Quite what Shane Duffy was thinking when he boomed that header into touch near the South Stand/River End corner is unclear but what it provided was the most perfect snapshot of another grim, error-ridden night at Carrow Road.
The boos and the cries of ‘Wagner Out’ were, I’m afraid, inevitable as the frustration boiled over after another 90-plus minutes of disappointment. Make no mistake, the call for the axing of the head coach would have been accompanied by the same for the current sporting director were he not already on his merry way.
But therein lies part of the problem.
We may have had our moments over the last decade but being a Norwich City supporter is undeniably grim right now, much of it stemming from the biweekly bouts of paucity we’re subjected to as our heroes prove themselves to be only zeroes – Johnny Rowe aside.
But it runs deeper than a team that is devoid of confidence and a head coach who has lost his way, if indeed there was a way in the first place. David Wagner’s race appears to be run but he’s not the root cause of this malaise – far from it. But he is a by-product of it.
Like Dean Smith before him, he’s a decent guy but also the wrong guy. Having said that, with Norwich City in its current state, I’m not sure if there is such a thing as the right one.
Had Wagner not been so intrinsically linked to Stuart Webber, I’m not sure he would have been even short-listed for the job. Had Webber not been involved at all in the process in the first place, I suspect his CV is such that he would have been a ‘Thank you for your interest but…‘ type of candidate.
Those of us who described it as an “easy”, even “lazy” appointment were rounded upon by some but it looks increasingly so.
Wagner’s football, when it clicks, is progressive, modern, and easy on the eye – nothing not to like – but it only thrives in very specific conditions. And the more teams play against it and the more it gets sub-analysed by opponents, the easier it gets to nullify.
And another thing… it relies on having defenders and deep-lying midfielders who are infinitely more comfortable on the ball than those we possess (aside, of course, from Gabriel Sara) or can afford. It relies on players, across the board, who are comfortable in possession and who, even when under pressure, can be relied upon to keep the ball.
But we don’t keep the ball. We do the opposite. We consistently cough up possession cheaply – one of the main reasons why the stats show we concede more big chances per game than almost any team in the division.
One of the great qualities of Championship Daniel Farke – apologies for mentioning him again – was his ability to produce a team greater than the sum of its parts; the complete antithesis of both Wagner and Smith. Both have proven themselves expert at producing teams that punch below their weight.
Right now, the good performers in a Wagner team stand out like a Belisha beacon because, generally, they find themselves surrounded by mediocrity.
I wrote about us being just an average Championship side a couple of weeks ago but since then the direction of travel suggests something even more concerning. With one win in seven and with performance levels falling off a cliff, the echoes of Roeder 2008-09 are all too real.
As things stand, three teams are marooned at the foot of the Championship table and so we can only hope it stays that way and that, from somewhere, one of them doesn’t find some form. Then it could get messy.
I suppose the big question is, would a change of head coach have a positive impact on this ordinary squad of players beyond perhaps a one or two-week honeymoon period? If the answer is yes, then the change should be made sooner rather than later.
But at Norwich City, even what should be a relatively straightforward decision is anything but.
Who makes the call? Webber? The bloke who is desperate to leave and who appointed Smith and Wagner in the first place?
With his replacement, Ben Knapper, not starting for another month and then apparently being hand-held by Webber until at least January, do we wait until the new year for him to make the call?
And what about Mark Attanasio, the bloke who must serve a three to seven-year apprenticeship under the guidance of Delia and Michael before he’s permitted to make an important decision?
In the real world, should he not have an input?
I guess the sensible thing to do would be to humanely relieve Wagner of his duties and appoint Narcís Pèlach as caretaker head coach to buy time until Knapper arrives but, again, what he does when he arrives will clouded by the spectre of Webber for a few weeks. Will he be permitted to make that call alone?
And, besides, we don’t tend to do sensible.
Like I said, what an absolute shambles.
What a mess! Wagner was never the right choice, and viewing the collapse at the end of last season gave us all a preview of his tactical intransigence and inability to reset a failing squad.
There’s no point mulling over Webber; what concerns me now is the Roederesque stench of failure on the pitch with players looking like they’re hiding from responsibility on the ball – there was a good degree of finger pointing and shrugging of shoulders last night that tells me some might not fancy the scrap. Even Sara looked like a Brazilian finding out how cold October in England is for the first time again.
There’s nothing here to convince me that a concerted relegation push isn’t on the cards with this lot. It’s utterly dismal.
Summed the situation up very well. It’s an absolute mess of our own making. The current structure of the club is an absolute mess and someone needs to get hold of it. We can only hope that Attanasio will step forward to protect his investment.
Attanasio will want to maximise his profits and that will mean promotion not relegation. Being a stagnant team stuck in the Championship will not do him any good.
Maybe, as I said in another comment, he might side with Delia at the moment while approaching the smaller shareholders and see if any are willing to sell to him
The alternative to maximising his profits will be minimising his losses. Maybe walking away before putting too much in
The direction of travel at the moment is towards League One, if not this season then probably next. I really cannot see him wanting to invest in a club in the third tier, unless of course the club has real estate assets that he can liquidise to recoup his investment.
Well Gary I’m so glad you said what I was thinking we’re in that position now where there’s no point in sacking him only for another appointment that probably took one brain cell to think of Dean Smith was a knee jerk reaction and David Wagner an old pals act . Both smatter desperate ill thought out appointments much like his recruitment .
I just hope Ben Knapper is getting HIS list together as we speak , & I wish we would get rid of SW as SOON as he arrives..
The club is in a desperate situation much like SW’s appointments and signings and yet no one seems to be able to see it 🙈 not even Mark attanasio ?? 🤔.
Knapper will still have a road block in Mrs Webber to surmount before any changes get approved and I can’t see her letting much of her old man’s work get ditched.
I do so hope our octogenarian owners are enjoying their wining and dining at Carrow Road.
Almost 30 years in charge and they still cannot see that anything is wrong???
O T B C
Another accurate assessment Gary.
As somebody on the message board pointed out the overlap between Webber and Knapper will give him the opportunity to learn how it isn’t done.
The way things stand I can see the club going under before Delia loosens her grip on the social club.
Time for Colin?
Someone said to me last night that the wanted Gary Rowett! Neither Colin or Gary would fit the players any better than Wagner.
But at least Colin is entertaining if the team isn’t!
You could tell by the body language in the first half that the players think that it’s over for Wagner. with a few exceptions most of them barely looked like they were trying. The worst culprit last night was Hernandez who spent the entire first half barely jogging, not defending and getting into positions where it was impossible to have the ball passed to him.. if I was giving marks out of 10 for players he’d get 1 some others would be in the 3 or 4 category.
For the younger members of the audience the Glenn Roeder era at the club was not good. it comes to something when your top scorer (on 7 goals) was only at the club 3 months. The atmosphere around the club doesn’t feel quite that bad yet but it’s getting there. acrimony between the owners and the fans, poor performances, a seeming lack of quality on the pitch. This time it’s been worse because there was a serious rift between the club and local press.
Wagner, like Roeder before him, doesn’t have the players to fit the system he’s trying at the moment. If what he’s trying isn’t working then he needs to try something else. If he can’t think of something else then he has to go.
Every club, and this one seemingly, needs a real shakeup every 3 or 4 years to avoid becoming complacent and/or stale in thinking. A change in sporting director is one, a transition in ownership is another but a change in players is needed too. The first two of those is happening the third is always an ongoing process.
As to Mark Attanasio, he’s not serving a ‘3-7 year apprenticeship’ he’s taking things slowly as he knows his limitations. If you read up on how he took over the Brewers he did the same thing. It’s been confirmed that he’s now owner of 40.4% of the club with the option to increase that to 46.3% by converting his shares (it’s on companies house, look it up). I suspect that there’s going to be a transition where he gets more involved in the club area by area as he gets used to it. It’ll start with things that transfer easily getting the finances working, improving the clubs use of data to help. it’ll take time to progress onto hiring and firing of sporting directors and coaches. One thing I think will get progressed is financing the improvements of the City stand. be aware though that the stand at Crystal Palace is now expected to cost £150M.
we are in transition as a club, more so than at most times, we (the fans, club and the players) need to ensure that it’s not a transition to League 1.
I sincerely hope that it’s not to League 1, but given recent performances and attitudes, I’m not holding my breath.
O T B C
2nd top scorer that season was Own goals I think. Truly terrible times
Football like politics ends in failure. The wheel has turned and We are back to the Roeder days. The rot starts from the top. Delia and Michael thank you but please step aside now. Webber should be on gardening leave now not making (wrong) decisions. As for Wagner, Nice guy but never the right decision. I’d go for young and hungry over last payday. It doesn’t always work but the club is stale with a capital S. Go for an up and coming manager, even if we have to tempt him away from another club. If we keep Wagner we will be hammered on saturday and the clamour will be too much even for our owners not to realise. Why wait?
The way the club has been allowed to slide is an obscenity. An utterly predictable one to all but the zealots and idiots.
We now have a surfeit of players going through the motions. We have a manager who is making more and more bizarre decisions and who apparently had a long record of calamitous losing runs that span months at a time.
We have a sporting director who appears to despise the club (and its supporters) who is failing in his responsibilities on an industrial scale, all while taking a fat salary months after giving his notice.
Overseeing all this we have the spectre of our beloved custodians, whose bony fingers cling on grimly while the club lurches into crisis, the firesales of players continue unabated, hanging around like a monstrous farm in an unventilated room.
Yes, Wagner must go. Immediately. However he must hold the door fpr the two married couples that have orchestrated this mess so that they cannot inflict anymore of their nonsense upon us.
For God’s sake. Just go.
Briilant Chris. Far more polite than I could be. You nailed it.
😚 believe me Jane I was holding back!
And so the burning questions are who is available and who wants the job ?
Last two managerial appointments looked suspect and proved to be even worse. Should have let Webber walk away when he wanted, now his legacy feels less and less each week.
Never forget that Webber said they always had a shortlist of managers and SPorting Directors that was being updated at all times.
Wonder what happened there.
That got binned when Farke was sacked
I don’t think you have the first 6 games we had with a team full of bad players. For me it’s tactics and adaptability.
I still think in Sargent, Gunn, Rowe, Sara we have 4 players who are each at least top 5 in their position in the league. We then have some average championship players in the other positions.
I think we are seeing the same thing with Wagner as last season and on his previous clubs – strong starts that run out of steam as he is unable to react to other teams’ reaction to his tactics.
It’s interesting how we went from idealistic Farke, to pragmatic Smith to Wagner who is… Im not sure if he is idealistic but he is certainly not pragmatic and is definitely stubborn
When Skipp went back to Spurs, Farke abandoned the idea of having a midfield ball winner and thought that it was a winning solution to have full backs playing as attackers and attackers having to defend. Since then our defence has been a total embarrassment, whoever plays there. Subsequent managers have ignored the fans and kept this system which has been the death of us.
Getting rid of people does no good, it’s the people that replace them that can bring about the change. Who is confident that the new people are going to be better? The other solution is to accept what’s going wrong and to change it, not by statistics or xgs but by what is happening in front of your eyes.
As usual Mr G, you hit the nail with no bruised wood either side.
From one who never wanted Wagner in the first place, just looking at his record spoke volumes to me. I was told we had lined up Knutsen to take the reigns with a couple of provisos, only to jump over to Smudger – another whose record was flattering.
I tried to overlook his time at FC Schalke 04 as I believe they were in a worse messe than us (yes, it is possible) but I could not fully overlook that spell. The similarities between FC Schalke 04 and City may not be exact, but close enough to say two clubs in a flipping mess.
That, coupled with his poor form at Young Boys, really should have been enough for any sensible football SD, to say thanks but no thanks. An old pals act in bloody huge letters.
Wagner seems a decent, likeable sort of guy, talks well but clearly is lacking some football sense.
I do feel a little for him as he has been dealt the same dud hands that Farke was by the owners’ stubborn refusal to think of changing their ill-fated ideals. This then is leading down to Webber. Both of these parties are stuck in their own little world. Everest is about the only thing bigger than his ego.
As many know, neither of these should be at our club right now, and if any new SD needs bedding in with overseeing, I would query his capabilities to manage successfully. It may sound harsh but no other club would have done this. A couple of days with Adams should have been enough to navigate the surroundings etc.
But we will see how that pans out, the guy has to be given a clean slate.
And why a very successful business owner should need an apprenticeship of 3 flucking years astounds me. It can only smack of not wanting to let go of their little toy. Now I am sure why no buyers have been cleared to proceed, I said that Stowmarket duo would not let anyone in who was a danger to them and still stand by it.
The problems have been mounting year after year. I believe that there has been enough money flowing through the club over the years (promotions, player sales and parachute money) where a more decent effort at Premier League survival could and should have been made.
I cringe every time I hear some supposed expert prattle on TV about City being a well-run club, plus a new era of joint owners was upon us. Where? What is going to change?
I might be pushing up daisies bvefore I see that happen. At the moment, to me it is (no insult intended) it is the blind leading the blind, football wise.
But, in truth, we can hazard a very good guess nothing will change. It is chiselled in stone
Hi Canarylad,
Like your good self, I harped on about the ownership.
It’s the last vestiges of her so-called celebrity status and she is hanging onto it. Her motto once was never keep anything past its sell-by date. Well, this is now 27 years past its sell-by date.
The sycophants that for years have applauded her efforts at running a club on a shoestring are still telling her she’s right, while the rest of the world is laughing at little ol Norwich struggling – especially those in blue.
If Attanasio – who runs a sporting franchise in Milwaukee – needs his hands held for 3 years, then he’s not going to be the right person for the club.
Maybe he’s hoping for a quick promotion (haha) and selling to another investor at a big profit.
One concern is that Milwaukee need a new stadium and Attanasio has asked the City to foot the bill, or they could re-locate to another city that will provide the facility the team needs.
He doesn’t come across as someone willing to invest too heavily in the infrastructure. I just hope I’m wrong.
Unfortunately the sycophants include all the high profile “journalists” and Youtubers. If they had dared to point out that the responsibility for the club’s mediocrity is the owners,things might be different. I think that only a concerted Delia Out campaign will shift her. Without new owners investing for success we are going nowhere.
Gary, you have nailed the overall situation. The only mitigation that could be offered is that the simultaneous loss of Barnes and Sargent has left Wagner with only two options up front, a much-touted striker who hardly ever scores goals, or a Forest cast-off who so far looks like another Gilmour-type flop. And no manager can do much about the horrendous individual errors that have turned our defence into the leakiest in the division. I still have hope, with mid-table congested and the return of Hanley, Barnes and Sargent getting closer. With Webber having effectively checked out long ago and Knapper not in place yet, sacking the manager now could be counter-productive.
Hi Alan
As Gary mentioned maybe Pelach’s was recruited as the fall guy if Wagner was sacked.
As a No1, he won his only game at Huddersfield but has been assistant at Girona and Huddersfield so is he ready for a big leap? I’m not so sure but Carlos Corberan recruited him after he was sacked at Girona.
Hi Gary,
Some great comments.
City are in a trucking fouble and each day Webber/Wagner stay in situ – the deeper it seems to get and the octogenarians in Stowmarket will still be viewed as club saviours by some.
Gunn, Rowe, Sara and Nunez could all leave in January, which will leave us with an ageing squad but would we get enough money to recruit or would it all go into a big black debt hole created by the owners and the Webbers?
Like City have done in the not-too-distant past, clubs will come hunting for bargains and possibly Gibbs could also be added to that list and any of those on loan.
Webber took a risk last summer and released a player from the academy to Chelsea with no up-front payment but a percentage of any sell-on clause, and I did read that he was offered possibly £1m plus a sell-on clause but opted for a larger percentage of nothing.
Let’s hope Knapper can do things better and snag a couple of the Arsenal academy to bolster the squad.
Condolences to Jenny Seagrove on the loss of Bill Kenwright from Z Cars – sadly another owner who stayed too long at his club but kept them in the Premier League on a shoestring budget.
Your reply says it all AlexB indeed .
As usual, nailed most of the points.
With regard to Webber, if we had anyone else as a board or any other industry in my experience, SW would have been led to clear it his desk and escorted to his car the minute he handed in his notice. But no, our board allow him to come out with his I wont leave you in the lurch statements. He then goes on to front another transfer window having messed up the previous two summers (I‘ll not count Januaries coz we never do anything of note there accept sell cheap). He even admitted his failings to provide Farke with the squad he needed after the 1st premier league season! This man should certainly not be given the chance to cloud the thinking of his successor.
As far as DW is concerned, it is not all his fault but I still think he should go as he seems to have lost his way and has no real idea what to do to change it (or stubbornly does not want to). Having said that, I am not sure I have any realistic ideas for a replacement that would want to come.
Regarding the comparison with the Roeder season (heaven help us) after 13 games we had won 4 drawn 4 and lost 5 = 16 pts compared to our current Won 5 Drawn 2 Lost 6 = 17 pts. Hence we are dangerously close and also have to consider the one win the last 11 games of last season.
As many before me have said, shambolic.
The webber situation is so unprofessional and farcical it flies in the face of accepted business practice in every field.
It perfectly sums up the shambolic way that delia Smith and her husband have run the club. They must go forthwith.
Until The Stowmarket duo go, no manager or Sporting Director will be able to succeed at this club.
The fans now need to put the pressure on those two not David Wagner, as we will only be back to square one again when another manager comes in!
League One is calling on this form. Personally I don’t think it will be a bad thing if it means we can finally get rid of the clowns at the top and then have a well run, structured football club.
We are currently part of Micheal and Delia’s train set, which they are not willing to let anyone else play with.
The players are losing confidence, that only means one thing regarding the Coach, he‘s finished, a busted flush. But as you point out at this Club nothing happens quickly and our new saviour from the Gunners is walking into an awful mess, by the time he can get to grips with the situation we‘ll be fighting to avoid relegation.
Great piece Gary and a lot of very good posts . Wagner has totally lost the plot we have the worst defence in the league , Wh6 oh Why has he done something about it but he still plays the same defenders , we have some good defenders sitting on the bench and some not in the squad Danny Bartth being the obvious . The amount of passes going astray and most leading to goals is ridiculous . As said the old Sporting Director showing the new one is an absolute joke never mind the new Major shareholder being shown how to run a business and club is unbelievable