As I write, we stand seven points off the play-off places. At the same stage two years ago, we were 10 points off second place (then occupied by a certain Ipswich Town) – a gap we closed completely, before slipping to finish third and of course winning promotion through the playoffs.
So it can be done. It’s well within our capability to reach the play-offs this season, where a team with momentum – as we would be – is likely to succeed.
Jez Moxey won’t have forgotten how his Wolves team of 2002 slipped out of top two at the very end of the season, to be promptly despatched in the playoff semi by a momentum-fuelled Norwich who’d come up on the rails.
We’re certainly not short of quality to do it. Yes, some tweaking of the squad is required in January to improve the balance, of both positions and personalities but we don’t need a big net spend, and should be able to achieve much of what’s needed.
So, why do I share the general sense of despair and anger among our fans? Because there’s a crisis at our club, and the Board’s response is not only inadequate, but just about as bad as it could be.
Leadership is about decision-making and communication. In terms of the Board’s most visible decision – i.e. about the manager – there’s little that hasn’t already been said.
As Mark Rivers and Rob Butler straightforwardly stated on Radio Norfolk, it’s now abundantly clear that Alex Neil can’t get this group of players to perform at anything like the level required for promotion, despite their abilities.
Alex’s post-match comments about goals changing games and individual errors letting us down are true in isolation – but their repetition week after week simply betrays a reluctance to face their underlying cause.
The players cannot or will not play at their potential for this manager.
It’s often said, but rarely true, that a football manager has survived results that would bring dismissal in other organisations. However, it probably does apply to the current situation with AN and Norwich City.
If the Board are set on keeping AN through January and perhaps beyond, it can only suggest one of two things. Either they’re driven by a warped idealism, determined to show they’re different from the capricious behaviour of brutish foreign owners (such as those who’ve just come into Birmingham and fired Gary Rowett), or they’re somehow afraid – perhaps financially – of the consequences of taking action.
That last paragraph is pure speculation, because we have nothing else to go on. Which takes us to communication.
I have a perspective on this. My old job involved advising companies on their communications, including crisis management. I wanted clients to like me, but it wasn’t the most important thing; what mattered was whether I could give them practical and sound advice.
I didn’t quote much Tolstoy or Kafka to them, but I did call on C Northcote Parkinson (he of “work expands to fill the time available”). In this context I was more likely to use another of his quotes:
“Failure to communicate creates a vacuum which is gradually filled with misrepresentation, drivel and poison”
Many of my clients were the subject of misrepresentation, drivel and poison – as is the current Norwich City board. They would often expect me to be sympathetic, but my job was to tell them – as gently as I could while making the point clear – to stop feeling sorry for themselves and do something about it.
Unless a board or government is truly acting in bad faith – which I don’t believe for a moment that our board is – communications can and do make a difference to the feelings of their ‘stakeholders’; above all in the case of football clubs, their supporters.
To be fair, getting communications right in a crisis is a tricky business. Organisations are sometimes over-keen to communicate, and end up with constant clarifications and corrections (remember the Malaysian authorities after the crash of Flight MH370 in 2014?). There’s a case to avoid “running commentary”.
Many, though, err on the other side. There’s always a reason, or excuse, not to communicate. With awareness of discontent – and believe me, our board is well aware of the fans’ unhappiness – a siege mentality can set in and the drawbridge gets pulled up.
That’s what seems to be happening at Carrow Road right now. In the five weeks since the AGM (a very long time in a crisis), we’ve heard nothing from the board. I can imagine and understand their unwillingness to get embroiled in unsatisfactory debate – but silence is even more unsatisfactory.
What can they tell us? If I can use Brexit as an analogy: there’s no need for constant commentary or the revelation of tactical detail. But if you’re to carry people with you, there is a need for outline: a sense of vision and approach, and some idea of how to address the big challenges which are obvious to anyone looking in.
What won’t do are platitudes. On their own, and without some credible back-up, phrases like “red, white & blue Brexit” or “promotion, promotion, promotion” are more irritating than helpful.
Regular readers will know it gives me pain to say this, but our board is failing us in both decision-making and communication. Unless they change tack quickly, they’ll get exactly the division and acrimony they don’t want in our club.
Not to mention misrepresentation, drivel and poison.
Totally agree, if you can understand why something is happening, you can deal with it and even accept it, even if you disagree but, in the absence of understanding you are left with frustration, incredulity and eventually anger.
Clearly the club can’t afford to sack AN at present. Neil knows he’s lost the dressing room and is just waiting for his pay off. The club can only sack him when they have the financial ability to do so. This will only become the case when players are sold in the January window to help finance the change of manager. Do we really want that ‘communicating’ to the clubs we are looking to sell to….?
Morning Stewart, I was concerned by the Delia and Michael interview in the Times a few weeks ago. Are they really committed to seeking to serve for ten years? Well best we find another Bobby Robson or Alex Ferguson. If that is the strategy and the board support this policy it will fail.
Alex Neil was fortunate to inherit a good squad when he replaced Neil Adams. I would argue that since the play-off final we have not progressed at all. The second half of last season highlighted the fact we were out of our depth. Only a very poor Premier League meant we may stay up. This season it seems that evey-one at the club has allowed apathy and complacency to set in. We need an natural leader who inspires players to get better and not play within themselves. The rigid playing formation makes it for teams to play against Norwich. No plan B,C, or D is not helpful.
I agree that the play-offs are possible but change is required and now.
Keith
V interesting. There is a third possibility – that the board are going to back him to the hilt in the January sales – ship out several players and replace with hungry ones. Who knows. Either way the lack of comms is really poor.
Anyone notice that Tim Klose has removed any sense of NCFC branding/colours from his Twitter? It’s fairly obvious what that means…
I completely agree. The biggest problem that they face is speculation by the supporters in the total absence of information. Is it too much to hope that someone in the Club will see this and take the right action now!
Interesting point you make Alan Harper(#2), and it may not be that far from the truth. It´s quite likely we may see several ´outs´ and not very many ´ins´ this January, to help boost the coffers, not likely to ease the mounting tension and dissatisfaction amongst the locals though, but there. IF that does then, as you say, result in a new leader, all (or most anyway) might be forgiven, but I´ll see it before I believe it.
Understand your points entirely and largely agree with them, but there are also issues around keeping other clubs in the dark as Alan H. says. Is it possible that AN remains a good manager but is being inhibited by the players who seem to feel that they are too good to be in this division? (Which they patently are not!)I certainly get the impression that at least three of them feel that they deserve to be elsewhere. If that is the case, then he needs to be brave and start playing some more of the youngsters. Ship out the deadwood. He has bought well in Maddison and Godfrey and Thompson. Get Toffolo back. Go for it with them for this year and add some more hungry players with the cash from the deadwood. We could do really well next year. I think in all honesty unless we do really well in the transfer window we have had it for this year.
Terrific piece Stewart and I heartily agree.
My main “career job” involved crisis management in large portions. The Company managed to let two isotankers of ethyl acrylate wash up on Weybourne Beach. It stank, but apart from a few unfortunate shellfish, nothing was harmed. Local people were irate – it looked and smelled far worse than it was, but there was a precautionary large-scale evacuation from beachside properties.
When I persuaded them to let a spokesman (I was the sacrificial lamb) explain the facts and what they were doing to redress the problem, public opinion turned: they were praised for their fast response and efforts to sort it out.
It wasn’t brilliance on my part, just common sense.
Which is something I fear our Board do not possess in abundance.
What a load of lily-livered whining from one and all – with the exception of Alan (comment 2) who is spot on with the situation.
Many think Moxey is the devil himself – I don’t. Given a choice between someone with 20+ years CEO experience (some good, some bad – like 99% of CEOs in history) and those with none, I’ll go with the former. With that experience, I’d call him an expert in his job – 2016 is the year to belittle experts and distrust facts, so no surprise that everyone else thinks they know better.
Most are demanding he communicate openly with fans – what if he did but didn’t say what wanted to be heard? More moaning.
I do think it’s time to freshen up the touchline but feel no need to demand it happen and throw personal insults around while doing it. It’s the board’s decision – if you don’t like it, tough.
Vote with your feet, not on Twitter or websites behind a keyboard/pad, if you feel strongly enough.
Hugely interesting read and some good insightful comments. When responding to an earlier article I likened the smith/Jones times interview as a declaration of war. A re-affirmation of their power over the club having dispatched McNally and bowkett, who as they saw it were handbrakes applied to their utopian vision.
The accounts revealed that the smiths had been repaid during the financial year and were no longer creditors of the club. in the knowledge that Norwich city had relinquished the primer league aspirations to become a beacon for quaintness and old fashioned virtue, this would be the last chance to get back their money. Foulger too was repaid the grant holt money that he had pledged when a post relegation cap in hand was whipped around the support.
Quite simply put, if the board do not wish Norwich city to join the evil gravy train and compete with other similar sized clubs at the big table, they should clear off and start another club.
This downsizing is an act of vandalism.
“Team smith” as it has become known made a huge error of judgment (again) with that interview. It spelled out in black no white many of the points that their apologists had been denying for years. Supposition has become fact, straight from the horses mouth. A sea change is evident in the attitude of many supporters which is healthy and much needed.
Delia smith now needs to be left in no doubt that if she continues to play damaging games with Norwich city football club she will feel a very severe financial pain for the privilege.
The third option for the board is they and Alex Neil have identified some bad eggs amongst the players. These will be sold in January and AN backed as much as possible. Quite who those players are I’m not totally sure, although I suspect a few.
From my view I don’t want the board to be shot forthwith, as seems to be demanded in some quarters, but it is very clear the present situation cannot be allowed to go on much longer. I think our recruitment has been outright bad of recent seasons. This has to be resolved.
Alex Neil has more than lost the fans, EDP quizzes don’t need to tell us that. His position is untenable- I cannot conceive of a situation where he could win the support of the majority of the fans again. If he is to manage us to the end of the season I dread to think where we’ll end up, even with a spectacular January overhaul.
I try to be positive in the face of increasing disaster- but it’s getting very hard to paint the debacle at Norwich as anything good right now.
OTBC
Why does Rob Butler’s opinion matter?
11) Let’s for a moment look at the scenario you and I have brought up (and beyond getting a good new manager in this week this might be all we’re left to cling to). This is hypothetical before the Jeffs and Chrises of this world start wetting the bed. It may be our only hope, though…
Delia has always claimed to be hands off when it comes to transfers. If that’s true:
McNally blew the last two transfer windows through error and his resignation. What resulted was Alex Neil was given a kit of parts but with crucial parts missing. Some duff parts that should have been sold on, remained. AN had to work with what he had – a mix of good players surrounded by unreliable players who knew they shouldn’t really be at the club any longer. Those better players became disillusioned with the poorer players. Those poorer players knew they weren’t really wanted. AN struggled to balance this. So we are where we are.
So this scenario sees Moxey in charge of righting all these mistakes. Delia tells him “make it right for Alex”. Moxey gets to work lining up deals to ship out the regular failures. Then ties up commitment from the better players. Then signs the players AN wants and needs. AN has a squad built in his vision, not one inherited from the last few managers. We kick on. It’s the greatest renaissance in the history of NCFC.
I know how that sounds. But in the light of any other obvious options being given to us by NCFC it’s the only best case scenario we’re left with. Fingers crossed.
With regard to Rob Butler and Mark Rivers´ suggestions, that Neil can´t get this group of players to perform at a decent level DESPITE their abilities, and also your own `the players cannot or will not play at their potential for this manager´ Stewart, I´d say you´re all delving into the realms of wishful thinking there.
I think the answer is far more simple. The players we have, just aren´t very good, and what we´ve been seeing for the past several months, is neither more nor less, but exactly what they are capable of, I´m afraid. I´d be surprised if any new manager, at least of the sort we are likely to be able to attract, would make very much difference at all. But I´m perfectly prepared to be convinced otherwise, although that´s just one more thing I´ll see before I believe.
Cityfan, I love your optimism, I really do! I guess we’ll find out fairly early in January. Fingers crossed here too, OTBC
After nine defeats in eleven games and following a dismal relegation, the second in three seasons. The third in four is a distinct possibility. Don’t call into question the strength of my bladder. Ever.
The key to any business-customer communications is to have the channel and the voice ready long before you need it.
The club should have been utilizing its social media and site for conssistent communications from the board. To turn up now just for damage shows a reluctance to engage.
Thanks for all the comments.
I’ve previously had some sympathy for the view that Alex wanted more changes in the summer – in particular, shipping out certain players – and that he might deserve the kind of window described by Cityfan (13).
For me, though, the balance has changed. His obvious inability to motivate the current (extensive) squad is too worrying for comfort. I’ve rarely seen a clearer case for changing manager.
Chris (10) Brilliantly put. Have a gold star!
While I appreciate CityFan’s optimism, the only time optimism has ever been warranted in the last five years was Neil’s appointment. At all other times optimism and reality have had little to do with each other.
The players are not allowed to speak honestly to the press. Having listened to three players about what goes on at the training ground and how they are supposed to be motivated it is no surprise what is happening. Incidently only one has ever met Delia. The wages they earn does not suggest lack of money.
Walking on our feet seems the only way for the club to sit up and listen When they have a gate of 26,000 due to it being mainly season tickets they feel safe.To a working man who loves football the annual £500 is a family gift for me as it wassomething I enjoy.But ever more the fat cats and the players who think themselves to be above the working man have wrecked the game.I have now cancelled my season ticket,instead I will watch my local Lowestoft Town and keep my money.CITY till I broke .
The problem with “shipping out” any trouble makers or those who aren’t up to the job (or the fight), is that a) they’ve got to be willing to go ( and given the wages some of them are on, they probably won’t find anyone to match them); and b) there has to be another club that actually wants them.
Similarly, “signing the players AN wants” is another huge issue. With our current free-fall in the league, and the obvious alienation of the fans and the local press, players may well be reluctant to come here.
So sorry cityfan (13), it’s not going to be as easy as tasking Moxey with “making it right for Alex”. It’s more case of making it right for the club, and I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that that will require a change of manager.
Any particular reasom why my comment number two (#14 on here) has apparently failed to get through moderation?
AN came into management of a decent team which I recall had been prepared by Mike Phelan &Gary Holt. They bear Bournemouth against the odds & AN claimed that as his victory. That immediately made me suspect that it was going to be all about him. I have never found him to have any great love for the club or Norfolk unlike people like Gary Holt did. Something went wrong there and I believe we probably will never know the truth but maybe the players do. In any business respect is required & I think the players have lost respect. It is criminal that AN blames the players – he is the one that creates the game plan but makes ridiculous decisions leaving the players that have the ability, desire and drive to play well for the club sitting on the bench or being substituted at critical times. AN lacks the knowledge and man management skills to make a great manager & I think that the players know this. Shame that the board apparently do not!
In the past hour I have posted the following comment after Gary Gowers article, yesterday, but it is equally relevant to Stewart Lewis’s article and chimes well with the theme of the need for leadership and communication….It just needs someone to put their head above the parapet to show there is leadership and a plan at the club…..this is the statement I think Jez Moxey should read out at a special press conference (given that there is apparently no move to replace Neil), which would then be open to questions to Moxey, Neil and Balls.”The Norwich City Board fully backs Alex Neil in his efforts to turn round the bad run of form over the last two months. We believe we have the right manager, coaching staff and players to get Norwich City winning again and climbing the league table. This can only be achieved if we all pull together as one, backed by our wonderful loyal support. We have the January transfer window in which we will be proactive in trying to strengthen the squad in the push for promotion.Let’s begin the New Year with a ‘Do or Die’ attitude throughout the whole club, which will result in Norwich City achieving promotion to The Premier League……any questions?
Cityfan (13). If the players aren’t playing for Alex, then what makes you think any others will? He’s a bully and commends zero respect from many of the players if what I’m told is even half true.
He’s completely blown, yet our board thinks he’s some sort of latent genius.
@Bob Walters. I was at Bournemouth that day. Howson got sent and Neil watching from the stands bullied his way to tech area and took over. It was the way it looked to me .. It is no wonder Phelan wanted away and suprised Holty stayed as long as he did. Talk about about arrogant and pig headed.
His comments about that “But I felt everything changed with the sending off. I felt I would be better suited in the dugout.”
I was under the impression he took over the reigns on the monday after the game. I was gobsmacked I thought Phelan had served under one of the greatest league manager’s, and he could not handle that ? jez ..Who the hell does he think he is.. I sensed somebody had a superior view of himself .. and here we now with him and I was so so right ..
I too was at that match in Bournemouth. I saw a brilliant young manager tMe charge of a situation and help us win a match that was slipping away from us. I spoke to John Ruddy in tge Restaurant affer the game and all were really pleased that AN was on board. It just irritates the hell out if me when people start talking about arrogance. All good football managers have an air of arrogance. Also stop referring to the fact that you knew this would happen or alluding to the fact about what you have been told. Especially when someone says “if even half of what I have been told” probably made up by someone in the pub!
John (29): You beat me to it!
We shouldn’t re-write history; AN was a breath of fresh air and his achievement in that first season was sensational.
Nor can we live in history, though. He doesn’t have that kind of impact with the players now. It’s well beyond just having to deal with a couple of difficult personalities; he has plenty of options at his disposal, and can’t get them to play anywhere close to their potential.
Times have changed, sadly.
For those of you questioning the scenario I wrote about, may I remind you to look up the word ‘hypothetical’. I made that clear. Unlike some who claim to ‘know’ they Alex Neil is a bully, arrogant etc. Or that Delia has made a ‘declaration of war’. Really? War? Come on.
I don’t believe AN should be our manager any longer but the scenario above is the best possible one if the board think he is. And it might not work.
I cancelled my season ticket when we got relegated to league one because I hated what the board were doing with our money (and back then it was our money because it wasn’t coming from anywhere else). I renewed it when an admission by Delia (which I heard in person at a supporters trust meeting) that she didn’t know what else to do led to her taking advice to get football people in. I was convinced the hiring of McNally was a sound judgement. It wasn’t luck. But now we’re in the same situation – so she has to front up and say she’s got it wrong or back the current manager with every penny there is.
It could be worse you could have Mick McCarthy in charge
Mr John Caithness , thank you for your kind comments. they are so full of arroance it is untrue. who are you to tell what their views are. I didn’t see a brilliant young and have not in the time I have watched him perform or we would not be in the mess we are in. And some people can see things I can not see the future or I would buy a euro ticket and buy into the club . The idea of comments is for people to express their views and opinions .. that was my opinion and your was yours . I suppose you are very happy with our brilliant young manager now ..I wasn’t then and am not now