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How to get a sensible perspective on Norwich City? Keep calm and listen to Stuart Webber

How to get a sensible perspective on Norwich City? Keep calm and listen to Stuart Webber

11th October 2017 By Stewart Lewis 9 Comments

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I’m never sure whether travel actually broadens the mind, but I enjoy it.

It certainly refreshes the mind to experience new places and people, to take in different cultures.  And, inevitably, to find creative ways of following the fortunes of Norwich City.

Advances in technology have reduced the need for extreme measures (my efforts during the Seventies and Eighties can best be described as “where there’s a will there’s a way”, casting aside all my natural reticence to beg for help in strange places). But it can still have an element of challenge, and certainly a capacity to perplex fellow travellers.

In most places you can now get Wi-Fi. Over the past fortnight I’ve discovered that an exception is if you’re on a steamboat in the lower reaches of the Mississippi.  No Wi-Fi, rendering my carefully chosen and primed devices useless. Yet City were playing at Middlesbrough and Reading, and I had to know how they were doing.

The solution was one official machine that got at least intermittent connection to the internet. It was meant to be shared by 400 passengers, but once I got onto it – late in the first half of each game – my fellow passengers soon realized I wasn’t going to relinquish it.  BBC text commentary would have to do, with scores updated every two minutes.

The final score in each case was ecstasy, of course, but the process was agony. Einstein somehow missed this easy proof of Relativity: time passes at an entirely different rate depending on whether you’re 1-0 up or 1-0 down.

By the third minute of added time at Boro I could no longer stand the delay in score updates, so went to Twitter and saw Robin Sainty’s succinct and sweet post …

WHAT A BLOODY WIN!!!!!!

— Robin Sainty (@RobinNCST) September 26, 2017

The only time I can remember enjoying a Tweet written in capitals.

I’ve therefore come back to a completely changed mood among the City faithful, even the usually skeptical social media community.

Clearly, there’s some reason for optimism. Up to the last international break, we didn’t know whether Daniel Farke could show the tactical flexibility, or inspire the bodies-on-the-line passion, that’s required to get points at places like Sheffield United, Middlesbrough and Reading. We now know he can and does.

We can now say we have the capability to do well in this division. It’s reasonable to think we’ll improve as the season progresses, and could be a big factor come April and May.

But we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. If I’m to claim (as I did after Millwall) to be a voice of balance and perspective, I must now shift ground and urge that we rein in the optimism a bit.

Actually, I don’t need to be that voice. We’ve heard it from another source in the past few days: “There will be other dips.  The road will continue to be bumpy. We might have another Millwall at some point”

Was that Dave B, Jeff or another of our regular cynics?  No – it was Stuart Webber. Worth listening to, as always.

Actually, I hope there won’t be another Millwall. For all our attacking verve and 5-0 wins, last season will be remembered for the gutless no-shows which punctuated it from St Andrews to Hillsborough. For now, Daniel Farke seems to have exorcised that mentality; let’s hope it doesn’t reappear.

An uneven road in terms of performance, though, is surely to be expected.

It’s still hard to grasp the extent of last summer’s change, across both the coaching and playing staff. If a normal summer’s turnover can be compared to a minor tremor, then summer 2017 was the asteroid strike of 65 million years ago that wiped out 75 per cent of the earth’s species.

Appropriately for the comparison, that asteroid strike wiped out the dinosaurs. At a stroke, we’ve reduced the average age of our squad by five years. Most of the new arrivals had never played in the Championship, or any league like it. Some who are now key players for us – Trybull, Stiepermann, Zimmermann – I’d never heard of before we signed them. Our new keeper had never made a league start.

Of the team that won at Middlesbrough, only Ivo Pinto and Timm Klose played in the final game of last season; the majority only joined us in the summer.

Given that inexperience, we can’t expect the next few months to be plain sailing. On the other hand, Stuart Webber has already engineered a better balanced squad with options for every position and a range of formations.

Webber’s candour about our challenges and weaknesses should give credibility to his positive claims. I believe, and take encouragement from, his summary:

“We still have a long way to go. We’re not settling for where we are now.
We’ve made small steps, but we’re going in the right direction”

OTBC! 


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Filed Under: Column, Stewart Lewis

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Comments

  1. martin penney says

    11th October 2017 at 7:43 am

    The straight-talking and realism of Stuart Webber never fails to impress me.

    Stewart’s final quotation from SW is music to the ears indeed.

    Like many of us, I was more than a little jittery after Millwall but I’m looking forward to Saturday’s match more than I have been in quite a long time.

    A good read for early on a dark Autumn morning!

    2
    Reply
  2. Robin Sainty says

    11th October 2017 at 10:21 am

    Great stuff from Stewart as usual.

    2
    Reply
  3. Michael D says

    11th October 2017 at 10:27 am

    I expect during this break that DF has been working on transitions, to try and get City moving the ball up the pitch a bit quicker… but not at the expense of losing the defensive resoluteness we gained over the last month. I think one big question is whether all the little knocks and strains have been recovered from – Oliviera’s groin, Maddison’s achilles, Stiepermann, etc.

    If the challenge at the last break was to develop a core spine to the team and an overall toughness and resilience, this break for the next set of matches I expect the challenge is more about developing now a greater level of adaptability, ie being able to keep the toughness at the back, but also being able to be more penetrative when opposition are sitting back behind the ball, or we ourselves have to rely more on counterattacking moments.

    4
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    • Stewart Lewis says

      11th October 2017 at 10:59 am

      Very perceptive comment – spot on, I suspect

      Reply
  4. Alex B says

    11th October 2017 at 12:08 pm

    A very enjoyable read in a very wet and wind Blackpool.

    I agree with all mentioned by Stewart and SW and yes we have to exspect a few hiccups along the way.
    The longer that we progress the more will be exspected which is a burden in its self as the pessimists will jump up and down and cry about how they new it couldn’t last.

    SW seems to be keeping a level head as the project progresses we as supporters need to do the same we have two real big tests coming away to Arsenal and the Ipswich game, wouls enjoy a win over Arsenal but don’t want to lose to the blue scum.

    1
    Reply
  5. Keith B says

    11th October 2017 at 1:32 pm

    Yes, work is bound to be continuing to bring more life to the attack. And we have yet to see what happens when one or more of the key players from the last month gets injured.

    It will be interesting to see how Farke handles the ridiculous 48 hour turnaround between the games on 22nd and 24th. He knows he cannot possibly “rest” anyone for Portman Rd, except possibly Zimmerman given that Hanley is ineligible for the Emirates game. But then he’ll also know how many fans have bought tickets for London and they won’t want to see Arsenal reserves, many of whom would probably walk into our first XI, beat our reserves 5-0.

    Reply
    • Alex B says

      11th October 2017 at 2:18 pm

      Hi Keith

      We need to get Hanley, Franke and Raggett once he arrives at city all to fit into the defence seamlessly at the moment no one else is getting a look in and Farke needs to know that any off them can fit together as and when needed.

      Reply
      • Keith B says

        11th October 2017 at 3:49 pm

        Yes,I know what you mean. I suspect though that Franke will turn out to be the least successful of the summer signings. As for Raggett, I like that he’s getting league experience but wonder if he will be forever playing catch-up. Just as he comes in we will hopefully have moved up a gear. 3 or 4 months at Colney may bring him up to that level, but by then we may have moved on again, especially if we make the play-offs.

        2
        Reply
  6. Alex B says

    11th October 2017 at 6:52 pm

    This is the first time I can remember city having possibly 5 centre backs capable of playing at a high level, just need to get them all match fit

    Reply

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