“With the quality Pilkington’s got, he is somebody that should be chipping in with goals,” said Hughton. “That’s something we’ve asked of him. I thought he was the threat and I thought he played really well…
Rick Waghorn
West Brom’s latest success completes a near-perfect weekend for Hughton; blue skies and clear water are on the horizon
Cast your eyes down the table and those famed ten games into any new season and people are where they are for a reason. And right now QPR, Reading and Southampton have more reason than most to fear the drop…
West Brom's latest success completes a near-perfect weekend for Hughton; blue skies and clear water are on the horizon
Cast your eyes down the table and those famed ten games into any new season and people are where they are for a reason. And right now QPR, Reading and Southampton have more reason than most to fear the drop…
How would I sum up the mood of the Canary Nation after the last two weeks? In rude, good health would be my view…
If the City chief delivers a Capital One Cup quarter-final spot on the back of tomorrow night’s home clash with Spurs, then events at home to West Ham United and QPR will be long forgotten. Fulham? What happened at Fulham?
A tale of two clubs, two managers and two strikers – a fascinating sub-plot to ponder ahead of that game in ten days time
Amongst all the other – mostly legal – sub-plots that are going to surround that trip to Villa Park in ten days time, the relationships the two managers ‘enjoy’ with their key centre-forwards is fascinating…
Word tonight is that Lambert and Canary board are locked in a fight over a claim for unfair dismissal. The only winners? The lawyers.
If there is an answer – and I would strongly suggest no-one in this neck of the woods ever really got to know Lambert well enough to say what made him tick – I would suggest that it would lie somewhere in the heart of that Glasgow-thing; the fierceness of their mind-set that sets them apart from the milder-mannered others; for the Chrissy Hughtons of this world, blacks and whites are always various shades of grey. Not for the Lamberts…
Even now the trip to Villa Park looms large on the horizon. But here’s a thing: which manager actually has more at stake that day?
Equally, for those that find concern in Grant Holt’s slow start to the season – the ‘marque’ player that Hughton has to manage the best out of – Lambert’s handling of Bent is equally instructive. By many an account, the body language between the two wasn’t brilliant at The Hawthorns; Bent having to be held back from over-celebrating in the manager’s direction…
Fragile is not the word you would use for Hughton’s post-Fulham Canaries as two of the three new-boys get the early wobbles
Right now, those two look the part. Whether Chris Hughton threw them together more by luck than judgement on the back of the Bennett-Turner misadventures at Craven Cottage is for the manager to know and the rest of us to guess. But they have pace, power and, certainly in the case of Bassong, presence.
The court of supporter opinion is ever more swift to judge; for the Premier League new-boys, points need to be proved ASAP…
Why I dug the odds out in the first place is because, this year – more than most – it strikes me that there are a lot of new managers, fresh in their post, determined to nip the doubters in the bud with a bright and successful start to their new employment…
On the back of that defeat, players and supporters alike will get to know so much more about Mr Hughton. That may be no bad thing at all…
Saturday, however, would have changed that. The players – if not the supporters – will have seen the moment when Mr Hughton is no longer Mr Nice Guy. If they didn’t, then Norwich might have a problem – because, players being players, will then know what they can get away with…
Tis the week for predictions, so here we go: Eight to stay up, 12 for which you need a pin. But not Norwich to go down…
There is one line from that Sunderland preview that does bang a nail straight on its head. It came somewhere in the comments – and, basically, said what I’ve long come to think. That there are eight clubs who you know won’t go down. And about 12 who could finish anywhere…
After tonight’s Ajax draw, can Hughton afford to put revolution on hold as the Class of 2011-2012 continue to evolve?
All these players are a year older, a year wiser and a year more confident in their own abilities as Premier League footballers. And, as crucially, all are a year more comfortable in each other’s company…
If anyone has ever got close to touching the soul of this football club it is Kevin Baldwin. Welcome to his complete MFW works… Yellow Lines
It is the column that stands out for me. Because it’s brave; it looks the ‘black dog’ that stalks so many us firmly in the eye… and touches on the redemptive powers of football; the feeling of togetherness, of normality, of well-being that comes with being wholly immersed in 90 minutes of Norfolk football…
Push fast coming to shove in the Holt saga; one way or another Hughton will not want pre-season to be cast in the skipper’s shadow
My money would still be on Holt staying; but there again the Hammers have a habit of throwing money at people – as Messrs Bowyer, Dyer and Bellamy will attest. And, as has been said before, I don’t begrudge anyone making the most of their achievements…
As Holt and his man prepare to sit down with new boss Hughton, so times have changed at Carrow Road. There’s new numbers to stack.
The interesting point, for me, is when they mapped out their ‘seven-year’ plan and – inevitably, one presumes – factored in a new TV rights deal coming in the midst of such planning, whether even they calculated on a 70% increase over and above the existing deal. Whether they foresaw be it a BT or A N Other coming in and driving the price of domestic live football rights to such unprecedented heights?
Happy birthday Norwich City Football Club – 110 years old today. But what is the price we’re paying for the gift from BT?
‘Ultimately, what BT has chosen to do is invest its money where the competition is. It is laying fibre in Virgin Media areas, and investing in TV in order to keep its own broadband customers from jumping ship to Sky. In Cumbria, nobody is lining up to build a deluxe fibre network…’
Everton reported to be seeking £20 million for Baines; J-Rod reported to be on £25,000 a week. Why Europe beckons…
It has nothing – directly – to do with Norwich, but may go a long way to explain why Messrs McNally and Bowkett are more than happy for Hughton to turn his eyes abroad this summer after the Canaries picked off ‘the low hanging fruit’ player-wise from the Football League…
As the dust starts to settle on two, extraordinary weeks on the merry-go-round, there are a couple of loose ends left to ponder…
With the glorious benefit of hindsight, the chairman’s speech at the club’s end of season dinner is laced with pointed invitations for Lambert to make his move. ‘Fine, do it… We have Plan B…’ would have hung heavy in the air for the listening Scot…
Tonight and ‘Plan B’ will already be in motion as the Canary Nation wakes up to a new dawn minus Paul Lambert
‘Have we a Plan B in place? Absolutely…’ were the words of the chairman at the club’s end of season dinner the other week; it was, in a sense, a warning shot to Lambert. Marking cards; drawing lines in the sand. No-one is irreplaceable…
Dalglish’s exit this afternoon will once more get the tongues wagging. Is Lambert lined up as Shankly’s grandson and heir?
As the football world begins to come to terms with the exit of ‘King Kenny’ at Anfield, perhaps it is time to dust down that piece on the Sons Of Glasgow and wonder aloud whether Lambert might be Shankly’s heir…