I could have written this article last week, or the week before.
Your expression at this point may be similar to my wife’s. “What??? City play a derby, and it makes no difference to what you think?”
Nope.
The bottom line is this: I said before the season we should give it 20 games before making judgements, and I’ve seen nothing to change my view.
Before I play Devil’s Advocate with that, let me explain what I meant. I didn’t mean we shouldn’t have expectations. Farke and his coaches now have a year’s experience of the Championship; we’ve had to sell our best player, but we’ve captured a number of decent signings and have a deeper squad than last year.
I won’t argue with anyone who expects – across the season – improvement over last year. It’s my expectation too.
If we now have continuity in the coaching staff, though, the same isn’t true of the playing staff. In effect, the front half of the team is new. Rhodes, Pukki, Buendia and McLean (plus Marshall when he plays in a forward role) are new to the club; given his injuries after signing for us, Hernandez is effectively a new signing too.
At the back we have a new keeper, while the effect of Pinto and Hanley missing pre-season has been evident.
With that scale of change and upheaval – albeit less than a year before – it’s just not reasonable to expect everything to click immediately. Reserving judgement until we’ve had a significant number of games, and played against a significant spread of Championship teams, is logical unless something is dramatically wrong.
“But what about the league table?”
I don’t like it any more than you do. But I also said – before the season started, honestly – that in the first few games performances mattered more than results. In particular, I wanted to see whether Farke was capable of making us a more potent attacking force.
The performances have been mixed, of course – which is exactly my point about the need to reserve judgement while changes settle down. I wouldn’t wait 20 games if we were uniformly and consistently awful. But we’re not.
We were the better side at Birmingham on opening day. The West Brom game hinged on a couple of extraordinary individual moments; another day, and that performance would have brought us three points. At 1-1 at Bramall Lane, we looked the more likely winners.
Only against Leeds, and only when they’d weathered our first 20 minutes and scored two quick-fire goals, did we look clearly second-best.
As for the derby, it’s the least indicative of all games. Check any derby in any context (except perhaps Glasgow) and you’ll find the same pattern: Liverpool may finish twelve places above Everton, but the derby games and their scores will probably show something completely different.
As I say: if we were without spirit or ideas, I’d bring forward my 20-game horizon. Of course we’ve shown weaknesses, both individual and collective; we need to iron out the flaws and toughen up our mentality.
But it’s a mixed bag.
“We have good players who should be doing better – Farke’s management is holding them back”
Clearly, some fans have less patience than I do. There have been calls for Farke to be dismissed now, or after the next three games, or in October. Many of them are saying the players are better than the Head Coach.
I wonder if those people have really thought it through. The departure of Farke and his coaching staff would be a big upheaval, at a time when we’re still financially fragile. Just as significantly, though, there’d clearly be upheaval among the players.
We’ve been able to get players like Trybull, Leitner, Pukki, Hernandez and Rhodes within our limited budget because they haven’t been pulling up trees at their old clubs. They’ve responded to Daniel Farke – indeed, to a man they’ve said how Farke’s plans for the team and their personal role were central to their decision to come to Norwich.
Some of our players would probably adapt to, and appeal to, another manager: Hanley, perhaps, and/or Marshall and McLean. But many would not.
Then there’s the youth development which has to be pivotal to our short and medium-term future. Players now contributing to the first team – Jamal Lewis, Max Aarons, Ben Godfrey, Louis Thompson, Todd Cantwell – all heap praise on Farke for his direction of their careers.
Farke’s predecessors didn’t see, or perhaps just weren’t interested to see, their potential (they didn’t even appreciate it in James Maddison).
That’s why I’m holding to my 20-game period before judgement. Of course, necessary change shouldn’t be ducked because of cost or inconvenience. I don’t think for a moment that Stuart Webber (assuming we want to keep him) would duck it – after all, it’s his reputation on the line too.
I just don’t see a compelling case for judgement – let alone change – right now.
Well Stewart, IMO, this is an article that the MANY fans should read and I pretty much agree with your summary.
We should have beaten West Brom, but for a couple of individual errors and even after Leeds went 2-0 up, only a last-ditch block prevented Rhodes from scoring. As you rightly say, we are still missing McLean and what I saw of him in his cameo against Stevenage, he can be an influential player in the future.
You also mention ‘youth development’ and I read an article yesterday re the importance thereof – I (and I’m sure many others) wonder if Maddison would have developed as he did last season under different tutelage. Surely a future England star who has adapted to the PL almost seamlessly and picked up the Sky MotM award on Saturday, despite playing against players costing 3 or almost 4 times his transfer fee. Gomez got a VERY decisive block in for one of Maddison’s shots on goal and one of the MotD highlighted Gomez’s play.
My only worry about Farke is that he insists on playing his ‘beautiful game’ in the face of a very direct and physical Championship..
Opposing managers have him sussed and are quite happy to rearrange their defences whilst we play tippy tappy in our own third, and then breaking out to score a goal which totally nullifies our 65-70% possession statistic.
We have players that on paper at least make us look a top 5 side, but we are losing the 50/50 battles where it matters, and physically intimidated by lesser outfits.
I am already reading expressions like ‘Rhodes looked a lonely figure up front’
When we do tear up the Farke rule book and go direct, we cut through defences and look good .
There is an old but simple maxim,’Goals are scored in the oppositions third, not your own’
Very good point about City, seemingly, losing out in rather too many 50/50s, and also being second best to too many loose balls.
That’s a very good article Stewart, I concur with everything you have stated. Expectations differ between supporters on the performance of the team, some pragmatic and some unrealistic however no one can deny the sheer level of change in such a short period of time. I don’t believe Daniel Farke has settled on his best team yet or his favoured formation, I am a believer in a settled team with a formation that is set up and says to hell with the opposition this how we play, you deal with it. I note talk of Nelson Oliveira coming back into the fold has started doing the rounds. That’s a big call and if the management can make that work then great but not at the cost of disruption, disrespect and watering down of behavioural standards.
Sensible and balanced reasoning – not sure it will strike a chord with everyone though.
Always felt to me like a two year appointment with DF – they’d probably carry on until the end of the season even results and League position were similar to now. Just my personal opinion, of course.
You may well be right, Gary. If results don’t improve, though, there’ll be intense – perhaps irresistible – pressure for change from the fans.
I just hope that doesn’t happen prematurely. What I hope above all, of course, is there’ll be no cause for it to happen at all.
performance over results, when is that any good other teams have had major overhauls and hit the ground running its only because farke is a nice guy why people havent turned.
I think you underestimate the role of Stuart Webber – he’s not going to idly let matters drift if he believes that the performances and, more importantly, results show no signs of significant improvement.
All ifs buts and maybe’s.Yes Farke has played the youngsters and brought them on a bit but he is no tactician.We have no identity no pattern to our game and Farke has no plan b.Also how many times has he just sat in the dug out arms folded when we are losing games,im afraid he’s clueless,maybe be better aground if he went back to coaching youngsters.Perhaps him and Gill could swap places.
Very well reasoned Stewart.
I think we all knew deep down that Farke was always here for the duration of his contract and I am sure that he will see it out.
When you balance the fact that we are lightweight and lose a few too many duels (and the tiki taka approach frustrates some more than others) against the difficult hand he’s been dealt from the very start he hasn’t done a bad enough job to be given an early P45. Not to my mind anyway.
Sure we’re in the Championship, but do any of us really want to see our youth trained to play hoofball a la Pulis? That’s surely Farke’s strength – identifying the right youngsters, developing them and getting them into a first team shirt. Lewis, Aarons, anybody?
This self-funding malarkey would have a traditional British manager type tearing his hair out with (justifiable) frustration. I say let Farke see out his contract and take it from there. It seems a little daft to rip up a plant that shows signs of flowering, to me at least.
He isn’t required to get us promoted. To me that sucks, but under the circumstances we have no choice but to accept what the ownership has decreed we shall be given. I support the team, not the owners.
52 games in and we should be patient with him? Dearie me. There has been absolutely no progress under him and we look to be in a relegation battle. Buzz words like “transition” are just excuses for a coach not getting the best out of his squad.
Another propaganda piece from a happy clapper member of the Delia cult. The Canaries Trust – giving the fans a voice (as long as it’s the same as the Trust’s).
Stewart may be a member of the Trust, Kevin, but I’m afraid if you think MFW is a mouthpiece for said Trust then you’re very much mistaken. Several of us have been openly critical of Delia and the current regime, rightly or wrongly.
Can I suggest you look at some of my articles during the 2016-17 season? The Delia cult (if such a thing exists) would have excommunicated me.
PS Important to stress that we write here as individuals, not representing the Canaries Trust or any other organisation
I recently joined the Canaries Trust, Kevin. For sound reasons imo. But…
Read some of my MFW back catalogue and you will see I am anything but an apologist for the majority shareholders. So far from it that the concept itself would be unreal. My earlier comment today on this piece confirms my stance anyway.
When Stewart says we write as individuals he is 100 per cent correct. No way is MFW a mouthpiece for anybody but us as individual writers. As long as we keep it civilised Editor Gary gives all of our writing team plenty of freedom.
And that’s why we enjoy contributing.
I started the season thinking we’d do well to finish as high in the table as last season and nothing so far suggests to me that I should change my mind. I am more confident that we will have a good season next year-lots of good youngsters coming through and signings bedding in, reduced need for fire sales etc give me some hope. I know this will in some people’s eyes make me a ‘happy clapper’ but the club announced at the end of 2016/17 season that the way things would be done in future would be different-at the time there was almost total agreement that this was a good idea. If we don’t allow this change time to be effective we may as well get Mick McCarthy in.
My caveat to this is that we mustn’t get into a relegation battle (I don’t think we’re in one already). I think (but I’m not certain) the squad is good enough to keep away from that but worry that if we do, the inexperience, lack of physicality and DF’s apparent reluctance to get involved with the grittier side of the game will leave us short. I’m happy to leave judgement until about half way through the season.
Exactly comments @Don and @ Martin.
I’ve been to the three home games this season and I can definitely see progress (slow but sure!!!) and there is still too much sideways passing for my liking.
I feel that the international break has come at the right time, especially after the bruising that was dished out to some players on Sunday.
The game against Boro will be a stern test and IF we could score first, it would make for a very interesting game.
We MUST start collecting points in the remaining games this month.
20 games will be too late Stewart. I can understand you argument if this had been his first season, but he is now in his second and the club is not going forward as a whole, despite some decent efforts off the pitch that should not be used as an excuse for what happens on it.
I would like to see him succeed, but he is clearly not up to it. Whether the players like him or not is immaterial. We live is a results business and we have a coach who isn’t getting results. That might suit the board and the minority of fans that do not want promotion, but the majority of us want a run for our money when in reality, we are being short changed.
I am tired of Norwich City employing managers/coaches who are learning on the job, so to speak. We have a decent squad and although it is not top six material, it is top ten in my view. Farke was – is – and will continue to underachieve for as long as Delia keeps the axe in her pantry.
You can give Farke another 2, 20, 200 or 2000 games and it will make no difference. It isn’t working. Why wait?
Let’s just face it , whatever anyone says in defence of the manager or the team, however they say it, the experts are there to knock it down.
Their many and varied managerial qualifications are omitted in their criticisms , just their modern “must have success and now”, attitudes shine through. Look at the truth – only 3 sides are promoted each year – do all the fans of the other clubs turn like what seems like the majority of Norwich fans do ? Into moaners, “we want this, we want that, we want a new manager ( never a name suggested), we are a big club and should be in the premier league” etc etc.
Sounds like a bunch of children demanding everything now from their parents, whether or not the parents have the money to buy it. Some of those players will fall away – mostly because of the barracking they will get from so called Norwich fans – some youngsters will make mistakes or have off games – but of course they are not allowed to make mistakes are they ?
If everything is “wrong” with Norwich why do you support them ? Definition of supporter is :-
a person who approves of and ENCOURAGES a public figure, political party, policy, etc.
Synonyms: advocate, backer, adherent, promoter, champion, defender, upholder, votary, partisan, crusader, proponent, campaigner, believer,
Must have missed out the synonyms for Norwich “supporters” of “Moaners, Whingers, Critisers”
All this negativity must rub off on the team.
Improving???Didn’t those on here watch the Preston game?The worst football dished up for many years at carrow road and sunday’s derby game we were absolute rubbish especially the start of the second half.Improving no way,I would say standing still and that’s being generous.
Hi Stewart – a very level-headed article and, as some have shown, they don’t agree with your sentiments. As for the Delia cult, if it exists then my message to her would be her time is up, please leave without causing any bad feeling. You have had your time, so sell up.
As reminded my times players in the youth set-up were brought to the club under other managers and Farke is reaping the benefit of this well I can agree to that in so much as but they weren’t willing to give any of them a chance they prefer old players set in their ways and were overpriced and overpaid some I presume saw city as a nice club to run down their careers and earn a nice wad while doing it.
My biggest concern is Krul as I mentioned a few days ago his hesitation at crosses, punching balls out and reaction times are slow, yes he had had injuries and needs game time to build his confidence up, Houghton new him from Newcastle and gave him time at Brighton last season surely if he saw that he was getting back to something like his best he would have kept him there instead of releasing him.
Watching on Sky Krul didn’t look comfortable and his defence looked uncertain off him and after Gunn last season who was so in control that is not a good position to be in.
I read Webber was asked about Farke and his future at the club and his reply was if we gave him a rolling contract no one would ask if he us being offered an extension, then said the club was more than happy how things were progressing so Team Farke could be here bext season if that happens lets hope Delia finds some money for some signings or will it be sell Lewis, Aaron Cantwell,??????
Ler reintegrate Oliveria so that he can show potential buyers he is alive andwgat skills he has then we might break even.
Zimmermann has he fallen down the pecking order
Klose will he be offered a new contract or has the club accepted he will leave for free
It’s a good article Stewart, and well balanced as your articles and arguments normally are. Which is more than can be said for some of the comments on here. As Gary stated there are definite improvements in our play this season, even if at times there is still too much sideways/ backwards passing (and I suggested elsewhere that Farke should ban backward passes in practice to force players to look for and move into space in front of the player with the ball).
One thing you pointed out Stewart was the newness of our forward players. But in looking at the appearances/ goals stats on the Pink’Un, what is striking to me is the newness of the WHOLE squad. In the whole squad we only have 1 player who has more than 100 appearances for City, and that’s Alex Tettey with 183, which is one reason Webber/ Farke were so keen to keep him this year.
After Alex, there are then only 2 active players with over 50 appearances:
Pinto – 92
Klose – 91
(Oliveira has 70 but I’m excluding him for now)
Then of the players with sub 50 appearances, the two with 40+ are
Zimmerman – 48
And our ‘veteran’ captain Hanley – 40.
In all my years following City, I don’t think we’ve ever had such a uniformly inexperienced squad. So for all those that think things cannot/ never will continue to change under Farke, I suggest they mull over and digest these figures a little more. This is a VERY young and inexperienced squad in terms of their time to play together, and as a result I would argue they can only gell more and improve their ability to play together over time. As has been noted in earlier articles Bielsa’s Leeds squad has much more continuity in it than ours does at the present.
It’s very clear that both Farke and many of the players are frustrated by their current points tally, and the ‘5 points less’ than where they should be. Whatever the merits of that argument, it’s good to see the frustration, since we can be sure that during this break Farke will be focusing on eliminating the errors and increasing our points tally after the break. That will include making us tougher to break down and able to withstand more direct play, as well as continuing to improve our ability to move the ball more rapidly through the middle third of the pitch to provide Rhodes and others with more balls into the box.
Of course, the proof will be in what we see after the break. But for those who don’t have the patience, the 20 games he states is the minimum we need before we can be sure of quite what pattern is emerging. Webber/ Farke will be very well aware of what style of play got Huddersfield and Fulham promoted the last two seasons, and that which Leeds are playing now. And they will be away of the gap in class between these clubs and the performances we are still serving up now, with our comparatively immature (in terms of time together) squad.
If things don’t improve within the next 15 games, I will be extremely surprised, and yes, after then we can talk about ramifications/ consequences if must – and they will be solely whether Farke remains beyond the end of this season or not. And that will be a decision Webber and Farke will most likely make between them. There isn’t going to be a timetable faster than this, and nor should there be.
I’m sorry but I’m not buying that argument. When the club’s strategy is:
1) rely on the loan market (Gunn, Rhodes)
2) rely on bringing youth through (Lewis, Cantwell, Thompson, Arons, Godfrey)
3) sell those deemed successful and salable (Maddison, Murphy)
4) buy cheap players, reselling or loaning out those who don’t succeed (Franke, Husband, Watkins)
5) sell, loan, or bench players you’ve deemed don’t fit your style (Matthews, Martin, Wildschut, Naismith, Oliveira )
you lose the right to complain about the changing faces in the squad. Farke had the option for a much more experienced squad, but chose not to.
It’s not going to be different going forward either. Unless Norwich have reduced their costs below 30M (hugely unlikely) then we’ll need to do the following either at Christmas or next summer
1) Klose goes
2) Pinto goes
3) Rhodes returns from loan
4) We sell any number of people to fill the deficit (Hernandez, Lewis, Hanley…)
Our golden eggs have been sold. So we’ll need to sell in quantity to cover the holes.
We could well go into next season with 5-6 new first team players and 5-6 with only one full season at NCFC.
Won’t get into a detailed discussion on this. Just a couple of quick points:
. we “rely” on the loan system less than most teams in the Championship
. we don’t sell “those deemed successful and salable”. We had to sell Maddison this summer to cover the last withdrawal of parachute payments. We chose to sell Josh Murphy at the price offered by Cardiff (I know no regular City fan who thinks that was a mistake) in order to bring in several players. We turned down bids for Jamal Lewis, Ben Godfrey and others – they’re very salable, but our strategy was not to sell them
. it WILL be different going forward, because we won’t have an annual £25m hole to fill
“We had to sell Maddison this summer to cover the last withdrawal of parachute payments. We chose to sell Josh Murphy at the price offered by Cardiff”
Incorrect.
We sold Murphy first because, as Webber said, we were broke (something you denied vehemently, see below).. We couldn’t be certain Maddison would sell or for enough.
The funding hole is revenue – costs. Until costs < revenue we have a funding hole. The parachute payments ended last season, so we have less revenue, hence the massive delta. We sold Maddison, Pritchard, and Murphy to fill that gap for a season, but it does not mean we're now breaking even. That's terrible logic (and accounting). It means we've solved it for one season while we hopefully reduce costs enough.
Just as a reminder, for anyone looking to Stewart for reliable information on our accounts…
"the financial challenge of losing our parachute payments is fierce. But let’s not fall into the trap of saying that all our key assets will be sold. One of Maddison or Pritchard would almost certainly have to go – but not both, and certainly not both plus others.".. Stewart Lewis Nov
We then promptly sold Jerome, Watkins, Murphy, Pritchard, and Maddison (best part of 50M quid).
We sold Pritchard because he made himself a negative influence in pushing his wish to go the Premier League. Selling him, and the others apart from Maddison, wasn’t financially necessary – it was our choice in order to bring in 10 new players and extend others’ contracts.
Just in case anyone falls for your insinuation that the £50m doesn’t include Maddison – it does. We had to sell at least £25m worth (ie Maddison), as I said.
Oh spare us David, I don’t buy your argument either. It’s not even akin to a glass half empty argument but more like throwing all the water away and then saying, ‘oh look the glass is empty!’. So let me put even some water back into the glass.
First, we will have to see the next accounts to find out what the gap between income and expenditure now is, and how much that might be for next season.
Second, I see it as a wholly good thing that we are looking at bringing skilled and passionate members of our academy through into the first team. Since these youngsters are showing plenty of ability, it suggest that we have turned the Academy into much more of an asset than it was before.
Third, I notice your list of categories somehow managed to absent that of ‘astute, smart buys’, into which many in our current squad would fit – Hanley, Hernandez, Trybull, Zimmerman, Leitner, Pukki, Buendia, for a start.
Finally, and what is your financial model by the way, since you constantly trash astute housekeeping? Sell out to the first Marcus Evans who comes along, and run a debt based model forever, well at least until the rug really gets pulled out from under?
Thanks for everyone’s comments – some excellent stuff, both in support of my position and challenging it.
Having taken 800 words for the original argument, I won’t take another 800. Just a brief re-cap. Half of our team, and the tactics around them, are new; we’ve shown some positive innovation going forward, as well as some recurring weaknesses; we’ve had a tough set of opening fixtures. I’m looking for improvement this season, but it seems to me premature to make important judgements in September.
Let’s all hope we’re happier in a few weeks’ time.
Thanks again.
This is a well thought out article as are many of the comments but sadly a recipe for disaster. Football is a tough and ruthless business. Farke is a well intentioned and nice guy but will not get City promoted no matter how many games you give him. His tactical awareness is poor and his management lacks the cutting edge required at this level. Now I agree with the new structure and beleive we have done well in the transfer window given the financial situation. Furthermore I believe we have a squad that Is capable of getting close to the top six but not under the current manager. If we follow the thrust of this article (and make no mistake we will), give him 20 games, then mid table will be the best we can expect and then at the next summer window we lose Godfrey, Aarons, Klose, Lewis and we have to start all over again. Why do managers have such a short lifespan – because results are everything in this ruthless business so wake up to the real world guys or stagnate in this division for a long time. I respect your views and hope you are right and I am wrong but forgive me if at the end I say I told you so!
Thanks, Cyprus – interesting thoughts.
I’m just not sure why you think we’d sell our emerging young players next summer. This summer we had to sell Maddison to fill the parachute payment hole, but that won’t be a factor in future. Much of the saving we’ll need next summer will come from the expiring Premier League contracts of Naismith, Jarvis, Klose and Pinto. We rebuffed bids for the likes of Lewis and Godfrey this summer; no reason we wouldn’t be able to do the same next time.
Cheers
If teams from the Prem come calling the financial pressure and player pressure would be too much for the board to resist.
Hi Stewart,
Some of this I agree with, Some not so much. I’ll take just one point for now as others have been discussed.
“We’ve been able to get players like Trybull, Leitner, Pukki, Hernandez and Rhodes within our limited budget because they haven’t been pulling up trees at their old clubs. They’ve responded to Daniel Farke – indeed, to a man they’ve said how Farke’s plans for the team and their personal role were central to their decision to come to Norwich.
The trouble with this statement is the inference that they have in fact started to pull up trees here. You can argue that; Pukki, Hernandez and Rhodes have shown some quality, Hernandez started like a freight train but is already showing less impact after OPPO managers have seen him as our danger man. But ultimately it’s a team game and currently that team is failing, neither Trybull or Lietner are pulling up trees, in fact whilst both have shown glimmers of quality, they both look short of the required physicality or quality to propel us up the league. So they might like Farkes ideas that include them but that’s because they’re hoping to reboot the stalled careers. So far the jury is out for most of them.
Bah!
Hi General
Interesting thoughts. I’d argue that all of those players would now be valued higher than we paid for them – but it’s Farke’s management that makes them so. A new manager might not fancy them, or vice versa – hence the upheaval of players that a change would bring.
As a separate point, the physicality of our midfield is a genuine issue. Successful teams in the Championship tend to have a player like Leitner (Aaron Mooy at Huddersfield comes to mind), but surrounded by energetic and strong colleagues. I’m hoping Kenny McLean can provide some of that, with Louis Thompson growing into the role.
Cheers