If things continue the way they are, the season could be all but over before the New Year. Not something I’ve not experienced too much in my ten years as a Norwich fan.
My overriding emotion coming out of Carrow Road on Saturday was of course one of disappointment, but there was also an acceptance of where we are as a club at the moment.
We currently sit in 14th place, eight points away from the play offs and ten points away from the relegation zone. As they say ‘the table never lies’ and I think our current position in the league reflects how our campaign has gone so far. A few good results, a few bad results and a few average results. That word ‘average’ will be used to describe the remainder of the season unless something drastically changes. I’m just not quite sure what that ‘something’ is.
Our formation and style of play has come under particular scrutiny since the start of the season, with Farke’s philosophy being labelled as ‘boring’ and ‘sideways’ by many City fans. Having endured the majority of our home games this season, it’s hard to disagree.
In fairness to the City boss, he has shown his versatility as a coach by trying out different formations in an attempt to make his team both solid at the back AND have some attacking impetus at the other end. But when you’re playing in front of 25,000 fans who witnessed an impressive haul of 53 home goals last season, that’s always going to be difficult.
So many new faces arriving in the summer coupled with the fact that a fair few of them had come over from foreign leagues meant a potential teething period was to be expected. Mario Vrancic, for example, showed plenty of potential in pre-season games, with the Bosnian’s price tag of £650,000 being seen as a good piece of business. But, as we know, Vrancic has flattered to deceive – looking sluggish, off the pace and unable to deal with the cut and thrust of the Championship.
With several of City’s summer imports displaying similar attributes, our business in the transfer window has again been placed under scrutiny.
Stuart Webber made no secret of how we are now ‘fishing in a different pond’, so to speak. Gone are the days where we can splash out a few million on a player and merely hope he turns out well. Although the club is still paying for its mistakes of the past, I have every confidence in Webber and the new structure to find young and hungry players who value every second they are privileged enough to wear yellow and green. The problem, however, is that the structure is based very much on a long-term and work-in-progress model, which doesn’t appear to be progressing much at the moment.
Of course, as fans we are always going to want success now. If not success, then a little hint of some progress is required to maintain the thought that the club is going in the right direction. Up until the Derby game at the end of last month, there were some promising signs of progress, especially considering the 4-0 thrashing at Millwall before the first international break where serious questions were asked, and rightly so. In the last 6 games, the same old defensive frailties have reappeared, but the difference this time is that we seem unable to create chances at the other end.
Although I don’t want to keep banging the Huddersfield drum, it’s important to remember that David Wagner lead the Terriers to a 19th place finish in his first season in the Championship. The season after, he guides them to the Premier League following a campaign which saw the former Dortmund Under 23 coach really find his feet in the Championship. I’m not saying that Farke’s ideas are going to automatically click come the first game of next season, but so far he and his team have barely had 5 months to come to terms with what is a unique league.
Like it or lump it, as Farke described himself, this season is going to ‘be like a rollercoaster’ – and to continue that analogy, us fans are now all on board. That’s not to say that mediocrity should at all be accepted. It has been well documented in the last couple of weeks that we have the most expensive season ticket in the Championship, which on current performances at Carrow Road is unjustifiable.
A word which Farke mentioned several times during our 9 game unbeaten run was the “togetherness” of the group, which was evident with post-match huddles and that heroic performance against Arsenal. Now, when times are tough, that applies more than ever, for players, staff, supporters – everyone connected with the club.
Agree to an extent but I would be surprised if our season is over by January. Not sure what exactly you are classing as mid-table (18th to 21st?). I’m more concerned that we are far more likely at this rate to be exiting this league via the back door rather than the front, especially if we do not solve our chronic goalscoring problems. Oh, and we only have 4 home games ‘remaining’ amongst the current bottom 12. There’s going to be some massive away games in the second half of this season…
2
The immediate concern is not that we have achieved mid table mediocrity but appear to have become relegation candidates.
Increasingly it is becoming difficult to name three poorer teams than City which makes it all the more important to find new owners with very deep pockets.
If Maddison is sold in January in a desperate attempt by Delia to retain control then relegation will almost certainly follow.
2
What did we expect? Not this !!!!! Ok, we are hard up blah blah etc etc, fishing in a different pond as you put it, I didn’t expect a foreign reserve team including coach.
What I did expect was a young hungry manager/players from leagues 1 and 2, maybe non league as well. We keep getting this continuous bleating that Farke and his players need time to get used to the “English” game , why on earth did we go down this route if this season is so financially important. At least we would be more likely to have greater effort and entertainment and excitement than this bore fest we have now . Oh for Paul Lambert and the team he had….see it can be done
4
Good stuff Daniel. I’m not prepared to cut the new structure quite as much slack as you, but there is a very good balance to your article and I enjoyed reading it.
The collective lack of confidence on the pitch worries me more than financial stuff just now.
It’s still wait and see imo.
But by heaven and hell, we as supporters are paying for the recruitment mistakes of the past – big time!
1
Martin
Lambert had his time and walked out and in his words the team need a massive rebuild, City didn’t have the money then to complete with what he thought was more money, bigger club and the chance to win something.
As we all know now his career hasn’t been the greatest since he departed city either at Aston Villa or Wolverhampton, Blackburn.
Holt,Nelson, Ward were all purchased by Gunn so he fell on his feet taking over city we all would like Farke to follow that success he also had a tough negotiator in O’Neill who took no crap from anyone.
It says alot when its been admitted the the Academy has had money spent on it and not achieved bringing any money in worth mentioning till Murphy was sold, It will take a few years for that now hopefully to pay dividends so lets pray for the best.
Most city supporters wanted change we got it maybe not completely what we expected but once Webber was recruited and the changes were left in his hand it is no wonder he went with choices that had worked for hi m before.
We now have to let the project run possibly till the end of the season and see what the end result is we are not far off the playoffs we just need to start scoring lets see how the team react once we get 2 up agsinst anyside in this league, we struggle when we go 1 up and can’t score another this has to change.
0
Hi Alex; I guess you’re responding to the other Martin (two/too many of us about!)
You make a good point about the academy – let’s see what Webber can do with it in time.
I would forget the play-offs this season if I were you. Unlikely imo; seriously unlikely, in fact.
We simply have to give this gang the chance to get us going for next season because it’s becoming increasingly obvious they’ll achieve Jack in this.
0
Hi Martin
Yes I agree next season is more realistic.
The point I was trying to make is there has been to many people moaning about city yes the play is not as expected but 2 many changes has causes alsorts of problems.
Small Balls says city are not actively looking for investors but would not turn them away, he also mention once before they employed Deloits to find suitable investors and 52 were approached but none were found to want in, the club was heavily in dept who would in their right mind would.
As someone else said what are the conditions put up by the Smiths and are these turning investors away, are the Smiths willing to invest in the club again to take the club forward, I once read that all monies they put into the club was a gift and they didn’t want it back so as the pound signs came up in the Premiership they just as the Oystons at Blackpool got in first to reclaim there loans.
Will they be happy to see the club worse off than when they took over ??????? that is the question
If the team turn this around with luck and a fair wind we ciuld still achieve the playoffs but I am an opptomist
1
Alex
Not a Lambo fan then? , who signed the players is irrelevant, my point was it was an exciting team of cheapish signings, freebies etc playing in a style that not only got fans off their seats but was successful too……and it didn’t take long too do this. . We are now 19 games into what everyone coneeds is an important season and the manager and some of the player’s are still not up to speed with the Championship !!!
0
Hi Martin
At the time we all saw through rose tinted glasses were Lambert was concerned and enjoyed the journey.
I agree that it was a successful and exciting period in cities history and Lambert could do no wrong, being an opptomist I always hope for better to come and yes 19 games in and no settled side is a worry.
Lambert had his time and as with Stringer, Brown, Bond and Walker who all had reasonable success we must say thanks and move on, this set up can be a huge success we just need to see more glimpses of it now to entice us back and give us more hope than sorrow.
1
Well said Daniel, and as Martin states above, unfortunately we are now reaping the harvest (famine??) from so many previous expensive errors in previous transfer windows.
Whilst I agree that the new set-up needs time, I do feel that we as fans deserve rather more than we have seen of late.
The togetherness of the squad post 1p5wich and Arsenal seems to have disappeared almost as quickly as a goal scoring chance for us.
The real crux will of course come at season ticket renewal time – and after 50 plus years of being yellow and green, and some 20 as a season ticket holder I am really questioning if the continued outlay is worth it.
Based on the recent fare served up in our home performances, uinfortunately the answer has to be a resounding no
O T B C
1
Great comment John.
I will keep going because I always do, which tells the Smiths I am one of many thousands who have the same mindset.
Doubtless they rub their hands and count my money…
In any other avenue of life I would have walked long ago under these circumstances.
1
The structure doesn’t worry me, and it certainly isn’t the reason we are playing rather unattractive football – as I suspect many Championship teams are.
Supposing the structure hadn’t changed and we’d stayed with the old style CEO. He’d still have had to find a manager and reduce the wage bill. Howson would still have demanded his move to Boro, Dorrans would still have chased his dream of playing for Rangers, and Jacob M’s success with England U21 would still have prompted his high-value move. Our wage bill would still have had to be reduced by a net £9m, possibly more.
We probably would have recruited fewer players from Europe and more from the British Isles, possibly paying higher wages for the same level of player, because my understanding is that over here players in the lower divisions are much better rewarded than in Europe.
Perhaps that would have made some difference but I’m not really convinced that English Football in the Championship is so different that players from the continent have to adapt all that much. There are dozens of continental coaches and managers and hundreds of players in the English game now. It surely can’t be that much of an issue can it? Our game is said to be a bit more physical, but I haven’t noticed the German, or Italian, or Spanish defences being full of shrinking violets, have you?
Right now we need entertaining and that’s not happening. We don’t have a Huckerby or a Redmond, nor a Dublin or a Holt, nor anybody remotely close. Our one pacey exciting forward is lacking confidence; our 3 or 4 creative midfielders are stifled for space in most games. Our best striker wants away and I suspect our second-best is just feeling the effects of age.
Our crowds are remarkably loyal when things aren’t going well. Despite our recent home form there are relatively few seats available for the Sheffield Wednesday match. But if what’s on offer doesn’t improve there will surely be a fair few not renewing next spring. Even so we will probably still have larger crowds than the majority of clubs in the division and be in a better position than most to emerge from the pack in time.
0
Football is football were ever it is played
I have worked overseas in more places than I can remember.
Working day to day with people helps you to adjust quickly to a new environment but when you have a whole new coaching team plus 6 player’s from Germany all arriving in a short period then the adjustment period is more difficult.
Most teams wether it be premiership or championship don’t as a norm bring in 12 to 13 foreigners at the same time.
1 How many are still living in Hotels
2 Have they all got their families settled here
3 Are the children happy at school
4 Do they all speak good English
5 Do any of them regret moving to this League
6 How do they get on with the other players
Here sre many more factors in this that can cause the set of results that city have endured so far this season, not being in the know are the club helping with all the minor problems with settling into the Club, League and England.
The HR department might be over stretched we don’t know.
Lets hope all if any problems get sorted the team settles down and city starts to improve.
0