Roger Munby today all but opened the door to any potential foreign investor riding to City's financial rescue – provided they took a leaf out of Randy Lerner's rule book at Aston Villa and not out of Mike Ashley's scrap-book at Newcastle.
Much has long been made of the desire of Norwich's principal shareholders Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones to sell to a 'local'. Someone who 'got' all things Norfolk and Norwich in the same way that …
The devil, as ever, is always in the small print.
The headline figures of an after tax loss of ?2.3 million and a ?5 million drop in turnover following the loss of those Premiership parachute payments merely made for sobering, if utterly predictable reading. Norwich City Football Club live beyond their means; pay wages they can't afford.
The fact that Delia Smith and her husband Michael Wynn Jones had now agreed to pump ?3 million into the Canaries this season was …
The stage was set. Stan had hit a milestone birthday. City are playing 'oop north. In all 17 'Count me ins..' were received and the Stan Birthday Band-Wagon was rolling?.
Rolling off into the fog of the Fens carrying a motley crew whose foolish hearts were full of hope.
The mood was good, the beer and fry up at 'The Farm' was good; the company was excellent; the police escort was an exciting distraction?and then? and then came the …
It was a tale of two goalkeepers today – one adding to his growing reputation with every passing game; the other having already earned himself an enviable reputation. At the tender age of 15.
For as Canary No1 David Marshall reflected on another excellent weekend at the office ahead of tomorrow night's trip to Southampton, so City schoolboy Jed Steer found himself linked to a ?250,000 switch to Premiership giants Chelsea. Or at least if the 'Soccer Spy' column in …
Mother Nature may yet help guide Glenn Roeder's hand over the next 36 hours as he ponders his options ahead of tomorrow night's trip to Southampton.
For after watching his Canary side slip back into the bottom half of the table following Saturday's 0-0 draw at Barnsley, so the City chief will have been in the mood for a change – long before this morning's latest injury bulletin from the Colney treatment room.
Fit to traval and, presumeably, start was …
Not for the first time this season, Canary boss Glenn Roeder will have some big decisions to make ahead of Tuesday night's trip to St Mary's.
And after this weekend's 0-0 draw at Oakwell, no surprises as to wher he, nis No2 Lee Clark and first team coach Paul Stephenson will concentrate most of their thoughts – in the front half of his goal-shy team.
Two clean sheets on the bounce – and all with the rearguard reshuffle prompted by Dejan Stefanovic's …
It was always the easiest answer to that �1.5 million black hole question.
As in what can the Canaries do in a hurry to paper over that �1.5 million funding hope left by the Turners sudden departure this summer?
And the answer? Get West Ham to flog Dean Ashton. Hefty sell-on kicks in; job done.
Now, however, that particular prospect looks dead in the water with reporst suggesting that the 24-year-old could be out for the bulk of the season with a worrying ankle …
One swift glance at tonight's Championship table – ahead of Ipswich's televised home clash with Crystal Palace – tells its own story.
Of why, exactly, Wolves look to be a force to be reckoned with after their 2-0 home win over Bristol City and why, exactly, Norwich's claim to a place in the top half of the table looks tenuous at best.
Goals. As in goals for.
Goals conceded and on the back of this afternoon's 0-0 draw with bottom of the table …
Tykes boss Simon Davey appeared more chipper than most given that his side were sat at the foot of the Championship – convinced that the re-appearance of two of his FA Cup heroes after long-time injury lay-offs could be just the pick-me-up Barnsley need ahead of entertaining the Canaries tomorrow.
City boss Glenn Roeder was already marking everyone's card that this weekend's trip to Oakwell was one that came with warning bells attached; that the Yorkshire side were only …
City boss Glenn Roeder was today offering one very good reason why his players might be very keen to keep that hard-earned place in the top-half of the Championship table – cash.
Last week's 1-0 win over Sheffield United lifted City into 11th spot ahead of this weekend's trip to bottom of the table Barnsley. With games against first Southampton and then Derby County to swiftly follow, opportunity knocks for the Canaries to cement their place in the top half of the table.<br …
We have muttered before how every event this autumn and beyond will now, inevitably, be seen through the prism that is Peter Cullum.
Whatever his true intentions are, the perception is that Britain's 40th richest man is sat somewhere out there in deepest Kent with a ?20 million cheque burning a hole in his back pocket. A cheque with Glenn Roeder's name on it.
The fact that it's not for ?11 million and not got Delia Smith's name on it is one problem; the …
City full-back Jon Otsemobor was today insisting that competition for places is what life at an ambitious Championship football club is all about – if that's what it takes to push for the play-offs…
The 25-year-old, one-time Liverpool trainee made just his third start of the season in last Saturday's last-gasp 1-0 win over Sheffield United. An hour and a half later and he was walking off with the Man of the Match bubbly after providing City's principal attacking threat …
The message this morning from the top of the football tree was simple and stark: 'We're alright, Jack…'
But as the credit cruch starts to bite ever harder and the global banking community pulls every trick it can to avoid going into full melt-down, the picture one division below the gilded corridors of the Premiership might be slightly less rosy.
The picture two divisions below is even more fraught with a record three sides starting the new campaign with a …
Punditry, schmunditry! Stan is just rubbish at it!
Even by his own inept standards Stan was embarrassingly bad on Saturday. First was the, oh so insightful, 'Ha, ha, ha? if that back four keep a clean sheet I'll eat my hat…'
Followed closely by 'Sheffield have got too much up front for us today…'. Then there was this beauty 'We could sit here until midnight and we won't score…' And then Stan's piece de resistance on 80 …
As the Canaries tonight prepared to play host to their latest 'friendly' visitors at Carrow Road – managerless Colchester United Reserves – so it would be the names not on Paul Stephenson's squad list that will command most attention.
In particular, that of David Bell whose on-going ankle injury remains the subject of weekly updates.
At one stage pencilled in for that away trip to Plymouth, the ?600,000 summer signing then need a pin-point steroid injection to …
You'll have to excuse me, I feel a bit funny.
Or rather, I don't. Not funny ha ha, anyway.
The thing is, I've 'entered a period of consultation' with my employer.
It's a horrible euphemism for what it actually means, but then there's no nice way of putting it.
Perhaps I should be grateful they didn't say they were 'letting me go', which I assume is meant to conjure up the image of a majestic animal being …
The last thee matches has seen the good, the bad and the indifferent from the Canaries.
I'll deal with them in order.
The good.
Plymouth away just over a couple of weeks ago. Absolutely superb. A masterclass in attacking football from Norwich where they created an abundance of goal-scoring chances and put a considerably inferior team to the sword in a manner that any side harbouring hopes of a successful campaign ultimately should.
<br …
City keeper David Marshall might be forgiven for wishing that George Burley had postponed his trip to Norfolk for 96 hours.
Sat in the directors box at Carrow Road for last Wednesday night's painful 1-0 by Queen's Park Rangers, the 23-year-old City No1 had precious little to do – other than pick Martin Rowlands' fierce free-kick out of the back of the net and watch as his one-time Celtic youth pal John Kennedy hobbled off the pitch.
Otherwise he was a virtual …
City boss Glenn Roeder was this afternoon counting the cost of the “perfect result” following Saturday's first home win of the season against Sheffield United.
First to go was Dejan Stefanovic – out before kick-off with a badly-bruised calf.
Next went Matty Pattison out for “[hopefully] no more than a couple of weeks” after tweaking his hamstring in the opening exchanges of the Blades clash.
Replaced by Arturo Lupoli as Darel Russell once again reverted back …
Football's 'Mr Fixit' could yet prove to be more than just an interested party in events in Norfolk this autumn as the Canaries on-going search for fresh investment gathers ever more urgency.
With a gaping, ?1.5 million hole in their 2008-2009 finances to fill following the exit of directors Andrew and Sharon Turner and the billionaire Peter Cullum presumed to be still sat there with his ?20 million to spend 'on players', the club's principal …