Envy is an unpleasant trait. Invariably it comes with its close buddy, greed.
As some eye-watering transfer fees hit the headlines, in this part of the country already the whiff of “why are we missing out?” is taking a grip of the airwaves and the web-related opinion parlours.
Lewis Grabban’s exit stage-left back to Bournemouthski has met with general approval from most Canaries. It’s fair to say that his chapter was not one to live long in the memory of the promotion book of 2015.
That’s not to say the goals he did score were not crucial. For a couple of months – February and March – in the first knockings of Alex Neil’s reign, Grabbs was the go-to guy up top and duly repaid his manager’s faith.
The injury he picked up in the 2-0 win over Ipswich (I never tire of giving that one a mention) turned out to be the turning point for a downward spiral which led to rancour and recriminations from many a fan.
I always thought he offered the team different and positive options to Jerome and Hooper, but despite that brief resurface against Arsenal and Watford, his generally languid approach and invariably stroppy demeanour were unlikely to ever get him nominated for the Hall of Fame in Norfolk.
The club has made a huge profit on a player who quite frankly is very lucky to get a second chance in the Premier League.
Fortunately for him, his former club is currently awash with cash and willing to pay exorbitant amounts for questionable talent.
Of course a main driver for Bournemouth hoovering up strikers now is their bad run of injuries at the start of the campaign. Their hand has been forced while we’ve been fortunate enough to steer clear of hamstring pulls, broken metatarsals and the like.
“Never go back,” is a common piece of advice when seeking re-employment. Jose Mourinho’s ugly end at Chelsea backs it up.
Will Grabban flourish once more under guidance of his former tutor Eddie Howe?
Howe claimed he was getting a player much improved to the one he sold to us. I guess that’s a bit of a compliment to Norwich but I’m not sure he’s got the proof to back up that bold claim.
Rumours are that Grabban may feature on Saturday when our boys take the long and winding road down south to take on the club with a third-tier ground capacity but fairytale finances.
Of course, he will be joining forces with Glenn Murray and now Benik Afobe, both failed targets for us last summer. Again grumblings from some Canaries have inevitably been aired.
Why didn’t we “break the bank” to get the former Arsenal man to Carrow Road?
It’s frustrating of course to see Afobe go elsewhere after the club had made great efforts to prize him away from Molineux but, as with many things, it comes down to a question of timing and luck.
Wolves didn’t want to let their top scorer go before the season had kicked off but after a dwindling return from Afobe in recent months the lure of Bournemouth’s bottomless big bucks tipped the balance.
Time will tell if he turns out to be the real deal at the top level. At the moment, he’s got potential but that could be said for many a former prospect who failed to make the top grade and fell away to lower league oblivion.
Alex Neil made it clear that the Afobe ship had already sailed off when our overtures were rejected back in the summer. Other targets are now in his sights.
There will no doubt be further frustrations and accusations of lack of ambition and willingness to flash the big cash. But is it reality or paranoia stoked by envy?
The giddy gossip and unsubstantiated rumour will always flourish in the modern 24-hour media circus.
I’m continuing to put my faith and trust in the guys who have guided us from the middle of the Championship to our current position in the Premier League.
While everything is not rosy in the garden at Carrow Road, we shouldn’t forget the journey that’s been made from recent financial and footballing oblivion.
I, for one, don’t envy the Abu Dhabi All-Stars or Chelsea-on-Sea (copyright of MFW’s Ed) because of the way their clubs now go about their business in the greedy search for glory.
Some things are worth more than cold hard cash.
“There will no doubt be further frustrations and accusations of lack of ambition and willingness to flash the big cash. But is it reality or paranoia stoked by envy?”
Some of the frustrations certainly are stoked by envy. It is annoying when fans get excited by various rumors – only for each target to go to a direct rival (who have massively broken the FFP rules by spending 42 million this season!).
However the concerns are rooted in the obvious need to improve areas of the squad – areas that were clear to see since the day we got promoted. We need to score more and concede less and, as the days tick by, fans will get more and more concerned.
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Rich – of course it’s disappointing when we can’t get ‘our man’ but rather than the default option of blaming the CEO, the moaners should take a long look at the player’s motivations (and his agent’s).
If Naismith prefers bench time (not even that lately) at Goodison then shame on him. If Afobe/Grabban/Murray prefer to play in front of 11K instead of 27k, then my mind is boggled.
Maybe I should have said ‘Stoke envy’ after the big dosh they’ve parted with? Hughes played at the highest level all over Europe and managed Wales – clearly he has made connections. Alex played for Barnsley and Hamilton – that’s not a criticism but the reality.
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“There will no doubt be further frustrations and accusations of lack of ambition and willingness to flash the big cash. But is it reality or paranoia stoked by envy?”
Reality.
Let’s look at some strikers we’ve brought in recent years. RVW, Hooper, Lafferty, Grabban, and Jerome, considering all the millions spent on those players combined in transfers and wages, what’s their ROI of those players in the Premier League? Those strikers cost us over 20m in transfers and a lot in wages. Yet until a couple of days ago they were all still on the books and ironically our best striker is someone we loaned in.
Our two biggest problems are a lack of ambition and waste of resources. We have a lot of players to offload. Let’s get what we can for them and invest it properly.
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Dave B – I guess we have different realities.
Jerome was outstanding last season and has impressed me this although 3-4 more goals would have been nice.
“Lack of ambition and waste of resources.” It could be reasonably argued that the signing of RvW and Fer showed big ambition (with their price tags) at the time. The fact that neither subsequently did anything doesn’t reflect the club’s lack of ambition. Hooper is just a lazy goal poacher – strikers have to offer more than that now.
Who would you have us sign to show ambition whilst guaranteeing value for money?
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Dave B (3) – Is it really you? From the blanket negativity, I do believe it is. Nice to hear from you.
You have a couple of salient points. We all know that the splurge on RvW and Hooper (a case of pushing the boat out, if there ever was) didn’t turn out well.
However, some of your other points are some way wide of the mark. Grabban and Jerome weren’t signed to provide ROI in the Premier League; they were signed to get us back there. Despite the drop of 60% in our income after relegation, we invested in those two – a total of just under £4m, I believe. They enabled us to bounce back to the top flight, while the richer clubs who came down with us floundered in the Championship. £11m for Ross McCormack, anyone?
Now we’re looking to establish ourselves in the Premier League, we need to improve our quality in some areas – Brady illustrates the point. The Board is clearly looking to do that, though mindful that we don’t have the room for financial error that a club like Bournemouth has.
I reckon by 2 February we’ll have some more evidence of the gems we have in Alex Neil and David McNally. But we’ll see.
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@5 Stewart Lewis: Alex Neil and David McNally are gems indeed. It’s the rest of them I worry about – including our semi-permanent absentee who is allegedly supposed to be raising the profile of the Club. What on earth was the point? Hoping for something positive between now and “Window’s End”. Another quality article I enjoyed reading.
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A couple of points
Grabban has not been able to prove himself at the Premier League level. I thought when he first came to Norwich at the start of last season he didn’t look ruthless in front of goal, I remember him missing several 1-on-1 chances. I do remember watching him in the home league match v Ipswich and thought his ability to run the channels was excellent. Something clearly happened in his relationship with the club recently. He started and scored against Arsenal at the end of November, started the next match at Watford but never made the squad again. That seems a bit strange.
I made a post at the start of this season about what type of players NCFC that I thought NCFC are able to attract based such factors as location, relegation clauses, and AN being a relative unknown. It’s great to see players such as Pinto and Jarvis commit their futures to the club recently. I’d be equally impressed if a player of the quality of Naismith joined, but this is reported to have stalled. We’ve all heard managers complain about players willing to stay at their clubs and just pick up their salary, but there must be a few Premier League players or want to play regularly, Crouch anyone?
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Russell- I do agree that the moaners should calm down and not blame the CEO etc, however that is what will happen… They need someone to aim their frustrations at and he is the one at the top. Harsh (because I’m sure he’s working hard) but, as mentioned, it’s reality.
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@4) Jerome was excellent last season, but that has nothing to do with ambition this season. Again he hasn’t started today. We have a wealth of strikers depreciating in value and none are premier worthy (Grabban won’t be starting too many games).
RVW and Hooper in no way showed ‘big ambition’. 6m and 8.5m are still cheap strikers for a PL team and it showed. Then in the Jan of that year we purchased… nobody. Zero ambition.
It happened again over this summer. We sold off a few players (not enough in my book) but never invested heavily in creating a PL squad. The one real exception is Brady. But we left ourselves dangerously sparse at the back and underpowered at the front.
I’m surprised we’ve fared as well as we have. There’s going to be two or three teams below us that put on runs post Christmas that pull themselves away from the relegation zone. We need to be one of them.
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Dave B (9) – For a club of our resources, £14.5 million on two strikers in 2013 ‘in no way showed big ambition’?
I despair. You shouldn’t talk about reality; you don’t have the first idea of it.
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Dave B. – so no constructive suggestions from you – not even Charlie Austin?! It’s easy to moan..
El Dingo(6) – appreciate the compliment.
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Dave this no ambition narrative is absolute nonsense and I think you are just trolling for effect. The facts are that our board has consistently provided all the funding that they can for transfers and lets not forget often their own money. So stop the churlish whinging, it’s just dull, unimaginative and boring.
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