Norwich City tonight decided to drink in the Last Chance Saloon with FA Youth Cup winning manager Neil Adams at the bar after dismissing the ill-starred Chris Hughton.
With five games of the season left.
Yesterday’s 1-0 home defeat by West Bromwich Albion and, in particular, the poison that engulfed the stadium at the final whistle clearly proved to be the final straw as the 48-year-old former Radio Norfolk pundit was given a chance to write himself into club folklore should he keep the Canaries in the top flight.
‘Norwich City can confirm Chris Hughton, Colin Calderwood and Paul Trollope have parted company with the Club with immediate effect – and former Canary winger and FA Youth Cup-winning coach Neil Adams has been appointed as First Team Manager,’ ran a simple statement on the club’s official website this evening.
‘The Norwich City Board has taken the decision to give the Club the maximum chance to secure the points required between now and the end of the season to ensure retention of our Barclays Premier League status.’
For Adams this is a huge opportunity to make his mark on the managerial stage; in a similar mould to that now presented to Tim Sherwood at Spurs. For Hughton – handed a near-impossible task of following on from the unprecedented successes of Paul Lambert – tonight’s news might even come as a blessed relief.
As far as certain sections of the City supporters were concerned, he had been a dead man walking for all-too long.
Adam’s delight was, however, obvious; his appeal to the supporters to urge their heroes on over the final few weeks of the season was heart-felt and much needed. If the club is ever to avoid the drop into the Championship, it has to stand united. That it hasn’t been for the vast majority of the season.
The reaction that followed the Baggies defeat was right down there with the bitter cauldron of anger and derision that ended Nigel Worthington’s tenure at the club. When supporter feelings plumb such depths, any board has to act in the hope that lancing such a boil will have the desired effect points and position-wise.
“People know what this club means to me, and so it goes without saying that we will be doing everything possible to ensure that we maintain our top-flight status for next season,” said Adams.
“These final five games will be a huge test for us, and everyone must step up to the mark. But with the full backing of these magnificent Norwich supporters we will have every chance of achieving our objective.”
To achieve that objective, Norwich will have to prise a result out of the hands of Liverpool (h), Manchester United (a), Chelsea (a) and Arsenal (h).
Fail to beat 18th placed Fulham next weekend and Adams will have a mountain to climb – if he hasn’t already.
Of the above, the final home game of the season against Arsenal looks to offer the best hope; the fact that they could now be locked in a winner-takes-all battle with Everton for that final Champions League berth following today’s defeat on Merseyside might not have helped Norwich’s cause.
As for Hughton’s exit, the board had little option but to act.
The $64m question, however, is whether it is all too little, too late; that horse and stable door might spring to mind in the history of this season.
Adams can’t change the playing staff. That could only have happened in January.
Can he instill the kind of confidence needed by the likes of Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Johan Elmander and Luciano Becchio within a week? Get someone, somewhere to fire the Canaries back into life in front of goal?
It will be Hughton’s epitaph – and, potentially, that of the 2013-2014 Canaries that any Premier League manager (club) is only ever as good as its strikers.
And in that regard the former Birmingham and Newcastle boss failed to deliver – by a country mile. For those paying van Wolfswinkel’s estimated £30,000-a-week wages for the next three years, the sight of the misfiring Dutchman being an unused substitute for a game of such importance this weekend will not have gone unnoticed.
That said, even if Adams were to sprinkle some magic confidence dust over a clutch of key individuals he is not going to make van Wolfswinkel three inches taller or Elmander three years younger.
And it is not only up front where Adams will need to go to work in a hurry. At centre-half, skipper Sebastien Bassong has had a succession of partners come and go – none of whom have made that slot their own.
Likewise, in midfield City blow equally hot and cold.
But here’s the final rub. The most consistent players performance-wise don’t play for Norwich. They play for a Liverpool. Or a Chelsea.
If Wesley Hoolahan played to the level he is capable of week in, week out, he wouldn’t be at Norwich. If he scored goals on a more consistent basis, he wouldn’t be at Norwich.
You get what you pay for. As you do in life.
Tonight Hughton paid the price for money not well spent. But it was not a lot of money by the standards of the English Premier League.
And not a lot of money doesn’t get you very far. Whatever your strengths and failings are as a man and a manager.
I think history will be quite kind to Hughton. If his big gamble (RvW) had been half decent in this league, we’d be at least 6 points better off & there wouldn’t be a problem.
But, hey-ho, that’s football. It’s all about the players now ……..
Talk and prediction in the jubilee St Leonard’s road was strangely proved accurate today with tonights news.
Probably 3 months to late.
You have to be able to influence A & B to get to C.
Sadly Hughton could not achieve that in any form.
Our progress in 2 years is negligible and the result of this evenings activity will be a roller coaster for the next few weeks..
I like Neil Adams and we all hope he does the business. We wish him well.
Nothing to lose now and fortune favours the brave don’t you know!
Although a change at this stage in the season is reminiscent of a previous relegation season – 94-95 – it is hard to escape the conclusion that it had become inevitable. The Sunderland match apart, the team has not been as effective as it should have been. And the defeats on Saturday, Southampton and at Swansea seemed to show a worrying demoralisation of some wholehearted players.
City have been unlucky throughout the season with injuries to key personnel. But teams have to fight and scrap for points. Pulisball is ugly, boring but effective.
Neil Adams is a Norwich man through and through. He coached the Youth team brilliantly last season. Let us hope he can inspire the team next week at Fulham.. I’ll be there!
Anyone got Brian Gunns number….just in case?
Chris Hughton has left us with a 5 point start on the other 3 relegation candidates and we play one of them on Saturday, a team with only about 6 wins all season so in effect we should have enough to stay up. The sad thing for me in all this is the fact that he never got Howson Fer and Tettey on the pitch at the same time all season and Adams probably will have that right from the off. That’s sad for CH but good news for the club that Fer is probably due back. CH could always pull out a result when he needed to coz the players rallied round when needed. Lets hope they do the same for Adams next week
I’ve made similar points about the lack of investment in players on previous pages. I think NCFC is run with a ‘small club’ mentality as far as spending goes in the last 3 years. Yes, we are financially secure, and we should all be grateful our club won’t become another Portsmouth, but when staying in the Prem guarantees at least 90 mill, scrimping on the playing staff is a false economy.
We’ve been unlucky in games, and recently with Turner’s injury (a stable CB partnership is very important), but Saturday was SHOCKING. Snod playing down the middle with Wes wide? Howson deeper than Tettey? BECCHIO???
But then McNally has consistently said the ‘brief’ was to stay out of the bottom 3. We are 5 points clear still. He will get my full support, but employing the youth team coach with these games coming up seems amateurish and desperate. Another sign of a small club mentality.
Good luck Neil!
The last five paragraphs of Rick’s piece (plus Ron’s comment) get to the heart of the issue.
I desperately hope this move pays off, but find it hard to share the apparently widespread joy among City fans tonight. It looks uncannily like the step Wolves took two years ago, replacing Mick McCarthy with the popular coach Terry Connor. Nobody could do worse, they thought, but they were wrong. In seven games, he took them from a position of safety to bottom. It was a slide that ended in League 1.
While fearing the worst, I certainly join everyone in hoping for the best.
I would be happy to see Adams use players that will be motivated-remember Lambert spotting the potential in Korey Smith all those years ago and the galvanising effect it had at the time.
Adams knows more about the Club and its players at all levels to produce the odd surprise package and I for one am happy to leave it to him.
If we go down fighting so be it but if the players fail to step up to the plate for Adams there will have to be a wholesale clear out in the summer.
Its going to be an interesting few weeks.
Plenty of talk of ‘abyss’ and ‘precipice’ after Saturday but now we’ve walked right up to them and dangled a leg over..crazy timing. I hope most of the players had a sleepless night.
Stewart{7) – I too fear your analogy with what happened to Wolves – ultimate irony if McCarthy gets Ipswich up.
Hughton will still get all the blame of course if we blow the 5 point gap we have. I’d thank him for all his hard work and commitment to the club especially in the face of some real ugly stuff from the more aggressive shouty sections of the crowd/online. Fan power? Leaves a nasty taste.
At least Neil Adams is a coach. The team has not looked like it’s had a proper coach for several months now. Why oh why didn’t Hughton swallow his pride and get an attacking/creative coach in before it was too late? I genuinely think a mix of Hughton’s defensive pragmatism and and attacking coach’s flair would have brought the best out of the team.
Still – whatever happens next, it’s better to give it a go with the supporters 100% behind the management. At least we have that in our favour.
Was this the plan? Persevere with an unpopular manager but if it gets really bad throw in someone who’s popular but has no experience to speak of? That went fantastically well last time, didn’t it? The only crumb of consolation is that it’s very unlikely we’ll stick with Adams to get us out of the Championship, if we can secure the services of Makay from that position.
Rick
of course it is the right decision,just so long overdue. 2 factors are at play here,McNally is looking to save his job along with the monster wage
and Hughton’s team have gone backwards. Rip Van Winkle wouldn’t score in league 1 but it was a rare
occasion when Hughton was overtly ambitious.
The players must take blame as well and Hughton’s unwillingness to drop poor performers has stood out.The team has a very small window of opportunity to show quality before a big fire sale
begins and so far few deserve PL status.
A point at Fulham would show progress and Adams will be aware that his youth team may as well have played away this term so poor and spineless has the senior team been lately. It will be interesting to see who he picks.
Suarez loves playing Norwich so i expect a tonking but can envisage another point from Arsenal who may have fully unravelled by then.Anything more than 2 points from here on in would be a bonus and may be enough.
Taxi for Lennon? Just watched MOTD3 online – with impeccable timing, NL is on there and concludes with “I’m sure Norwich have someone lined up”!
With McNally’s Celtic connection and NL having nothing left to prove over the border, it all smells of a conspiracy.
Would he come if we went down?
There is no parallel here with Wolves whatsoever. They sacked McCarthy with no idea of what to do next. They went weeks making offers, withdrawing offers, being snubbed before finally asking the one bloke who wouldn’t say no!
We have made a decision, one I would have made months ago, and asked a Norwich man with a history of actually winning something, to get out us out of the mess that Hughton & Co. have left us in.
In reality there was nothing else they could have done, we were certainties for the drop otherwise.
And listening to all the so-called experts and pundits this morning, the only thing they can come up with is that’s he a decent man. Sorry, but that’s not enough.
3 points at Fulham will probably be enough, we now have a fighting chance of getting them.
Cue a ‘Drunken Delilah’ (Oops sorry Delia)
We need a 12th man here… where are you? C’mon Lets be ‘aving you.. Hic
Another Bryan Gunn scenario revisited…
And it also looks like that dwarf main stand will still remain there for a few more years…
There’s a clapper sale on in the club shop – second-hand used, bit muddy. Not very careful previous owners. Warning – can be fun but carry a double-edge.
I’d take issue with two points in this article.
The first being that Adams needs to perform a ‘minor miracle’. Really? In reality, he needs to win against Fulham on Saturday. That may well be enough. One win from five games, with the whole club united behind him. It’s going to be hard, not least because of our form and record against Fulham. But we’ve given ourselves a fighting chance after the correct decision to reveal this wretched coaching team of its duties.
The second thing I’d query is whether Hughton had a ‘near impossible task’ following Paul Lambert. He certainly had big shoes to fill, but nearly impossible? The squad he inherited needed improving, particularly in defence, but it was fundamentally a good set of players at a club on course to be debt free playing at a stadium sold out every week. I can think of more impossible jobs a football manager has walked into.
Derek P (14): I really hope you’re right that this won’t be like Wolves & Terry Connor. But I’m afraid your description is economical with the truth. Wolves ‘went weeks making offers etc’ after sacking McCarthy, before finally turning to Connor? McCarthy was sacked on 12 Feb 2012; Connor’s appointment was confirmed on 23 Feb.
Have Norwich just made a mistake in sacking a good manager? The key to that question is seeing where he turns up next. Anyone think a PL club will come knocking?
Good luck to Adams. I hope he can go back to basics, come up with a simple attacking plan, and let the players express themselves.
(14) “Decent” is a pretty apt word to use. Hughton was a decent man, and a decent manager. We have a decent squad of players. But this is the Premier League. Decent isn’t good enough.
Unlike the likes of Grant, Gunn and Roeder, I don’t think failure at City will spell the end of Hughton’s career. I doubt we’ll see him back in the Prem for a long time, if ever, but rightly or wrongly the general concensus in the outside footballing world appears to be that the job he did at Carrow Road was, well, decent.
Good luck to him I say. I’m ashamed that it got nasty for him in the end, that his last memory of Carrow Road was getting whacked in the face.
Good luck to Neil too! What are our chances of survival now? Decent, I’d say.
Stewart Lewis (18)
The main point was that they did not have a plan, we have. The situation is completely different.
Adams has managerial experience and is a Winner. Can’t believe you think we’d have been better off sticking with CH. I doubt we’d have got another point this season!
Dave B (19): in the spirit of the day, I won’t argue with you! Time for differences to be set aside, and for us to shout our support with one voice. OTBC
Around £20m spent on 4 strikers, all of whom have not proved good enough, was always where Hughton would fall on his sword.
Derek P (21): ditto my note to Dave B! Let’s save arguments until May 12. Best wishes, S.
Stewart Lewis (24)
Hopefully after the 12th, there will be no arguments!
OTBC!