• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

My Football Writer

My Football Writer Norwich City news… comment… analysis

Norwich City – news, comment and analysis

Find the best betting sites
  • Home
  • About us
  • The Team
  • Archives Index
  • Patreon
  • ADVERTISE
  • Contact us

How did it come to this? Questions questions and not many answers. Yet.

9th October 2007 By Guest Blogger Leave a Comment

Please share

As had been anticipated in this column and elsewhere, City's visit to Loftus Road last night may well prove the end of the road for Grant with City residing in the non too lofty position of 22nd.

We are now staring down the barrels of what could well prove to be a long and grim winter relegation battle, with frankly no guarantee that we will win it. Although much thought and column inches will be taken up with the question of how it came to this and who to replace Grant with, it seems inconceivable that he can survive, it is the coming months which concerns Stanley the most.

A look at the coming fixtures and the full horror starts to come into view. We have just had possibly the easiest 10-match streak of the entire season. From here on it things start to get tough. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

How bad things are at the moment are perhaps illustrated by the fact that much of the second half Stanley spent in heated debate, not over whether or not Grant should be sacked (let's face the few remaining Grant loyalists gave up the ghost last night) or which players are to be blamed for travesty of every City display this season, but whether this was the worst City team in our lifetimes.

Is this worse than when Hamilton was in charge? For the record Stanley argued that despite the statistics suggesting otherwise we aren't as bad as Hamilton's City. Yet. But it's a moot point which speaks volumes. The fact that Grant can be compared to Hamilton says it all.

Those statistics don't half make grim reading, whether league position, length of goal drought or the whole raft of QPR ones, games without win, games at home without win, games since last taking the lead, games since last keeping a clean sheet. Streaks all ended with our visit to Rangers Stadium last night. The killer for Stanley though was the fact that QPR out gunned us 16 shoots to two. A team that had just conceded nine goals in the last week barely had to defend. One-way traffic away from home, yet again.

So much for Grant's supposed guiding philosophy ?front foot? football. We currently don't actually have any idea how to score. There is no plan or pattern of play, just ?kick and hope?. Even the one-trick pony approach of get ball, look up and give it to Hucks has been forgotten.

When we do score a goal at some point this autumn it is difficult to envisage it triggering a goal glut. It's not simply the lack of goals, but the lack of chances of any kind that we are making that threatens to sink this very sorry ship.

In many ways Chris Brown will come to symbolise the Grant regime. Not simply the obvious problem of having never scored. Brown is actually a good footballer, composed, technical competent, neat of touch and thought, but ultimately painfully ineffective. A good footballer in theory, but who in practice just doesn't cut the mustard. A better footballer than Iwan or Earnie but, for reasons hard to pinpoint, not in same league in terms of their effectiveness on the pitch.

If you compare Grant to Worthy a similar conclusion has to be drawn. Grant is technical more astute, but doesn't have that magic dust a manager needs to get players to perform. Banging on about round pegs in round holes (something Stanley holds his hand up to doing ad infinitum) is all well and good, but without desire, heart and passion (things which can't be coached and imparted via endless instructions and note taking) no team will ever win, whether in the Championship, on a Sunday morning up Sloughbottom or on a Wednesday night up the UEA Sportspark.

So who next for the hot seat? Stanley doesn't know, but what troubles him is the sense that the appointment of Grant a year ago was a missed opportunity. When we needed an experienced hand on the tiller to put the ship back on course for the Treasure Island called the Prem' we appointed a rookie destined to learn on the job and sail the good ship Carrow straight at the rooks.

Stanley has a nagging doubt, the size of City's overdraft, that big Mo' is now well and truly against City and the watery depths of League One awaits the next incumbent no matter who that may be.


Please share

Filed Under: Column, Stanley

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

FIND MY FOOTBALL WRITER ON

As featured on NewsNow: Norwich City news” style=

Norwich City News 24/7

#NCFC LATEST

diss_express Diss Express @diss_express ·
55m

#ncfc columnist @EdwardSeaman94 says the strikers need to rediscover their form in front of goal
https://www.dissexpress.co.uk/sport/norwich-city-column-strikers-need-to-rediscover-form-in-fro-9305157/

Reply on Twitter 1639285336168644609 Retweet on Twitter 1639285336168644609 Like on Twitter 1639285336168644609 Twitter 1639285336168644609
buryfree Bury Free Press @buryfree ·
55m

#ncfc columnist @EdwardSeaman94 says the strikers need to rediscover their form in front of goal
https://www.dissexpress.co.uk/sport/norwich-city-column-strikers-need-to-rediscover-form-in-fro-9305157/

Reply on Twitter 1639285315201376257 Retweet on Twitter 1639285315201376257 Like on Twitter 1639285315201376257 Twitter 1639285315201376257
saund65 Canaries Caption It @saund65 ·
1h

Mel Machin's flat cap & track suit combo at Wembley will *never ever* fail to bring a smile to my face.
Timeless..
#NCFC

Reply on Twitter 1639282025247932418 Retweet on Twitter 1639282025247932418 Like on Twitter 1639282025247932418 7 Twitter 1639282025247932418
footballbobbles Football Bobbles @footballbobbles ·
1h

🟡🟢 Egg & Cress Bucket Hats IN STOCK!

https://footballbobbles.com/product-tag/norwich-city/

Perfect for #NCFC supporters!

@AlongComeNodge

Reply on Twitter 1639281163612172291 Retweet on Twitter 1639281163612172291 Like on Twitter 1639281163612172291 Twitter 1639281163612172291
norwichcityfc Norwich City FC @norwichcityfc ·
1h

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 MA: "It's obviously a complete honour to represent my country."

Hear from Max Aarons ahead of fixtures against France and Croatia for England Under-21s ⬇️

#NCFC

Reply on Twitter 1639280923022708737 Retweet on Twitter 1639280923022708737 Like on Twitter 1639280923022708737 29 Twitter 1639280923022708737
Load More...

Copyright © 2023 21VC Ltd | All rights reserved | Not to be reproduced without prior permission.

Disclaimer: The information on this website consists of personal opinions. Whilst we have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the information contained on these Web pages is accurate and correct at the time of writing we do not accept any liability whatsover for any loss or damage caused by reliance on this information.

We do not accept any responsibility for information contained in other websites to which this site links. We strongly advise users to check any information before acting or relying on it.

Developed and Hosted by