My Football Writer Norwich City news… comment… analysis
Norwich City – news, comment and analysis
Peter Grant proved the adage that nothing becomes a man so much as the manner of his leaving. A decent man did the decent thing.
But the team he has left behind is grievously short of decent players and in genuine danger of relegation to football's third tier. Are Norwich too big a club to go down? Ask Nottingham Forest, Leeds or Manchester City.
Is the current team good enough to stay up? Not on recent evidence.
City have gone nine and a quarter hours without …
And so the reign of our own Bonny Prince Granty has staggered to its bloody and tragic end. An end that was about as glorious as listening to the last bit of air being squeezed out of a set of bagpipes.
Fatally wounded in the? ahem? battle of Loftus Road our brave wee Scot gave a “I can do no more, I blame the men? kiss me Duffy” speech and slipped silently away to die. Once more our fine City was without a regent and a bruising war of words and recriminations was about to envelop …
The day Peter Grant took over at Norwich, I spoke to a member of staff at West Ham. They were happy he'd got a manager's job but questioned whether he would be a success, giving the reason that he was such a nice bloke.
Strange, that. Particularly when you consider that over these last 12 months Grant has made David Brent look like a genius in man-management.
From slagging off the fans, to slagging off the club's best player, to slagging …
You're stuck in the proverbial mire, you've taken just eight points from your opening nine league games, you haven't scored in almost eight hours of football and you're currently in one of the relegation places.
So how did the Canaries react to the alarming situation that they'd put themselves in as a result of an abysmal start to the campaign?
Did they, for instance, dig deep in the manner a boxer would who is on the ropes and one punch away from being …
As had been anticipated in this column and elsewhere, City's visit to Loftus Road last night may well prove the end of the road for Grant with City residing in the non too lofty position of 22nd.
We are now staring down the barrels of what could well prove to be a long and grim winter relegation battle, with frankly no guarantee that we will win it. Although much thought and column inches will be taken up with the question of how it came to this and who to replace Grant with, it …
In the end, the simplest statement came from Peter Grant's own lips as he mulled over the 1-0 defeat by Queen's Park Rangers.
“I've no doubts in my abilites as a coach,” said the City boss, brutally honest till the last. “But to be in this situation in my first job in management is disappointing because you've got to manage players as well as coach them.”
And therein lies much of the problem. Management of 24-odd individuals under the …
It was inevitable.
Peter Grant himself admitted after the Canaries' dreadful performance in their 1-0 defeat at Loftus Road on Monday night that as manager the buck stops with him.
“It's a results business and we're not producing,” he said, “I take full responsibility.”.
The manner of his departure though spoke volumes for the man himself, when he revealed that it was his decision to step down for the good of the club rather than dragging his …
An improved second-half performance from the Canaries against Scunthorpe last Tuesday on what has generally been a bitterly disappointing showing in the majority of games this season has provided the tiniest chinks of light for City fans.
For once, we saw Norwich nearer to the positive, attacking outfit that they should be against Nigel Adkins' men, and although it didn't ultimately win them the game, at least it was a start.
Now considering the manner of the …
My fear for Norwich City ? the gnawing doubt which is corroding my hopes and beliefs ? began to fester and ferment as I watched Nottingham Forest against Leeds back in August.
It was an interesting fixture to cover for the Daily Express, with two former European Cup finalist teams competing in the third tier of English football, and there was an added but grim fascination for me about Neil Lennon.
Last season he was playing in the Champions League for Celtic. As …
In the end, it was what does for them all. Results.
And he knew it. That as the points and the performances started to dry up this autumn, it was not the fact that this formation didn't work or that player didn't fit that did for Peter Grant – it was results.
If 'It's all about winning games…' wasn't a word-for-word quote, it was the gist of most recent press conferences as Norwich scratched about for anything that might suggest that there …
As ever at times like this, it is worth stepping out of your old supporters' shoes and joining Ferret in trying to see it through the eyes of Mr 10 Per Cent.
What's Mr Davies' man thinking right now as he follows his client on a three-stop tour of the Championship – to Hull City on Tuesday night, to Norwich yesterday and all, of course, with a chat to Southampton squeezed in between.
Well, much like Billy Sharp's man as he hawked his boy to Norwich, to …
It's easy to criticise football managers. Sometimes you can pick holes in team selections, tactics and work in the transfer market but there are occasions when it's difficult to see exactly where a manager is going wrong.
As news of Preston goal after Preston goal against Southampton was being whispered into my headphones during commentary on Norwich's 0-0 draw with Scunthorpe United, it was clear that the Canaries were heading for the bottom three of the Championship.<br …
Apologies to anyone who hasn't either read 'Lord Of The Rings' or seen the film.
For both of you, some of this might pass you by.
But anyway, there's this scene at the end of the first book that – for me – kind of sums up the place in which the board of Norwich City Football Club now find themselves.
Forced off the mountain pass as the 'Fellowship of the Ring' endeavour to take their burden south, Gandalf and chums reluctantly decide that …
Eight games into the league campaign and three Carling Cup games prior to last night's clash with Scunthorpe at Carrow Road, and by and large the same things had been said from within the Canaries' camp this season.
Both manager and players had openly admitted that the team's performances simply hadn't been good enough, with the reasons proffered ranging from an inability to master the basics through to a downright lack of courage.
Supporters would probably …
Well, where do you start? For the third game running, Norwich played OK.
We knocked the ball about, no-one had a bad game, we even created some chances. And yet, once again, we failed to score, and so now find ourselves stuck in the bottom three.
This time, at least, we were spared the sucker punch, but the feeling remains: we are a team with something – call it an x-factor, a cutting edge, a sense of belief – missing from its core.
Before trying to reason …
It always was one of those quotes that stood out; one that almost suggested that conversations were being had. It didn't, after all, seem to appear anywhere else apart from this neck of the woods.
They can be easily missed, in fairness.
It was, of course, the one from Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson that reportedly went along the lines of ?If you can only afford to shop at Tesco's, don't try and shop at Harrod's…?
Well, according to my pal …
Don't look now, but it's going to be all change again at the back next Monday after The Doc's groin finally gave up the good fight tonight.
That was the word from Granty afterwards – that the 27-year-old now faces ?two to three weeks? out after aggravating the same groin he tweaked away at Manchester City the other night.
The manager admitted then that he should have come off at the break at Eastlands, but the player himself opted to push on for the full 90 …
One of the things which make football a great game is the fact that it's enjoyed by people from all backgrounds and all walks of life.
The educated and uneducated, the pie-munchers and the prawn sandwich nibblers, the rich and? well, the mega-rich, in the case of the Premiership.
It brings together people who wouldn't normally have cause to be together; it provides a topic of conversation to people who have little else in common.
The late AJ Ayer, …
So what exactly does City boss Peter Grant say to his players before they head out of the home team dressing-room and into the Carrow Road cauldron tomorrow night?
After all, he's probably said everything that it's possible to say to try to the Canaries already this season, be it prior to a game in the form of trying to lift the players so that they will perform, or especially afterwards when they've returned from the pitch having not done anything of the sorts.
<br …
So where do we go from here?
Forget the fact that there's not a cat in hell's chance of Sheffield Wednesday sitting in the bottom three places in the table for much longer – and therefore this hardly being a home defeat against one of the worst teams in the Coca-Cola Championship – because on this showing City are in big trouble now anyway.
You almost get the feeling though that anyone not present in the City of Manchester Stadium, and therefore either having had …