Naaaaarch

I think there's significantly more quality in the division this time around versus last season. Both sets of teams promoted/relegated into the league are better and I think a majority of the basket case sides from last year (Us, Watford, Stoke, Cardiff and Birmingham) appear to be on the upturn. Momentum and a well implemented style can certainly take you places in any league and both Argile and Town have that but I can't see it being enough to genuinely challenge the top 6. As a Norwich fan I'm thankful Ipswich weren't in the division last season.

Nah, no chance. Good manager but the squad isn't there.

Somebody high up at Leeds also stated that they'd be looking to have a new sporting director in around October/November ahead of the transfer window. Stuart Webber, our sporting director, handed his notice in around 3 or 4 months ago and his currently serving his notice whilst we recruit a new one. He's also a Leeds fan. I'd say there's pretty good chance there's going to be a reunion.

Not sure I've ever seen a manager use the term 'marginally onside' to downplay goals against. Probably prejudged him before he joined us but I'd always assumed he was a motivator type. Both here and at Leicester it seems as if he'd struggle to motivate a man who's been set on fire to jump into a swimming pool.

If Leicester do go down and decide to keep Smith I think they need to do the opposite of what we did. They should commit to giving him a year and half, 3 transfer windows, to make the team 'his' as he's clearly not a manager that can just go into a dressing room and motivate their way out of a malaise.

He played 2000 minutes for by far the best footballing side in the division this season so he's probably not been awful. At a glance I can see why people wouldn't rate the signing (it's had a pretty mixed response even amongst Norwich fans) but I actually think it's quite logical; . For the most part Kompany used him as a deeper/shadow striker and that's the striking role we need to fill . The other 2 members in our striking unit are 22 and 23 respectively and are both will benefit from an experienced player like Barnes. He's obviously far closer to Sargent and Idah in terms of style than Pukki ever was. . With players leaving, being out of the team and a long term injury we have major experience/leadership voids in both the overall squad and the team to fill. . Personality wise he's a bit of a bastard on the pitch and that's valuable, something we didn't replace after selling Buendia. Off the pitch it's obviously harder to say but we'll be hoping a stronger personality will help galvanize others. . Strikers are the most expensive position to buy and we need signings all over the pitch. He won't be a small wage by any means but I would imagine getting all of the stuff above in a 26 year old would be much more expensive.

The fact that an ungainly workrate merchant is the least of our problems probably shows how it's gone here in Norfolk for the last couple of years. Honestly not the archetype of forward I thought we'd be replacing Teemu Pukki with but it is what it is. Play him in his natural position most weeks next year and he'll get 20-25 goals. Got 13 this year playing more than half of his games on the wing or deep

All I can say is we have a massively important summer ahead. This has had the feeling of the 05/06 and 16/17 post relegation seasons with a squads of players that are far too comfortable and seemingly without the required spark. We obviously need to do what we did in the summer of 2017 and rebuild and refocus and not what we did in 2006 and continue to let it slide. That slide resulted in a season down in League 1 a few years later. Just as he had started to put a few performances together he got injured for a month and by the time he got back (December) the team had already given up. He started a few games at the start of this season but he clearly didn't fancy the Championship and we loaned him out to Galatasaray where he's seemingly pretty well liked. I personally think he's by far the best winger on our books and would be looking to reintegrate him into the team as a key member of the 11 next season but I doubt that will happen. We'll be looking to cut our losses, anywhere close to £5-6m and he's gone.

Certainly some truth to this. I've said before but I think the club massively undersold Smith on his arrival. If they had set this up as a 2 or 3 year plan then the fanbase would have been far more forgiving for the first year or so (see Farke's reign). Of course when Farke was sacked Smith was still in his job at Villa so it makes you wonder who we were lining up prior. Smith never felt like a Norwich appointment. Last year's transfers were indeed catastrophic. It's rare for a club to go up and lose their best player - we lost 2 of our top 3 from the precious season with Skipp going back to Spurs. Instead of replacing them with 2 players of a similar level (Obviously, that would be very expensive) we tried to up the quality over our entire squad. Obviously that didn't work. I don't think Pukki has fallen off as much as his goal tally would suggest this season, he's always been striker that relies on a certain type of service. Neither Smith nor Wagner have set out to play to his strengths hence why we've been at our best this season with Sargent leading the line or last season where Idah played up top with Pukki for a few games. On this season's signings you could say that Smith was unlucky. Hayden has been injured all year and the 2 South Americans have obviously taken their time to bed into a new country and league. I have no doubts that If Sara can his game together 20% more consistently next season then we'll have one of the league's best midfielders. I can't remember his exact words but Wagner has already implied that they are planning some pretty significant turnover in the squad over the summer. Will certainly have to be done 'creatively' as we've not exactly got a Buendia or Godfrey to pay for said rebuild and our 2 best assets (Sara and Sargent) will likely be built arounf. it'll have to be a case of selling as many from this group (Krul, Aarons, Rashica, Gibson, Tzolis, Placheta) as possible and pulling rabbits out of hats and hoping some youngsters can step up. It's kind of funny how we're pretty much in the same position now with the squad as when Webber arrived.

Nah, he was defending his boss against some abuse fans gave him yesterday. In Wagner's defense he isn't a native English speaker and and he'd have been emotionally charged after a game like that. Given time to think and then articulate an answer he would probably not state that the Welsh, Leeds United fan who's worked at 5 or 6 different football clubs in his career, recently went for a job interview at another club and has stated multiple times that he doesn't see his future here is the number 1 person on the planet who cares about this club. I think a 13 months and 2 month long breaks (summer and world cup) to get ideas across is more than a chance even the fans of his last club loved him. Did Villa consult with the Rangers fanbase before dispensing with Gerrard? That being said I do think the opinion on Smith will soften over time. It's much harder to succeed as a manager when there's chaos behind the scenes. He's also being helped by the injury crisis we've been suffering over the last few weeks that's for sure, now Wagner's PPG is pretty much identical to Smith's this season. This season will just go down as one where we repeatedly shot ourselves in the foot for seemingly no reason. Smith mostly played Pukki up top and Sargent on the wing. Wagner has mostly played Sargent behind the main striker. We shocking play well and win almost every game when players aren't shoehorned into positions that don't fit their game. Worst part is the best Smith had us playing was when he went to an old school 442 for a couple of games last season. It's so bemusing.

And we thought Deano talked some **** to the press. Christ.

Good stuff. Yeah, there were only like 2 people in favour of Smith come the last few months of his reign. Truly the voices of reason in the situation. Dean Smith did one thing well during his time here and that was unite the fanbase against him. Before that it was pretty much split down the middle on the topic of Farke's dismissal.

https://www.canaries.co.uk/content/daniel-farke-pens-contract-extension We'll never know but I don't think he was walking away. He seemed to be well on board with the long term plan at the club. Sadly the man running that long term plan changed course. lol, I've been reading and posting on that forum for more than 15 years. Like all football forums it has it's characters and WUMs but it's a pretty balanced place overall. If you cherry pick hard enough you're going to prove any conclusion you've already come to.

I said that most Norwich fans weren't bothered about having a big name. It was clear from pretty early on that even with a change in style (Farke tried it) we wouldn't have a chance with that squad. I think Webber knew he ****** up and then panicked.

Nice rant, Deano. On Webber , the vitriol towards him over the last couple of years has been for far more than just the managerial appointments. For most it's the fact we're clearly going backwards on the pitch despite record spending. For others it's his clash with fans last year and his perceived lack of interest (spends more time talking about mountaineering and f1 than Norwich City these days). For some it's the fact he's done a Fergie and is refusing to speak to local press despite building the club up based on transparency with fans. For me his lack of communication with fans probably a part of the reason fans lost patience with Smith so quickly. He was never given the 'this is a multi year project and it might take time to change our style....' sort of announcement. Whilst it's true most fans weren't bothered with Smith from the very beginning I believe the fanbase would have gotten behind him if they could see any genuine improvement. Fans didn't not want Smith because he wasn't a big enough name (most didn't want Lampard either). Most wanted a continuation of the Farke 'philosophy' and that was clearly never going to be Smith. On the Buendia/sidestep comments I feel like you've been had by Twitter. I'm not sure many genuinely believe the sentiment that it was a sideways move. Even if you'd just finished 16th and it wouldn't be mad to suggest it's 1 relegation battle for another you tripled his wages. Our owners have been towards the bottom of the wealth league of the top 2 divisions since they got here. Since I've been a season ticket holder (around 20 years) we've only had 4 or 5 seasons below the Championship's top 10, I wouldn't be too worried about dropping too far even if we weren't almost certainly in the process of selling to somebody a lot wealthier. When it comes to managers we do tend to do better when picking up those that are lesser known and on the up. Of the 3 more known managers I've seen us employ Smith was certainly far more Roeder than he was Hughton. Gave off the impression that he thought he was above the club whilst simultaneously producing nothing on the pitch.

Implosion is far too dramatic. It's been slow lead poisoning over the course of about 3 years. We'll still be better off without Smith in the long run though. And Dowell is better than Ramsey too.

He's represented by Rio Ferdinand's agency so yup, there has been some **** at play. They also represent Ben Godfrey, Josh and Jacob Murphy as well as a few more of our youth players. That being said 2 seasons ago Barcelona genuinely did come in for him (on loan), we rejected that because they wanted to pay us in exposure and not give us a guaranteed future fee. Desperately needs to play in a team that's on the front foot most of the time and we've not been that for the last 2 seasons. His next move is massive for his career, I feel. Would not be surprised if he ended up in the Bundesliga.

Agree with some of that for sure. Whilst I don't think the squad as a whole is stale there's no way we should be building around Hanley and McLean all these years later. Teemu Pukki in retrospect probably should have been moved on too with both Smith and his replacement's style not fitting him. We've been a much better side when Sargent has started up top. Poor recruitment, particularly in 21-22, absolutely. Arguably 20-21 too in some regard but we also broke our Champs points recrod that year. Sold best players for years. Only really matters when you don't replace them which we've only not done once with Buendia. Granted it's probably ended up being the most important one. The 'no ambishun' line is thrown around a lot by press and other fans and I don't really understand it. We spent 70+ million in out last Premier League season, poorly but we still spent it. That's 70+ million in a year where we also lost 35m in revenue due to Covid. I think we got our recruitment strategy horribly wrong but I think there was ambition to stay up. Farke's early firing would also suggest that (and was also a horrible call from Webber) even if we did replace him with one of the most uninspiring men in football when we needed a big lift (rip Leicester). I think most Norwich fans agree that there was far more going on than Smith's own personal failure, even more so now. That being said I don't know one person, in the real world or online, that would take him back. Even over Wagner who is not setting the world on fire.

Such a good post you've made it in multiple threads.

Certainly not the main problem. Certainly not the solution.

There was a sense that VIlla and Ramsey exaggerated the injury so that you could get him back after Smith was sacked. That obviously doesn't seem massively unlikely considering his recovery and the fact he was immedietly farmed out to a club with another former Villa coach on staff. There was also some 'insider' info which said that he threw his toys out of the pram when Smith left but I didn't really buy that. After a rough start for him there weren't many doubting his talent.

I know the club created shares as a method of generating cash and upping a new investor's % but I have no idea how much that's worth or if it'll be for transfers. If I were to guess I'd say probably not though and we'll selling to buy for the most part. Max Aarons and MIlot Rashica are probably the two we'd be looking to sell for more than nominal fees. Maybe we can sell Ben Gibson back to his uncle up at Boro but I can't imagine too many of our older group will go (sadly). Presuming we don't cheese our way up through the playoffs we'll likely be looking to pull a couple of reasonably priced rabbits out of South American hats.

I wasn't planning on bumping this again but it's been a very unique week for Norwich City. Possibly (probably not though) interesting for some of you more general football fans. Long story short the entire spine of our team just got ripped out for the remainder of the season. I posted this in the 'Dean Smith' thread recently. I'll start by saying that when I said 'rank' i didn't mean that the players were acting out and upsetting the group overtly like you see at some clubs. I think the Premier League relegations have just damaged the abilities of some to handle pressure situations. For those of you that haven't seen us play there was a great stat around March which showed us to be the leaders in Europe in the 'errors leading to shots' table, I think shows that lack of ability to deal with pressure perfectly. There have been other things like players getting involved in handbags far more often but I don't think that's usable scientific data. So what has actually happened? Firstly Teemu Pukki announced that he will not be renewing his contract with the club. Whilst you would think this is a pure negative I don't actually think it is. He's been playing in a system that doesn't suit him all season and his goal record shows this. Both Smith and Wagner have seemingly picked him on reputation when both managers generally prefer their strikers to hold the ball up and link play. We started Sargent up top today and we looked a much better unit. A fresh Pukki from the bench is obviously a great option, especially one that's openly in the shop window. Either during the previous game or in training Kenny McLean injured his knee ligaments and will be out for the rest of the season. Of all the players I'm going to mention he's probably been in the best form and will be the biggest miss. Grant Hanley was stretchered off with an achilles injury. Obviously we don't know how bad at this point but going by the amount of pain he was clearly in I'd be shocked if he was back this season and not surprised if he was out a lot longer. Ben Gibson was also substituted off with hamstring injury. He'll presumably will be back at some point. Whilst It wasn't specifically this week I would say that Angus Gunn's recent performances have also solidified him in the goalkeeping position way ahead of the far more experienced Tim Krul. Bar Ben Gibson all of those players that can now not play (or will play a lot less in Pukki's case) have between 160 and a couple of hundred appearances for the club. I'm not sure I've ever seen so many core players drop out of a team this late in a season. It feels somewhat messed up to say considering most of them are through injury but I can't help but think we'll be better off for it as a team. As far as sports psychology goes it's going to be a fascinating couple of months.

All but 1 or 2 teams are shit in the Championship. When 2 shit teams meet it's often about attitude, something we clearly lack.

I take back about 70% of the negativity I threw Smith's way over the course of this season. The attitude of some of our more experienced players is just rank.