I’m not sure the defeat in Cardiff is quite the prelude to Canary Armageddon that some are predicting but it was definitely one of those where it was hard to nail down too many positives.
I mean, it might end up being all of the things the prophets of doom are saying and more, but just one fairly rotten performance on opening day – a day when all sorts of daft results occur – isn’t the best barometer by which to judge what the next ten months are going to bring.
And when we have two, probably three, new faces entering the mix, it’s not yet too late for our fortunes to change.
Even defeat on Saturday by Wigan won’t automatically signal the tilting of the Canary world on its axis, although I dread to think how toxic the atmosphere in Carrow Road (and online) will be at 2:30pm if it does all turn to rat dung.
Let’s hope we don’t get to find out.
But, either way, I fear for Dean Smith and Craig Shakespeare. A win on Saturday won’t sate the increasing calls for their P45s to be delivered pronto and will only buy them time. Any win will merely buy them time.
For some, their tenure here has already run its course and any City win will be perceived as a hurdle in their quest to make their positions untenable. Smith is, apparently, a ‘poor man’s Steve Bruce’ … ‘worse than Alex Neil’ … ‘Chris Hughton mark II’.
But I’m not here to defend Smith and Shakespeare and, as I wrote on Sunday, the fact neither has been able to noticeably improve any of the players in the last nine months is a bit of a shocker. Nothing good though can come of wanting your coaching team removed after one game of the new season.
Some still long for the days of Daniel Farke but, alas, that ship has sailed. Whether it was the right or wrong decision to sack him (in my view, the right one), he ain’t coming back.
And it doesn’t feel right that some attack Dean Smith because he isn’t Daniel Farke. While Smith clearly, to most folk, seems a decent human being, he clearly doesn’t exude the charm of Farke but that shouldn’t prohibit him from being the head coach of Norwich City Football Club.
Charisma alone doesn’t make a good head coach and for all his undoubted qualities that took us on the most wonderful of Championship journeys, even Daniel Farke had abandoned the Daniel Farke project by the time he departed.
(If it’s about just charisma, Webber should have appointed Ant and Dec.)
The beautiful football, the Farkeball, that left us spellbound when waltzing to two second-tier titles simply wasn’t do-able with those same players in the Premier League because they weren’t good enough. And our model certainly doesn’t enable us to go out and buy players who are.
So, through no fault of his own, Farke was wedged between a rock and a hard place. His time had come.
Where I agree it gets a little fuzzy, is when Webber appeared to abandon the appointment of the Farke-style up-and-coming, hungry coaches and instead diverted off into the aisle marked ‘safe pair of hands’.
And by this point, he’d already veered from the model.
The premise of the sporting director structure, as we’ve been told, was that if a new coach comes in, little to nothing changes. The new appointee, theoretically, seamlessly slots in, picks up the reins, and off we go on that same route, playing the same style.
Except the style had already been abandoned because it wasn’t working. And this is why we now hear the argument around whether it’s right or wrong to reserve judgement on Dean Smith until he has some players of his own choosing in the squad.
If the model was functioning properly that wouldn’t be a thing.
So I do still believe we need to at least allow Smith the time to bed in those new players, even though the signing of Isaac Hayden has already set the alarm bells ringing. A fit Hayden may well help address the brittle underbelly of this team – one that plays only 10 games almost certainly won’t.
And, while we’re here, we also appear to be asking a lot of (hopefully) two South American lads who have never kicked a ball outside their own continent. Emi took time to settle and he’d already played four seasons in Europe before we signed him.
So, yeah, things do appear a bit muddled right now and have not been helped by all of our predicted Championship rivals producing performances of energy, cohesion and vigour in their opening games. That we looked decidedly stodgy by comparison certainly has fed into the already-high levels of angst.
But it is just one game.
Let’s not forget we are notoriously cr@p starters in the Championship and were even under Saint Daniel.
Anyway… let’s see what Saturday brings. A win over Wigan will certainly help the collective mood even if it’s only until we lose again.
But there’s something else that’s been gnawing away over the last couple of weeks and this time pertains to Delia and Michael.
‘Oh god, here he goes again’.
Sorry.
But when, following the final day horror show against Tottenham, it was revealed the club had played host to some potential American investors, it appeared some of our prayers had been answered.
It felt like the penny had finally dropped, and our joint-majority shareholders had, at last, acknowledged their self-funding model was wholly unfit for purpose when it came to supporting a team with designs of staying in the Premier League for more than a season.
Team Attanasio felt like our saviours – the people to help us smash through the glass ceiling under which we currently operate. I posted almost a week’s worth of content on said gent for god’s sake as we excitedly speculated on how it may unfold and the potential impact it could have.
Even when it became clear the men from Milwaukee were only going to be buying the 18% share currently held by Michael Foulger – and therefore there’d be no new money – it still felt like the start of something that, further down the line, could become something much bigger.
But, as time passed, there was nothing. We comforted ourselves with the fact that these type of deals are complicated and the boring stuff, like due diligence, takes an indeterminable amount of time to complete, but we expected (or at least hoped) to hear something positive before the start of the new season.
Eventually – initially via a fans’ forum in Edinburgh and then from the lips of the club’s commercial director, Sam Jeffrey – more official information was forthcoming.
Both sources confirmed it was the sale of Foulger’s shares being discussed and both were very careful to steer clear of that grubby ‘i’ word. Instead of investment, we should, apparently, be looking forward to some additional ‘expertise’ on the board.
Wahoo.
And then, last Friday, it was there in black and white in Michael Bailey’s excellent piece on The Athletic:
“Smith and Wynn Jones will remain the majority shareholders and have no plans for that to change in the foreseeable future“.
We knew the first bit, but some of us had rather hoped, given the horrors of last season and how they were, at least in part, related to the majority shareholders’ resistance to fresh money coming into the club, that Delia and Michael had accepted they have taken this club as far as their depth of pocket allows.
But it seems not.
It feels as though we’re solely in this position because of Foulger’s desire to sell his stake in the club, and not because it was recognised that new voices, a new direction, and new money are desperately needed.
I hesitate to say it (because it will get me in trouble), but I’m not even convinced Delia and Michael are welcoming of these potential changes at boardroom level.
All of which is a shame because, going back to the days following the Tottenham game, it genuinely felt as if they’d looked in the mirror and concluded that there are other people out there equally capable of owning and running this football club.
Now I’m not convinced they believe that at all.
But, hey ho, if nothing else I feel better for having got it off my chest and, to be honest, this if this whole piece reads more as a stream of consciousness than a considered article, that’d be because that’s precisely what it is.
I promise to try harder on Sunday… after we’ve beaten Wigan 🙂
Good piece Gary, as to the Stowmarket duo, to be honest did we expect anything else, I didn’t. I tried several times to point out it was just Foulger’s shares and money going into his pocket rightly so. It seems to me they will continue with their soiled plan and hand it over to another who has little idea of how to run, a top football club. I say top as we have not slipped as yet. Nother will change at all for the foreseeable. Until people take the Delia specs off, I keep challenging people to list what she has done, what they all keep harping on about.
As to Smith, I am not sure he is the right head for the job, perhaps if some of the shackles were off he might stand a better chance. But still he took the job with eyes open, based on promises that are a bit like vapour.
His playing style which I am confused if we have seen yet has almost always been 4-3-3, I went back to Walsall even Orient too, it was the same through to Villa. There seems to be a one dimensional approach to his play. We often moaned about the Lord Farke being the same, but out of the two I know how I would rather see. As to his sacking, had they turned a real corner or another cul-de-sac?
We will never know.
In looking back through Smithy’s past, there really isn’t much to point to a really successful manager/coach. From Orient Head of Youth & Assistant, on to Walsall as Head of Youth/Manager to Brentford ( Warburton’s Team) to Villa (Bruce’s Team) Could have been at Cambridge Utd, but they refused Him as ass’t to Martin Ling. He was given mega pounds to spend at Villa and in truth didn’t really live up to what the owners wanted from that sort of spending.
Looking at that at Villa I am unsure if letting Smith lose on his own with a purse would have been a better idea, or shackling him to Webber’s authority. But the later isn’t proving too good.
I think we have to give at least 10-15 games game to see what he can do with the new signings, if and when they are fit. Hayden bothers me, with several reports we are chasing another defensive midfielder in Real Betis midfielder Paul Akoukou.
I was against the Smith appointment right from the word go and I have seen nothing to change my mind. I still hear people saying “he needs more time” but 9 months is plenty to have looked at what he needs in order to see improvement. Or, of course, he thinks the current squad is actually good enough, which is potentially more worrying.
I look at Burnley. New Manager, shipped out all the underperformers from last season, fresh faces, fresh attitude and how long has Kompany had?
Or Watford. Again, a new Manager with a fresh new outlook. Largely the same squad but with a new outlook on things. Again, how long has Edwards had?
And then there’s us. Exactly the same squad and first XI. A tired old Manager trying the same things that didn’t work last year. As Gary points out, not a single player has improved under his tenure. And his track record doesn’t suggest that will change.
Giving him 10-15 games will be too long. I seriously hope that Webber is keeping tabs on the MK Dons Manager or even, dare I say it, the guy in charge at Ipswich. Either would represent a fresh start. Which is what we desperately need.
Except cantwell
“The premise of the sporting director structure, as we’ve been told, was that if a new coach comes in, little to nothing changes. ”
Such a true statement – we were as bad under Dean Smith as we were under Daniel Farke last year. 🙂
Very hard for a team to perform with the heart of a side missing – Hanley, Defensive midfielder, Attacking Midfielder, Pukki .. those two middle positions will be key for our season – Hayden, Sara and Nunez hold our seasons fortune in their hands.
Other good news are the links to other players such as Paul Akoukou … if we can get that over the line too, then we have an insurance policy – Sara and Nunez provide cover for the attacking midfield position if one gets injured. Hayden and Akoukou will provide defensive midfield cover should one get injured … it is good to see how much focus is being put into these key positions which had been neglected for the past year or so.
If we do gel and kick on up the league and maybe promotion comes – I wonder how many of our premier league squad from last year will be kept on bearing in mind last years performances and the fact Dean Smith has not yet been able to get a lot of them to string a performance together.
Hi Gary
A good read I just sent something alone the same lines to Martin on my thoughts of the 1st games for the 3 clubs.
Sadly like other I just can’t see Smith here in a month but maybe he could get to the international break, the manager at Bodo/Glint is having another good season defing the odds in the CL maybe it’s time to make a call but it will mean compensation all round and wouldn’t it be nice if Webber went too
Hi Gary
I fought long and hard with my inner self and eventually won the battle as in I didn’t mention Delia and the Attanosio investment on Sunday.
Mark Attanosio is a walking, talking embodiment of sporting success. Buying the Foulger shares is one thing but with that comes the big red flag, as in Delia ain’t for budging.
Possessing expertise and being allowed to express it at NCFC are two vastly different things and for that reason alone I expect him to walk, if indeed he hasn’t done so already.
Tend to agree, mate. Let’s hope we’re both wrong on this one.
Good points and well made. What is really called for is people within the club being held responsible for their failures and rewarded for their successes. Appoint a Chairman and CEO with the authority to hold people to account. Webber seems to rule the roost simply because he has convinced Delia that he knows what he’s doing better than she does. He’s there to carry the can when the pressure is on. In turn he passed his failures off onto Farke and sacked him to preserve his own position. No one is taking responsibility. Now we have Dean Smith blaming Farke and, indirectly, the recruitment, while Webber blames the players, the supporters and the lack of money.
Delia dug herself a huge socialist hole when we had a bit of a run a few years back and committed in The Guardian, to had over to Hapless Tom. The guy mainly responsible for the ‘porn sponsorship’ and the coffee company who went bust a month after sponsoring the South Stand. An ex-civil servant with even less football knowledge than Auntie. God help us all!
Apt and incisive as always. Great stuff, GG.
Great article Gary.
I think once the Americans get their foot in the door I feel in time they won’t be content to sit back and watch.
I certainly hope so. They seem to offer much greater professionalism.
It will still be moneyball let’s not kid ourselves but at a better level.
I seem to be a voice in the wilderness on Dean Smith.
It seems two things, one he isn’t Daniel Farke and two the fans have made their minds up on him.
I think this is unfair.
I was convinced Daniel Farke deserved another chance after his admittedly disappointing first season. I could see things he was trying to do.
Smith has yet to play a signing of his own.
Let’s be honest we have been both spoiled and humiliated under Farke.
But the humiliation was not mainly of his doing.
I agree with many supporters that things look bleak at the moment but with Hayden, Sara, Nunez, Idah to come into the reckoning things could change for Smith.
I suppose I just think it is fair to give him a proper go at it. He will realise that come the World Cup break and we are languishing in midtable his time will probably be up.
Stuart Webber will act as we have seen.
Forest were awful at the start of the season and ended up promoted, we must get behind Smith and the team.
We all know what will happen if there is no improvement, Dean Smith more than anyone.
Surely Tim in the 9months he has been at the club more of his style or lack of it should be on show.
Just watch him on the touchline no passion from him or his staff it’s like they are there just to get paid and not achieve anything.
After the WC will be to late to improve but when he goes so must Webber
I agree to a certain extent Alex.
I would point to when he went two up top with Idah and Pukki there was a marked improvement. Losing Idah when at last he seemed to be feeling his feet was awful luck. (My big worry with Adam is his fitness record)
I have a theory that maybe absolute rubbish but here goes, Stuart Webber bought or loaned in many young players but also players like Rashica and Sargent who had a different way of playing style to what had become the norm under Daniel Farke.
Farke found out these players were not good enough and through trying to mix the two types of players he had abandoned, either by purpose or accident we will never know, his playing style.
As a big a supporter of Daniel that I am we have to agree he had abandoned Farkeball by the Leeds game.
To me it is just to early to make a judgement call on Dean Smith.
However whoever made the decision not to recall Jordan Hugill from his loan ( if possible) once Adam was ruled out for the season did make the wrong call.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the owners are obstructing and blocking new money and ideas coming into the club.
Its blindingly obvious that the current model is failing and the vast majority of supporters are dissatisfied with the direction of the club.
The attanasio proposal seems to be the ideal solution to the downward spiral and only a remarkable act of self serving sabotage would stand in the way of progress being made.
Expect the situation to become poisonous very quickly if tge current malaise is allowed to continue.
Strong rumour that Webber wanted Cooper but Nottingham beat him to the appointment and it was happenstance that Villa sacked Smith the day after we sacked Farke
The rumour on that was City weren’t prepared to pay compensation to Swansea or at least the amount they wanted, Cooper and Webber goes back to their Wrexham days.
I’m with Tim on this. I think we were pretty lucky to get Smith. And never forget Shakespeare was instrumental in the Leicester City miracle. They need time and their own players.
What I would simply like to know,,and I guess no one outside the club could provide an answer. How much say does a manager have in buying and selling our players.
My guess would be very little, hence the awful signings of last season!!