Back in the day there was a progressive rock band called Yes. I couldn’t stand them as I thought they were pretentious, mixing up time signatures just to show off, knocking out endless noodlings and as for Rick Wakeman’s cape, well…
One of their staple tracks was Yours Is No Disgrace and that’s how I feel about Saturday. No need to hang collective heads in shame over the narrowest of defeats to the pretty useful side that is Leeds United.
The usual small gallery of missed chances, a free header granted to their centre-back for the winner and a suicidal back pass from Grant Hanley aside, we were at the races. We can’t beat ourselves up for losing there.
I’m slightly distressed about Daniel Farke’s comment that we would return to man-to-man marking at set pieces as we had identified Pontus Jansson as their dangerman. Oh, guess who nutted in, more or less unmarked. It sounds like an identified plan that seems to have failed to have been properly implemented to me.
Let’s be honest folks, this season is shot. The horse has bolted, the moggy has escaped the sack and we ain’t going nowhere.
As Gary alluded to yesterday, Farke drew the shortest of straws upon his arrival.
Injuries, largely caused in the pre-season nightmare that was Cambridge United, have hardly helped his cause.
But anybody calling for his head is premature and has to realise a few painful pieces of reality. Farke is, and has to be, here for the long haul because the Board has backed itself into a corner and cannot do anything other than stick with him. Should Stuart Webber decide he wants to graze on pastures new, we would be as stuffed as a Norfolk bronze this time next week.
We would be left with an entire coaching team we couldn’t afford to despatch and nobody to oversee them.
Already, Webber-Farke’s most expensive purchase, Marcel Franke, is being touted with a January exit, possibly to Union Berlin. Well he’s done bugger all for us, so I don’t mind. Bad choice gents, but anybody can get it wrong.
But let’s do what Worzel Gummidge did in moments of extreme stress and put our thinking heads on.
While Aunt Delia and Mr Wynn Jones (think of Aunt Sally and said fictional scarecrow, if you will) continue to enjoy their nice cup of tea and a slice of cake, us plebs in the seated stands will remain powerless. This, right now, is as good as it will get for the foreseeable future.
We will comfortably survive in the Championship this season, of that I am sure.
But what seemed to me like an exciting, forward-thinking concept at the time it was implemented currently appears to be struggling to tread water, let alone begin to emulate dolphins by leaping gracefully towards the sunny skies.
I’ll leave my thoughts on the January window until it opens, but who do you think will arrive? I know the answer to that. How many of our youngsters (with the possible exception of Jamal Lewis) will be blooded, let alone be allowed to prove themselves and thus attempt to become established? I know the answer to that one too. And who will depart? Not Matt Jarvis. Not Steven Naismith. And not Michael McGovern.
James Maddison and Timm Klose anyone? I wouldn’t care to bet either will be here in February. Obviously, it all depends who might come in for them – the bottom end of the Premier League will probably be queuing up. For Madders for certain.
And as for next season? Too early to speculate, I hear you say. Well I reckon we’re in for a dose of Bundesliga bargains, loanees and anybody from the academy who is given the chance to break through.
I’m prepared to be shot down for the above statement but I doubt I’m that far out.
I’m no Einstein but to me No Investment = No Future.
A couple of years ago I had the great privilege to meet Rick Wakeman of Yes in the Rising Sun in Coltishall. I’m a Red Lion lad so it was a miraculous encounter. We discovered we had both worked in the same pub at different times (the Greyhound in Chadwell Heath) and had a good old natter.
When I repeated the famous music industry tale about him enjoying an on-stage meat curry from his piano stool to deliberately annoy the other members of the band like Steve Howe and Jon Anderson who were vegetarian/vegan, he didn’t deny it.
The problem as I see it is that the talk about academy lads is all smoke and no fire. When will we have a manager who will bite the bullet and put one on the Pitch? As someone wrote elsewhere Sunderland bring on a 17 year old who scores and we bring on a couple of thirty somethings in the 83rd minute who make not one jot of difference. I think your assessment of the situation is spot on and that is a big worry.
Thanks Cyprus – good comment.
I saw the Sunderland-related remarks too and would have included them in the article if I could have remembered who to attribute them to!
Most – not all – of us are worried for the future. On a personal level it’s the sheer frustration of “what might have been” that gets to me.
We do in fact feel like a porpoise instead of a dolphin, which coincidentally is the only member of the family that doesn’t actually porpoise above choppy waters. Fitting.
Reminds me of that character in the Carry On series, Nefarius Purpose. Or perhaps it was porpoise after all. Hard to tell just now.
When your heads are in the sand it’s hard to rise above the water…
Thanks for the flipperant comment.
On the button again Martin, but should anyone of us be surprised ? The academy has been going for a fair while and just who have we brought through ? Go back to the days of Worthington we had Henderson being given game after game, and he still has not played higher than what he did for us. The Jarvis boy’s both now in non league and again never climbed the ladder, not since Sutton and Bellamy have we produced a player of real class. (forgetting Master Murphy) The rest can easily be judged by the level they reached.. For several of the past seasons people have been channeling the £15 for basically little return.
Now we are in a position when we need an producing academy and it is not there, but finally someone has had the gonads, to say it is not up standard . I have not been involved in pro football and nor I didn’t need to be to see something was drastically wrong at that level. Now when needed the products coming on the production line will be low, plus with no money in the coffers to get replacements , the clubs is on a knife edge .
Making that edge a little sharper is the fact of the sweeping changes that have been made are looking to be taking longer than many expected to bear fruit.
There has been a fair old river of promotion and premiership money flowing under carrow bridge, more than seen by many of the clubs above us in the league. to see where we are can only point to terrible mistakes have been made, I am not highlighting them as that particular road has been well travelled. But until a change at the helm is allowed and investment channeled in, this is our lot. Get use to it . for me and others of our years, this is very reminiscent of the days before Ron Saunders, a club having a few highs many lows but never going anywhere.
I didn’t mind a little Wakeman especially King Arthur & Journey to the centre of the earth good concept album plus I liked Jon and Vangelis
Hi Lad
Ian Henderson is still going in League One – I remember him scoring a belter for us against Millwall way back when. Ryan Jarvis likewise against Liverpool and Lee Power v QPR. It all ended up as “so what” in every case.
A Bellamy, a Sutton or even a Murphy come along virtually once in a lifetime and if that is what we have to rely upon I truly fear for the shape of things to come. Relying on progression from the academy is a massive gamble. Like you I have never been a playing part of the professional football scene but my amateur career taught me that a brilliant, motivated and dedicated 17-y-o can effectively fold shortly after his nineteenth birthday.
Girls, booze, the wrong mates, that kind of thing. We’ve probably all done it ourselves, but we weren’t paid thousands a week so our consciences were comparatively clear.
I think some folks out there don’t realise how accurate your “knife-edge” will become next season.
Thanks for your comment once more.
ps The Six Wives of Henry VIII put me off Rick Wakeman’s stuff for life!
Korey Smith is the captain and driving force at Bristol City who look to be Premier bound. He should never have been allowed to go imo.
The much vaunted Celtic unbeaten run – (yes, I know what you all think about the Scottish league, but Celtic have played in Champions league and beaten a few there) – came to and end spectacularly on Sunday at Hearts where a sixteen year old made the starting line up and scored the first goal of four. FYI a certain Lafferty K also scored!).
All we are saying is give youth a chance.
For another day, given the direction City are travelling, it may be interesting to consider the recent history at Tynecastle. A foreign investor brought the club to its knees, a fans group led by Ian Murray MP established a rescue plan involving fans’ regular financial pledges, and a rich businesswoman, Ann Budge, has put up the money to underpin the move towards fan ownership and is operating as CEO and Chair..
The main stand has just been rebuilt, season ticket sales improved again this season to over 14,000, and the future is firmly based on the academy.
Perhaps chairman Balls should have a chat to his Labour colleague Ian Murray, and Delia have a chat to Ann.
Aunt Sally,
noun Chiefly British.
a person who is a ready target for criticism or focus for disputation.
The dictionary definition seems to sum up our illustrious owner perfectly Martin. (clearly your intention)
Aunt Sally, oxfordshore tradition (less violent nowadays). Throwing a big stick at a chicken tied to a post until it dies.
Seems fitting.
I’m sorry Chris I cannot possibly agree with you.
Next you’ll be telling me that I deliberately compared the always sartorially elegant Mr Wynn-Jones to a fictional, televised scarecrow.
Now, would I do that?
I do wonder if they might have a barber in common, of course…
I agree that the season is shot; we’re not going to be anywhere near going up and are unlikely to be in a relegation fight (I’m more sure about the former than the latter). Given that this is true and that our purse is likely to be quite empty for New Year and July window shopping, surely now is the time to give some of our youngsters a chance.
The reason we are usually given for managers’ reluctance to blood young players is that their job security is so slight that they have to think short term so can’t take the risk. This doesn’t seem to apply to DF;as the club has invested so much emotion and publicity into the present, evolving structure.
I don’t get to see the youth teams but there are frequent reports of promising players being on the brink of the first team. I’d love to see some home grown talent coming through and feel that the crowd would get behind them more than a loan signing who’s not yet good enough to play for Crystal Palace or cheap signings from the German second division.
It doesn’t look like any big money is on its way any time soon and we are told that the academy is an expensive but worthwhile overhead so it seems to make sense to actually use it.
I would go with the flow and say that if the Brentford Burton Birmingham etc fixtures go our way and give us some security in terms of points it would then become an ideal time to blood some youth.
Farke has nothing to lose so it might happen. I simply don’t get to see enough of our youngsters to feel I can make a valid comment on most of them.
Reports on Middleton, Phillips and Fonkeu are quite encouraging but these are from friends and I must admit I have never seen two of the three play myself. Middleton is the only “genuine” academy product of the three in any case.
If “they” want to develop the academy a la Southampton it will take years not months.
Sorry to be so pessemistic; that’s how I see it.
Cyprus. I bet those two thirty somethings are on the best part of £30k a week – to be frank, I really don’t care what they get, as long as they’re making a positive contribution. Therein lies the biggest issue.
Right Gary these are the players we need to move on. Also Naismith etc. Wes has been an absolute star for us but no room for sentimental decisions in football. Even if it is early in their careers the sheer enthusiasm of an Abrahams or Morris would cause problems for the opposition and you can’t tell how good they are on the bench.
Wise words mate. Wise words indeed.
It seems like life at NCFC is one on the knife’s edge. There seems to be a similarity between the games that made up the decent run and those that have formed a largely barren run. In the cases of both, games were tight, chances were rare and the end result decided by the odd goal. Look at the game at the Riverside compared to Saturday; we were probably better against Leeds, didn’t create much against Boro while conceding clearer chances to the opposition, both were won by the only goal scored. But, we know how they both turned out.
Wolves apart, we generally don’t get a hiding. I don’t think we’ve had a genuinely comfortable win all season. Things need to land on the right side of a fine margin if we’re to take home the points, it would seem. We might not seem that far off against decent teams like Leeds, but we never look demonstrably superior to the teams who would expect to have fight on their hands to stay in the Championship.
I wouldn’t disagree with a single word there, Ben.
Wolves, although it slightly pains me to say it, appear a cut above the rest of the Championship melange. It’s not just their money, but their judicious recruitment that is paying off.
I don’t really like to say this but I try to be an honest guy, so… fair play to them.
Cheers, Martin. At least they don’t have Kevin Muscat in their ranks these days; that makes it less difficult to not hate them 😉
A good article as always Martin, The realist in me thinks that you are spot on, however, I’m naturally 50% dreamer, and going back to Stewart’s post from last week, I think he is right too and here’s why.
14 years ago this week, Iain Dowie was appointed manager of Crystal Palace with them in 19th place in the Championship, within a week they were in the relegation zone after a defeat to Millwall, but then something clicked, and they finished the season in 6th place as the form team in the play-off’s winning promotion to the premier league. My point is that sometimes something clicks, those gem players go on runs inspiring the rest of the squad. We have had a run like that, and with players returning over these next couple of weeks against teams who “should be” beatable then we can start a run.
We don’t have an Andy Johnson like Mr Dowie did that season, but with what will prove to be an impossible January transfer window, I don’t see why we wont have one by the middle of the month. Not as a purchase of course, we simply don’t have the money for that, but a sale or 2 of fringe players who want regular games, the sale of Klose who will want to earn a place back in the Switzerland world cup squad (and wont get that here) and maybe just maybe the loss of the high wages of one of Naismith or Jarvis and there will be money for a loan striker of the likes of Ings. Couple that with the return of Godfrey as back up to Tettey, plus getting an actual left back into the team and we are a far better and more competitive squad for the second half of the season.
I think it will take silly money to sanction the sale of Maddison or Pritchard next month, the kind of level that means we don’t have to sell anyone in the summer.
Dare to dream by all means but the prospect of one of the high earners like Naismith or Jarvis leaving is really only that. We’ve still got a huge financial commitment up until the end of their contracts in 2019 which in wages alone several million to each of them, a price other clubs aren’t going to cough up, especially in Jarvis’s case. As for Tettey, he’ll be off, but for nothing, so sadly, it is the sales of Maddison and Pritchard that will have to happen if we are going to fund any further purchases.
Absolutely Robert.
Unfortunately for all of us you are bang on the money. Spot on comment.
Thanks Matt.
Your points are refreshingly optimistic, and yes it COULD still all come to fruition.
Specifically silly money DOES float around in January, your words about Godfrey are accurate and from what we’ve collectively been told, LB will shortly be on the table for Jamal Lewis. That doesn’t make Marco Stiepermann a bad player: he palpably isn’t.
Timm Klose’s future is touch and go in my view. To reiterate, it very much depends on who comes in for him. He’s largely earned his wages imo.
Great comment.
The obvious problem with your point is that this far into the season it is difficult to dramatically change ones luck. As you say, Ian Dowie was appointed, meaning that they changed their manager. With us it was removing Neil Adams.
I’d be interested to know how often a team’s performance markedly improve without any action.
This article is exactly how I feel & going forward all the Board wants to be is a Production line for young players to develop and then be sold to allow them to stay in power. That ultimately is this Boards ambition sadly we will lose the affinity with these young boys because just like Jacob Murphy as soon as they start to do reasonably well they will be sold. That is not how I want our Club to be run, of course I want other Clubs to want our players but I would like to get 2-3 years of use out of them first.
Thank you Nigel.
Our Board wouldn’t know a footballing production line from an omelette, but maybe Stuart Webber might.
I am continuing to believe he is the key to our future. If he goes, we go under. Honest.
Managing the academy lads is not easy – with every talent comes a foible. That’s why I continue to beat the “give it time” drum – I’d ship everything out in return for some serious investment.
But that ain’t gonna happen…
I am not quite of the belief that this season is shot (yet) – but we require at least 10 points out of the next 4 games, which are winnable in theory. .
Longer term, unfortunately the financial realities mean there is little chance of this being an “exciting concept” or indeed leading to “success”. However in the next couple of seasons our self financing model may mean “success” merely means managing to stay up in the Championship, as our income will be among the lowest in the division.
I would love to see Abrahams thrown on with 15 minutes to go in some of the next few matches. He may not be ready to start a game, but it would lift the crowd and give a boost to all the younger players hoping to break through.
Good comment as always, pab.
What I don’t get about the whole thing is that we have Abrahams and Fonkeu and they get nowhere near the bench. With a sulky Nelson and a slowed-up CamJam, surely one or the other must be worth the final 15 or 20 minutes if we’re chasing something? Can you imagine the boost of wearing THAT shirt would give them?
Apparently it’s not in the thoughts of our management. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
The Leeds game summed up our season so far for me. Plenty of ‘nice football’ and matching the opposition for long periods, but nowhere near clinical enough at either end to get a result.
There are some positive signs. It’s not that long ago that Farke had the national media at his door and was being celebrated by all and sundry, but then Farke may not be the problem.
Some players are clearly eyeing an exit and the cynic in me thinks our showing against Sheff Weds could have been a case of certain individuals literally ‘playing for the cameras’.
January will be interesting. With that out the way, a settled line-up and a bit of extra steel in midfield should be enough to see us push on, but at the moment you still wonder when that next win’s going to come and that’s a feeling I haven’t felt for a while.
Was it really only two years ago that we won at Old Trafford? Beginning to feel like a lifetime.
While the consensus from the comments as well as your article seems to be that we won’t be in a relegation battle just yet, I don’t see any cause for optimism that the club won’t be, if Yes songs are the order of the day, Close To The Edge next season. The few, bright sparks of creativity that are currently offering any menace to the opposition’s goalmouth are unlikely to be here at the start of the next campaign and as you say, perhaps not even beyond the end of January while neither of the strikers on our books look fit for purpose right now, so if we are going to score more than the number of goal creating defensive mistakes we make, that leaves us with the very highly paid occupants of the treratment room, the aforementioned Bundesliga bargains and the Academy, the latter two of which are of course part of Webber’s big plan. So I’m afraid the Academy is the future whether the players are up to it or not as we simply aren’t going to have a squad big enough to cope without blooding the youngsters. All of which is a rather long winded way of saying that I think the youth will be seen in the team as much by default as by design and that’s not necessarily a good thing. As Josh Murphy has shown this season, all the enthusiasm to watch our home grown talent can soon turn into a big disappointment.
Josh has been disappointing I agree but his strength is his pace and he needs there to be someone in the box to cross the ball to. It is the system of play that is preventing him progressing.
Pace but no football savvy – should be moved on..
Crosses to one striker marked by two gorillas is not going to succeed
Unless it’s Grant Holt…
Excellent article and many good comments to follow.
No investment – no future is the most pertinent statement in the whole piece. It would appear to be dawning on a growing number of supporters that endless defeats, the selling of assets before they fully mature or give decent on field service, whole seasons passing pointlessly with no attempt to achieve anything tangible, gnawing fears of relegation, acrimony and irrelevance are all the smiths have to offer.
Nigel mentions that we will lose affinity with the young products as we realise that their stay will be a short one, a la Jacob Murphy. This is very true, the likes of Middleton, cantwell, Aarons, odusina, idah, Godfrey, fonkeu, Phillips, oxborough Abrahams and others offer an abundance of talent and promise and where they part of a Norwich city future there would be something to cling to.
As we all know, because Steve stone told us, the moment any of these players breaks through and performs to a high standard the smiths will hawk them to the highest bidder. how on earth will we be able to build anything of note if we are always flogging off the best players as they emerge? Face facts – we won’t.
The more dissent, be it written or spoken there is from supporters, ex players, and broadcasters the more chance there is of saving Norwich city football club from this vision of a half arsed footballer factory, where supporters donate cash to fund the development of players so that they can be sold on to fund smiths habit and give joy and entertainment to rival clubs supporters.
The crossroads are in sight, potentially one really,poor performance or a big sale or a PR gaffe could,bring the whole,thing in on itself.
In the meantime Martin, excellent pieces like this,will keep,the clubs media office employed and concerned.
Chris mate
Do you really think anything I might write influences them? Of course it bloody doesn’t.
It’s great fun and a little bit creative for me to vent my spleen from time to time, but I know damn well it’s only the real fans who listen. Those in ivory towers could not give a jot because they do not need to. They are a protected species in every sense of the phrase.
World War One would be my favourite comparison. Our colleague General Melchett chose his username well and wisely.
Us idiots go “over the top” on what used to be the terraces while they lush it up in the Boardroom with their politico mates. Week after week after week.
This particular Baldrick has just about had enough tbh.
Won’t be long till I get strapped to a chair with a fag in my gob and being asked if I require a blindfold (not from Gary, the Club!)
I think the crossroads has been and gone. It happened at The Times interview with Delia. That told us the strategy for the future, namely, no money, refusal to sell, pass on her shareholding to her nephew, also with no money. Oh, and not forgetting many, many bad decisions along the way. The crossroads has therefore passed; we are left with a future in the Championship (at best). That is SO unfair on us supporters. We deserve better.
Tony: that Times interview killed me off for good and all as well. The apologists remain just that. It was an unforgivable error of judgment the Smiths can never truly recover from. It illustrates perfectly the contempt they feel for us. A pair of friendly faces that automatically wipe the stance away when they go through their own elegantly proportioned front door, I would imagine.
Your words represent a perfect assessment of where we’re at. In the doo-doo.
Great post.
Why do you deserve better? We used to be a third division south club, so Championship is perhaps our natural level, occasionally punctuated by the luck of having the likes of a Crook and Sutton and Holty and Wes and having a fling at the top level..
The foundations have occasionally been in place for a little bit more aspiration than that.
But we blew it. Big style, big time, choose your own words.
These are the days of our lives…
We were promoted form the third division south in 1960. Apart from one Delia smith inspired sojourn a few years back we haven’t been there since. What, pray tell is the natural level of Swansea, Bournemouth or Brighton?
Throughout the seventies, eighties and half the nineties our natural habitat was the top flight.
Using ancient history from the days of balls with laces, big shorts, Stanley Matthews and black and white tv isn’t relevant to the point.
Hi Martin
An exceptional article
For me YES came and went without a ripple I liked the Moody Blues and their first single is apt for the Smiths in GO NOW(before you make me cry) also the first concept album DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.
Enought of music for now but many have commented on on using the last 10 to 15mins of a game to try and blood the u23 with a chamnce of making the first team on many sites but it falls on deaf ears.
Ruel Fox came via the youths and city got good money for him again from Newcastle and went on to spurs, Chris Martin again has made career in the championship left for nought I think.
Saturdays game brings me back to music and Dire Straits that we are in you don’t get money for nothing in this game
I’ll keep this reply musical – Denny Laine had that beautifully thin and plaintive voice that made Go Now (Bessie Smith original?) perfect for him.
He lasted longer in that band than James Maddison will as an NCFC player.
I could not get into the MBs – an early girlfriend had Days of Future Past and I hated it:-)
You say that but the best song from the MB was nights in white satin
Their other songs that can be aimed at city is QUESTION OF BALANCE, Ride MY SEESAW, WATCHING AND WAITING.
one for the board DREAMING
I am absolutely confident that if we have a lad in our academy who is genuinely talented enough to play in a first team aiming to be at the top end of the Championship he will get his chance, and probably without having to go on loan first.
Put it another way – despite all the criticism of various managers not giving youth a chance over the years, the list of players who have left City untried and gone on to be the kind of player we would welcome back now is very short. There are a couple – Korey Smith and Chris Martin – for whom promotion to the PL under Lambert came at a bad time. But even so they played around 150 games for us, so they did get a chance.
I guess our problem is that being so far removed from the sprawling inner cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle we just don’t get the raw material to pick from – the 11 year-olds. basically. And of course that probably means we don’t attract the best coaches either so it becomes a vicious circle.
Every now and then a Chris Sutton or Craig Bellamy appears, but they are few and far between.
I would be more worried that we go back to the days when home-grown players like Chris Llewellyn, Adrian Forbes and Daryl Russell racked up scores of performances at Championship level, without ever being good enough to be an essential part of a team looking for promotion to the top flight.
Still, there are hints from Farke that Jamal Lewis is ready to step up, but that’s a long way from him being the club’s best left back – which is what a recent poll of Archant readers came up with! He impressed in pre-season, but wasn’t that mainly going forward against weak opposition? If he can carry that on at a competitive level that will be brilliant.
Hi Keith
Yes if the players are showing the potential in the U18/23 that should get the managers attention then it is up to him to prove that potential, but there is also the problem that some Managers are scared to put young players in no matter what their potential is just in case they had a bad game.
Just look at the young lad from Sunderland and the one that scored against Celtic this week end both 16.
Some players need the a gental push city doesn’t seem to do that and is thst down to trust?????
Thank you Keith and you are correct in everything you say. There were apparently one or two “teething” problems with a couple of the breakthrough players you mention, but nobody knows for sure.
Our non-biological grandson is seven and plays for Norman Wanderers over at Sloughbottom Park, or elsewhere on demand. Derry is good: very, very good.
There was recently an NCFC scout there to watch the lads play. So at least something is happening.
Derry will be just fine cos I’m gonna be his agent:-)
So will you be changing your name from Penney to “Tenpercent”?
No he’s family – I’ll do it for nine!
Spot on about Yes.
I hope Franke can produce what was expected of him.
And there’s still time, if we had got rid of Iwan or Simeon Jackson at this stage of their Norwich careers when they weren’t producing, things would be much different today.
Money doesn’t necessarily buy success, we have proved that as much as anybody.
We have been at our best producing players and buying cheap
We are making the right moves with the younger players and I am more optimistic that this will pay off
Keep the faith and there could be we wonderous stories.
Thanks Giles.
I think seeing Simeon doing his stuff in the PL was that original “try and understand the theory behind it” thing for me, Iwan remains a legend in my mind’s eye.
And as for Yes the best thing they ever did was a Beatles cover: Every Little Thing from their second album with the original guitarist, Pete Banks.
Listening to the rest of that LP, there’s no doubting why he quit.
Hi Martin,
a lovely piece of whimsy, and I found myself both agreeing and disageeeing on certain points at the same time. Yes on Marcel anyone can get it wrong, but he was the big money pre season buy and that if its a blooper does not fill me with confidence in Webber and Farke. Hopefully its just a case of homesickness. l agree that some players will leave in january and others in the summer. I did disagree when you said the season appears to be over, for in our next four games we play teams that we should get a good return of points against. My nightmare is that we do not and are then dragged into the final 20 games of the season looking over our shoulders with an increasing sense of panic.
I do the odd bit of whimsy Bernie and somewhere I have a little box full of tiny Wade pottery models to prove it. Copious amounts of completed BB tea card books lurk in the loft as well.
Don’t panic Captain Mainwaring – we are not going down. Not this season, anyway.
Excellent piece for a Monday as always Martin, and brilliant comments as well.
When we look at what Coleman did at Sunderland on Saturday when (yet) another home failure appeared to be on the cards, why oh why do we at Norwich always seem to baulk at putting an untried youngster on when we need a flash of inspiration?? He gambled with not one, but two and reaped an instant reward. OK, the two lads will probably not start again this weekend, but they got Sunderland 3 points which wasn’t looking too likely, and how important might those points be come May?
We’ve had Cantwell and co on the bench this season which is good, but if they’re good enough they need minutes on the pitch now!
O T B C
Thanks John.
The comments have indeed been universally great and it seems we are all agreed that (whether through design or circumstance) youth is literally the future.
As yourself and Cyprus highlight, the Sunderland substitution brings the whole thing into focus.
Let’s get a significant amount of points under our belt from the next four matches – that would give DF the breathing space to confidently introduce some new blood in the New Year.
There seems to be a few teething problems with the app. The comments to which MP has replied seem to have disappeared.