My Football Writer Norwich City news… comment… analysis
Norwich City – news, comment and analysis
City boss Peter Grant has handed 23-year-old centre-half Jason Shackell an extra challenge this summer – to show that he has the right stuff to lead the Canaries into Championship battle.
With regular skipper Adam Drury sat in the stands for the opening 45 minutes of Norwich's pre-season debut at Exeter City on Saturday, it was Shackell who led the visitors out at St James' Park – the first time that the one-time Canary trainee has sported the armband at first team level.<br …
Exeter, Schmexeter? who cares? Pre-season friendlies are for goodie-goodies anyway!
You'd never have caught Mickey Channon busting a gut or Flecky sweating cobs on a summer jaunt in Devon. Taking that sort of nonsense seriously is much more the territory of Jerry Goss or Gary Holt.
Mind you, they'd have run around like 'Yifter the Shifter' if you'd set them loose in a game of indoor bowls!
Losing to Exeter? It doesn't matter, it really …
City boss Peter Grant gave his mixed Canary assortment the benefit of the doubt after Norwich lost their first pre-season friendly of the summer 2-1 to Conference standard Exeter City yesterday.
Two goals in the space of three, frankly shambolic minutes gave Norwich's West Country FlyBe cousins a lead they never really looked like losing.
And while the Championship side regained much of their poise and a little of their pride before the afternoon was out – helped in no …
Canary fans 'reward' for their ten-hour round trip to the West Country this afternoon was a largely uninspired 2-1 defeat by Conference standard Exeter City in City's first pre-season outing of the summer.
In fairness, it looked exactly that. A first outing of the summer as the Championship side stumbled out of the blocks against their Blue Square Premier hosts by conceding two goals within the space of three, awful minutes that Luke Chadwick's 30th reply only …
And so it starts.
OK, so it doesn't officially start for another four weeks or so. But for those of us who, for professional or personal reasons, find our lives dictated by where Norwich City Football Club are at any moment in time, it all starts again tomorrow. Courtesy of FlyBe, in Exeter – 300-odd miles from home.
Look out of the hotel window now, at a little after six o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and it is a dank, drizzly early evening in Devon with precious …
City boss Peter Grant will be adopting a safety first policy as the Canaries kick-off their pre-season schedule at the other St James' Park tomorrow.
And be warned. For anyone contemplating making the 600-odd mile round trip to Blue Square Premier League Exeter City on the middle weekend in July – and that's the Vauxhall Conference to the rest of us – you may not even get a glimpse of Grant's new faces.
Keepers David Marshall and Matty Gilks are expected to be …
It was plain enough for virtually the whole of last season; namely that the Canaries simply didn't have a good enough squad to achieve the consistency and standards required to give themselves an opportunity of challenging for one of those coveted top six places in the table.
On paper though, and assuming that Peter Grant was able to field his strongest XI, City should have had more than enough talent to have given any team in the Coca-Cola Championship a run for its money.<br …
City boss Peter Grant has – for now – closed the file marked 'Forwards' after Czech striker David Strihavka officially became his sixth new signing of the summer yesterday.
The Canary chief will now head into '07-08 Championship battle with his strike hopes resting on the combined shoulders of this summer's two new-boys, 24-year-old Strihavka and Jamie Cureton, plus Chris Brown, Chris Martin, Darren Huckerby and Dion Dublin. And, indeed, Ryan Jarvis.
With …
As far as City boss Peter Grant was concerned it was business as usual today for his Moroccan playmaker Youssef Safri.
After much recent speculation linking the 30-year-old to a switch to West Bromwich Albion following this summer's arrival at Colney of Frenchman Julien Brellier, Grant this morning confirmed that Safri had returned back from his summer break a day early and was now training, as normal, with the rest of the squad.
And that was it, as far as he was …
He passed the Tomas Repka test. And at that moment, City boss Peter Grant put the transfer wheels firmly in motion.
For as 24-year-old David Strihavka was officially unveiled at Colney this lunchtime after the 24-year-old Banik Ostrava striker became City's sixth new signing of the summer, so the City chief shed more light on how the 6ft 2in forward became Jamie Cureton's new Czech mate.
In particular, how he caught sight of Strihavka bumping into his former West …
Our old pals at The Mirror this morning suggested that the 'Safs to Baggies…' story wasn't quite as done and dusted as everyone might have assumed.
According to them, there was a three-way tussle for his services going on with both Southampton and Charlton now locked in battle for his services.
All of which comes as news to one or two people behind the scenes who have yet to hear a peep out of either club.
No surprise there, to be honest.
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Long-time City favourite Darren Eadie today dropped a big gauntlet at the free-scoring feet of pal Jamie Cureton – insisting that a place in the club's Hall of Fame awaits Norwich's prodigal son.
“I've given him an aim of getting himself in the Hall of Fame within two years,” said Eadie, as his one-time Youth team side-kick begins to settle back into life in Norfolk – 11 long years after he left it.
“He has got the chance of being a legend – and he's half …
Is there anything worse as a football fan than being out of the loop?
I returned from holiday the other day and switched on my mobile phone for the first time in a week. I quickly found myself under a barrage of text messages from fellow Canaries.
Within 30 seconds I was informed that Rob Earnshaw had gone, we'd signed Jamie Cureton and my mobile phone provider could have offered me cheaper calls had I needed to phone home while I was abroad. It's a lot of …
Norwich City's lengthy – and largely silent – pursuit of Banik Ostrava striker David Strihavka finally ended today after City boss Peter Grant revealed that he was training with the Canaries and due to complete the formalities of his Carrow Road switch this week.
Grant had long hinted that the Canaries were prowling around Eastern Europe to see just what that particular market could offer after the likes of Barnsley, Plymouth and Southampton plumbed a rich seam of Poles, …
A whole clutch of City youngsters can expect to find themselves back out on the road this season as Canary boss Peter Grant looks to make even better use of the loan system.
Matthew Halliday, Rossi and Ryan Jarvis and Joe Lewis all found themselves out on the road last season, topping up their professional apprenticeships with spells on the lower league front-line – a policy that appears set to continue as the City manager continues to be less than impressed by the standard of …
It's one of those stories that just niggles away under the surface. That every now and again, pops up. It never goes away. Always ringing in old Ferret's ears.
Usually, to be fair, it appears in the pages of the Birmingham Evening Mail and this weekend was no exception.
“Meanwhile, Norwich are expected to pave the way for Youssef Safri's move to Albion early next week,” was the Mail's verdict on a story that has bubbled quietly away for much of the …
What a week! Ten days ago little seemed to have changed around Carrow Road and Colney since the season limped to its inglorious end at Hillsborough in early May.
Then – all of a sudden – it's a full-scale changing of the guard.
Five major signings – including David Strihavka – join the already sealed signature of Jon Otsemobor, Earnie bows out, and a summer that was lacking what Stan has already noted as the necessary sense of momentum needed to hit the ground …
Who better to judge 'The Judge' than City No2 Jim Duffy?
The second of this week's three arrivals, 25-year-old Frenchman Julien Brellier arrived in Norfolk as a largely unknown quantity – despite, apparently, achieving near cult status during his two-year spell at Hearts.
It was there, of course, that Brellier and Duffy first teamed up as Peter Grant's right-hand man gave his one-time Chelsea pal Graham Rix a helping hand through the winter of 2005-2006. …
The Enemy then. Unless you've been living in a box, a cardboard box, for the last few months you will know all about this Coventry trio. To be honest, they've been pretty hard to ignore, Top 10 hits and all.
In fact only this week the current single, 'Had Enough', crashed head-long into the Top 40 at Number Four.
In short, they are the band of the moment. If you're going to get excited about anyone get excited about this lot. What's more, their …
Delia Smith has started filming her new television cookery series and, at the same time, Andrew and Sharon Turner have begun stirring things up at Carrow Road.
So, as the Turners scrutinise every aspect of the football club's business, and Delia apparently turns her concentration elsewhere, are we witnessing the end of one era and the start of another for Norwich City?
The short answer is 'No…' But the longer answer is certainly significant for the club we …