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Hucks now has the ‘Scary’ speech to match the ‘Ambition’ one. Difficult times.

23rd September 2007 By Latest News Leave a Comment

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If any further evidence were needed that Norwich City Football Club were this week teetering on the brink of a full-blown crisis, then yesterday's post-match thoughts of Darren Huckerby probably provided it.

Future club historians may even label his Molineux interview with Radio Norfolk as the 'Scary Speech'; just as his thoughts on the morning of Dickson Etuhu's exit earlier this summer might be labelled the 'Ambition' one.

As has been said before the 31-year-old, two-time City Player of the Year has a tendency to shoot from the lip – his saving grace, however, is the fact that it invariably comes straight from the heart. He cares.

Thus if this is to be his last season in professional football, he had rather more in mind than scrabbling around the bottom six of the Championship table and being a first-hand witness to the shambles that unfolded around him on Saturday as City not only lost 2-0 to Wolves, but ended the game with just nine men on the pitch following the second-half dismissals of first returning skipper Jason Shackell and then Julien Brellier.

And while it would be wholly unfair on all else concerned to suggest that Huckerby himself had no part to play in Norwich's latest away-day downfall, it is still clear that part of the answer to City's current alarming malaise lies at Huckerby's feet.

Harnessing that pace and that talent to the team's best advantage was one of the biggest managerial challenges to face Nigel Worthington – particularly on Norwich's return to the Championship; just as it is now one of Peter Grant's biggest, tactical headaches.

One that he appeared nowhere nearer to solving at Molineux after switching Huckerby from left-wing to right-wing with barely half an hour on the clock. At The Valley on Tuesday night, Huckerby had gone from right of a midfield five, to left of a midfield five to one of a front two within the first 35 minutes.

Therein, you sense, lies the root of much frustration – on both sides of the fence, be it manager or player. All of it, of course, now out there on the washing line among a lot of dirty linen.

“Since I've been here this is probably the weakest we've looked – it's quite scary, to be honest,” Huckerby told Radio Norfolk match commentator Chris Goreham afterwards. The City favourite was asked to clarify the point; as weak as they have looked since he joined the club in December, 2003?

“Since I've been here,” Huckerby repeated, about to return to the 'Ambition' speech that followed this summer's exit of Robert Earnshaw, Dickson Etuhu and Youssef Safri.

It was the latter two, in particular, that fuelled Huckerby's frustrations. In his eyes, City now lacked the kind of solid, midfield platform from which he can then foray forward. He was an artist without a canvas.

“We've had additions, but we're not looking as strong as we have done – and, as I've said before, Dickson (Etuhu) and Safs (Safri) were massive losses. I said it at the time and now it's coming to fruition.

“We need someone to get on the ball and control the game and at the minute we're not – and team's are just rolling over us.”

Certainly Wolves' towering midfielder Seyi Olofinjana strolled around pretty much as he pleased; Shackell at least let his midfield partner Kerl Henry know he was in a game – by slicing him in two underneath the referee's nose.

That didn't help improve Huckerby's dark mood, either. Not when it was followed by Brellier's exit soon afterwards for kicking the ball at Michael Gray – at the precise moment that referee Steve Bennett was preparing to book the Frenchman for hauling down Stephen Ward on the near touchline.

“You've seen it yourself – you make your own mind up,” said Huckerby, asked about the two dismissals.

“Shacks' was a silly challenge – don't get me wrong; Julien's was silly – to say the least.”

Brellier's exit left the Canaries even less in command of midfield events something, claimed Huckerby, that they have never been for most, if not all, of this season.

“We have got to control games better than we are doing,” he told Radio Norfolk. “I don't think we've controlled a game all season – and we're missing players. Maybe a little bit of the Cardiff game.

“Apart from that there's not been a game where we've been in control.”

Back in the Press Room and Grant was suggesting that if the players couldn't do even the most simplest of tasks asked of them, what hope had anyone got? That having armed them to the teeth with plans and instructions, the management and coaching staff couldn't play the game for them.

Once they crossed the white line, once the curtain went up, it was the players who had to deliver.

Huckerby's bottom line would, therefore, make for uncomfortable reading – that City didn't have the players at the club to deliver. That Etuhu and Safri hadn't been replaced.

Was Huckerby concerned as to where this might all be leading? “If you saw that would you be concerned?” said the City favourite, frustrations bubbling firmly to the surface with Grant now facing all manner of difficult questions going into the Carling Cup clash with Manchester City – a game you could argue that the club could do without given the overwhelming importance of the next two home games.

Who now partners Gary Doherty in Shackell's absence? Ian Murray? And if Adam Drury doesn't shrug off his back trouble in time, does that leave Simon Lappin to play at left-back? And with no Brellier and Lappin now at left-back, who plays alongside Darel Russell? Michael Spillane? Rossi Jarvis? Chris Martin?

Tuesday night's trip to Eastalnds does, at least, leave Dion Dublin one game nearer a return following his three-match ban – a chance, hopefully, for a calmer head to dictate proceedings. On and off the pitch.

“Take the cup game out of the way – because we're not going to win the cup,” said Huckerby, never the greatest fan of cup competitions, be it FA or Carling, as he stated in typically forthright terms after last season's success at non-league Tamworth United.

“And so the next home game is a massive game – and we've got to be ready,” he said, with all eyes now on that Sky clash against Sheffield Wednesday.

He did have a word of sympathy for City's travelling support who have every right to expect at least a contest for their hard-earned ?27.

“All we can do is apologise, but that doesn't really mean anything does it?” said Huckerby. “They've already paid for their ticket and they've got to drive home. We've got to improve – but we know that already.”


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jgraver7 James @jgraver7 ·
20m

Norwich have never shown any interest in developing Tzolis. Just like with the Smith appointment, we became a club only focused on short term. By all means sign potential but you have to know if they are ready and plan their development to make sure it goes smoothly. #ncfc

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fan_banter Fan Banter @fan_banter ·
24m

Police cop goes viral amid condemnation after grabbing Portsmouth fans by the neck - https://fanbanter.co.uk/police-officer-goes-viral-amid-condemnation-after-grabbing-portsmouth-fans-by-the-neck/

#watfordfc #ncfc #twitterclarets #safc #rufc #wafc #bcfc #rovers #utmp #bristolcity #ccfc #pusb #htafc #hcafc #coyh #boro #millwall #qpr #readingfc #twitterblades #scfc

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postedbycallum Callum @postedbycallum ·
25m

Tzolis 🇬🇷 #ncfc

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samgibncfc1 samgibncfc @samgibncfc1 ·
30m

Would be the most Norwich thing ever to get Tzolis back when we need a winger just to send him back out on loan #ncfc

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pcraske66 Paul Craske @pcraske66 ·
32m

Hardly ringing endorsement if Tzolis being sent back to #ncfc is it?

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