GUEST BLOG: The form or the firm – which changes first?

It’s guest blog time again – unsurprisingly there are views aplenty on offer right now – with today the keyboard of one Liam Palmer doing the business for MFW.

The floor is yours, my friend.

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There is little doubt that the doughty, trusty faithful are becoming increasingly disenfranchised with all things Canary. Results have nose-dived, our league position has plummeted and the only fans truly enjoying our footie right now are that lot down the road.

Football is a strange old thing. It doesn’t seem long ago that we had a youngster with pop-star aspirations performing the Johnny Rowe song to a buoyant, bouncing bar full of beaming fans having been gleefully introduced by David Wagner.

It doesn’t seem long ago because it isn’t.

So what has happened? Have we become so entitled that a bad run of form sees us turn so quickly? Have we become fickle, that very thing we have all (well, plenty of us I reckon) taken the piss of? Those glory-hunting-more-clubs-than-a-deck-of-cards types that dig out their replica Liverpool top if there’s a cup final?

Well, yes. Partly. But it’s not just that.

Expectations are certainly higher than they were but that’s a result of our own relative success. It’s natural. The club came out and stated the controversial top-26 baseline. After a succession of seasons where we achieved that, last season’s failure and the current malaise inevitably led to unrest. We’re not even reaching the bare minimum.

And the club SET that bar, they drew the line and if we aren’t reaching that level we are, definitively, failing in our minimum objective.

In addition, there are many other things that are exacerbating the strength of feeling being vocalised, written, and probably daubed on spare linen as we speak.

Firstly, the Sith Lord of the corridors of Carra, Darth Webber.

His stock has dropped faster than a Tory prime minister. We’ve gone from Webberlution to Bedsheet Bedlam to him hanging about seemingly just to annoy us like the in-laws at Christmas.

Now, it could be fairly argued that him sticking around to ease the new young, ambitious Ben Knapper into the role, and, truth be told, nobody would give a shiny sh1te if we were winning games. But we aren’t.

Inevitably, it’s easy to level criticism at him. He’s been going for an age, is his heart still in it? Did he give a sh1t? Is he vindictively scuppering us because a bloke in a brown coat called him a c**t?

Doubtful. I can’t believe his professional pride would allow that but with the team not performing at expected levels, those that make up the team will come under fire, and who recruited them?

Hmm.

Secondly, David Wagner. I have some sympathy for him having lost Sarge and Barnes when we started well and key injuries definitely shafted any play-off chances we might have had. But he’s also stubborn.

Since the injuries we’ve carried on with what was working and throwing a dart at the squad list to see who plays the support role to the main striker. The injuries have exposed a perceived lack of depth and, as such, it’s hard for him to change things with subs as, usually, the best players are already out there.

That said, it was perceived as a cozy appointment by plenty given the connection to Darth. And it all does seem a bit “Farke-Lite” with the benefit of my hindsight binoculars.

And then there’s him. Farke.

Seeing him in another team’s dugout was always going to be difficult, the fact that it’s dirty bloody Leeds is worse, and then having to watch him come here and remind us what we’re missing with that never-give-up desire and belief, the attacking mindset, the coming back from the brink victory.

And then being a nice guy about it.

Yeah. That stung, right?

And if Webber won’t leave it’s like Mark Attanasio is never arriving, isn’t it? Well not fully. It’s like we’re all eagerly waiting at Carrow Road and he’s run out of petrol at Thickthorn.

Gradually the excitement has dissipated, and fans now see this handover as lip service for pantomime ogress Delia to cling on to “power” for a bit longer as opposed to a sensible crossover for Mr Attanasio to get fully across the nuances of British football.

And worst of all?

What makes all of the above smart a bit more, nag at us, germinate the seeds of doubt at such a rapid rate? It’s the fact that the Binners have started as they have. They’ve turned up with their rag-tag bunch of never-heard-yous and they’re winning.

Worse, it all smells (stinks) suspiciously of Lambert all those years ago, a model that they desperately tried to replicate by appointing the man himself only for him to fail miserably.

Their form is clearly difficult to swallow. They’ve been an absolute irrelevance for longer than I care to remember. There are kids at Uni that can’t ever remember them beating us and now we’ve got all this other stuff going on and with their memories seemingly erased Men In Black style, they’re suddenly giving it Billy Big Balls all over the socials.

We certainly haven’t been good lately (generous) but their doing well makes it seem exponentially worse.

Somebody posted on the PinkUn earlier that Wagner’s win rate is sandwiched between the two Neils – Adams and Alex. One of them gave us our Norwich back and the other gave us Wembley. We’re watching Gabby Sara and Johnny Rowe, not Jason Jarrett or Simon Whaley.

Are things really that bad?

Well, they are bad. Whether Wagner survives this is open to debate but unless Sargent recovers miraculously or Hwang, well, does something, it’s hard to see. Sometimes it’s said that it’s better to be lucky than good. He’s definitely not the first and because of that, we’ll probably never confirm the second.

I genuinely suspect that many, many minds have already decided but will/can the minds that matter act before Knapper arrives? If they wait until then will it be too late? Where does the call even lie?

Decisive action might settle us fans down but I’m not even sure that’s possible given the behind-the-scenes transition.

Plenty have wanted Delia gone, Webber gone and now Wagner gone. Ultimately, they’ll get all three but with things as they are, the first two might be a few weeks away at best.

So strap in, folks. Ipswich isn’t far off and we simply cannot go into that fixture with this cloud of toxicity hanging over us, either the form or the firm needs to change. Quickly.