I strongly suspect that tonight will be the night for bitter post-mortems.
Given Sunderland’s result at Old Trafford, that is ‘Good-bye and good night!’ as far as Norwich’s continuing membership of the English Premier League is concerned.
A fate worse than death has duly befallen McNally and Co as they look forward (sic) to the joys of re-inventing a Premier League football club for the trench warfare of the Championship.
Which, in short, means digging out two-thirds of the current playing staff for whom the Championship will have neither the time nor the respect for.
So, on the basis of everyone assuming a degree of responsibility here, what have the Board been guilty of?
And I think the answer to that is very simple.
They have been way too sensible for their own good. And, I suspect, that’s going to be a hard charge for someone with the clear business acumen of an Alan Bowkett to swallow. He has to learn to leave his business brain behind when he walks through the door of a professional football club.
Particularly one in the EPL where insanity rules; where the lunatics run the asylum; high as a kite on the millions that Sky, BT and Co throw their way.
Chris Hughton was a sensible guy; a sensible manager for a club intent on stabilising itself in the mid-reaches of the league. And being sensible about it, too.
More damning to their survival cause, however, was the sensible approach they took to player wages. It dictated what talent was therefore available to the manager – a Loic Remy was out of his reach; he was asked to fish in the pond that had Ricky van Wolfswinkel for sale.
Now this is the bit I don’t get. Where I struggle to compute.
For bar ten minutes against Everton on the opening day of the season, the poor lad has looked like something out of the Wizard of Oz – he lacks height, heart, pace and presence. And I don’t give a monkeys how many goals he scored in
Portugal.
You don’t run into a Vincent Kompany playing in Portugal. Or, indeed, any of the 40-odd centre-halves the EPL has to offer and out of whom RvW has got nothing.
Either the Board took Hughton’s opinion as read that this was the answer to their strike prayers – or else they did their own due diligence and came to the same conclusion.
Whichever way it worked, they dropped one almighty boll…. And will spend the rest of the summer trying to work out what exactly they do with him. His wages may well take a hit a league lower, but for my money – or rather the club’s – he is even less well suited to the back street brawl of the Championship than he was to the power and the athleticism required in the Premier League.
Johan Elmander looked a couple of years past his sell by; Gary Hooper was OK – but again, just because you can score goals against a St Mirren means diddly squat in this league. He does, at least, have half a chance in the Championship.
But this is the point we keep returning to. Steve Bruce’s.
‘In the English Premier League, as a manager you are only ever as good as your strikers…’
Carve that deep into the gravestone of the 2013-2014 season.
I suspect the summer might herald the arrival of someone in the mould of a Neil Lennon. If he gets Norwich to bounce back at the first time of asking, it will rank way higher than any Scottish Cup final triumph he might have on his managerial cv.
He has that hunger that bodes well.
But here is the lesson… And here is the challenge. If someone of a Lennon ilk does take Norwich back to the Promised Land, then what?
Will common sense again prevail? Southampton would suggest it is possible.
But they have an utterly fabulous youth policy that appears to churn out one star after the next. Kids that care about the badge, the club.
Somewhere in the system are Neil Adams’ FA Youth Cup winners; are the Murphys the way forward?
Because there’s a clutch of players there that didn’t give a toss; just as there were at Craven Cottage. Craven being the operative word.
Their agents will have them away. They will be fine. Noses still in the Premier League trough.
It’s tough. Ask any of those provincial football clubs. Speak to a Portsmouth fan and they would bite your hand off for Norwich-style sense and sensibility.
There are no easy answers.
And taking your brain out of gear business-wise is hardly ideal; and one suspects is beyond the ability of a Bowkett.
But poor little Ricky certainly wasn’t the answer. And therein lies the biggest question mark that hangs over Norwich’s miserable season.
Why?
Rick: I suspect you’ll get a lot of flak for this, and for a simple reason. Like the Board, your piece is far too sensible.
It’s a near-impossible trick in the Premiership to be one of the lowest spenders/payers, and to hold your own in the table. We pulled it off twice, once under Lambert and once under Hughton. Unfortunately, that led to stratospheric expectations, especially with last summer’s historically high spend (by our standards, of course, not the Prem’s). When our performances became uneven, reflecting the quality of our squad, the good showings were taken for granted -‘why don’t they play like that every week?’- while the bad ones overshadowed everything else. We know the result.
One specific question I’d have also relates to Steve Bruce. In our three years back in the Prem, the only striker we signed with any top-flight experience was Elmander. Most of our signings last summer were long-term potential (Redmond, Fer etc). In contrast, Steve Bruce signed Huddlestone, Livermore, Jelavic and Shane Long. A better balance in the signings and surely we’d have had more chance of survival. If wages were the stumbling block, we may have been guilty of false economy.
Academic now, of course. I just hope the Board, who have pulled our club up by the bootstraps since 2009, can be supported to lead our recovery. Right now, they’ll be hurting as much as the rest of us.
To my mind what has been lost is the sense that it was a team, that the sum was greater than the total of the parts. I suspect Grant Holt played a big role in this, but others too. Somewhere along the road this had gone. Watching throughout this season especially I’ve so often thought the team never gelled, it was never one unit, all for one and one for all etc.
To get out of the championship this quality must be found again, we go from being the bottom feeders to the club everyone wants to beat. It requires a very different attitude and approach, I just hope like hell the new manager can bring this above all else and perhaps we can get out at the first time of asking.
The other thing I wonder is next year, with us gone, who on earth gets to be last on match of the day?!
OTBC
Not since Darren Huckerby have I ever been more excited about a signing than I was when we got RVW. I do not recall many negative reactions to it. Rick, if you could include the link to your article criticising the move I’d enjoy reading it. I have however read your countless articles comparing signing RVW to Villa getting Benteke. Just like Villa, we signed a highly rated striker who had scored a lot of goals in Europe (albeit in the Portugese league which you clearly don’t rate compared to the seemingly much higher standard of the Belgian league.) We took a risk and it hasn’t worked – however, it was a mistake made for all the right reasons. As such I find it hard to criticise it.
Stewart – McNally won’t be hurting, beacause apparently he’s no longer with us!
Probably wise to get this piece in before another mauling today. The basic premise of everyone being too ‘sensible’ to survive in the PL is too simplistic – Hughton was bashed repeatedly over the head with the nice/sensible tag but could Tony Pulis be accused of being a wild-eyed, risk taker? He’s just more PL-wise and battle-hardened but always been sensible added with a touch of tactical canniness which CH didn’t show.
I’d hesitate to write off Ricky so quickly – it took RVP a couple of pretty meagre seasons at Arsenal to show he had the right stuff – and that was with a far better and more creative midfield than was afforded RVW.
Recent Championship history shows that a defensive-bruiser is the way forward in terms of management next year – Pearson, Dyche, Mackay and Bruce..if City fans are expecting fancy flowing football next season, they are sorely deluded – it’s going to be a dog-fight and we need to grow some teeth pretty quick.
5 goals in 8(5) for Connor Wickham has kept them up.
We signed a central defender and defensive winger in January…
Paul(6) -factually correct but missing one key detail..Wickham was already their player out on loan.
A Premier lament:
Hughton struggled and try as he might,
Ricky the Wolf turned up with no bite,
McNally hummed and harred,
Adams played a losing card,
Clappers flew at a sad and dreary sight.
I think Mr McNally took his eye of the ball when he bought his personal life to work . i.e the reason he had close his twitter account . And that reflected on the pitch and through out the club . City survival in the prem last season was a fluke and backed up by a huge player budget this season . A top CEO wouldn’t have give CH a second season let alone sack him in October when he definitely should have gone . Mr Bowkett will now dangle McNally like a rabbit in car headlights . I think they should all go even our matriarch Delia . To let a business go in one foul swoop from where we was last summer to this are million miles apart .
We made two big mistakes that have cost us dearly.
1) Not parting ways with Hughton last summer. Any manager that oversees 18 games with one win is not good enough for the PL. It’s that simple. You need someone that can stop a rot and grind out a win here and there. We didn’t have that. However you feel about the last two games of that season, at game 36 we were in a bad bad way. Keeping Hughton was inexcusable behaviour for a PL team.
We should have said ‘thank you Chris for your work, but we can’t afford such management’. Not in the PL. Not if you want to survive.
2) Gutting the heart from the club last summer. We allowed the spirit to be ripped out of the club by selling / letting go a huge number of players. Stating they weren’t good enough for the league. Only to replace them with completely unproven players who came not for the club, but for a chance to play in the league. Nearly to a man these have all failed. So we may now go down to the Championship without the loyalty or heart we’d have had from the players we sold. Our good players will be poached, our previous signings will squirm their way out, and what will we be left with?
Perhaps we should re-sign Chris Martin.
Andrew (8): I’ve heard this ‘City’s survival in the Prem last year was a fluke’ stuff a lot. The only supporting evidence I’ve ever heard was that our final two opponents were ‘on the beach’. But that holds no water – even if true, it’s irrelevant as we’d have survived if we’d lost both games. So what’s YOUR evidence?
We actually finished 11th last year, with a wage bill that put us somewhere between 16th and 18th depending on which source you use. I know a lot of senior people in business, none of whom would have sacked a manager on that record. None.
Toad (4): it’s your comment that really stopped me in my tracks. Have I missed something?
Cheers
I have to disagree with some of the points made in this article. To describe the board as “sensible” or cautious is inaccurate. Firstly, it took a bold decision from McNally and co to get this club moving in the right direction- sacking a club legend and employing a largely unproven Paul Lambert took some balls.
Secondly, most would agree that the signings made last summer were adventurous. RVW’s signing was described as a “coup”, given reported interest from Man Utd in recent years, Leroy Fer joining also reflected genuine ambition- this is a player who was on the brink of signing for Everton less than a year beforehand.
Yes, some signings have not lived up to expectation, but not due to cautiousness. In fact, the club threw caution to the wind and the position we now find ourselves in reflects a lack of both leadership and balance within the squad.
The common factor for the strikers is a lack of goals. Might thus be down to the negative football and the lack of opportunities rather than the fault of the strikers. Hughton invariably played one striker up front with a remit to chase around and close down. This was the main reason cited by holt for leaving. They gave all fed off scraps for too long, losing condense along the way. Even ronaldo would ace struggled to score any for us thus season. I suggest we keep faith with RVW and hooper next season , they’ll score a vague full. In any case no premier league club will want them so we’d only be able to sell on at significant loss. I say jeep them on and with a bit if confidence they’ll be firing on all cylinders.