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42 minutes ago, Naaaaarch said:

 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'm not being hyperbolic by saying that it's almost certainly the least balanced football fan forum I've ever come across, and I include SHA in that

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13 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

@Naaaaarch 

Thought I'd say hi! ... Norwich I hold dear. Spent a few years at UEA in the seventies. There's a lot of nonsense expressed here and no doubt elsewhere.

Anyway ... all the best

Good stuff. 

15 minutes ago, Thug said:

But the voices of reason when it came to Deano were few and far between.

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. 

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So Brentford fans think highly of Smith. Most villa fans think highly of Smith. If he keeps Leicester up, they'll think well of him. 

Odd that Norwich seem to the difference. Almost like they never gave him a chance. 

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1 hour ago, Greenfly said:

Is he getting him mixed up with Delia Smith?

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. 

 

1 hour ago, DCJonah said:

So Brentford fans think highly of Smith. Most villa fans think highly of Smith. If he keeps Leicester up, they'll think well of him. 

Odd that Norwich seem to the difference. Almost like they never gave him a chance. 

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. 

 

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I think Smith was always going to struggle there as quite simply he's not Daniel Farke. Read the Pinkun Forum for 5 minutes and you will realise how much affection the average Norwich fan still has for him and its understandable given he got them promoted twice. I just think that any new manager would have had to have had a really impressive start and I don't think the squad is good enough for that. Losing Buendia and Pukki being a shadow of the player he once was has essentially meant they needed to replace their 2 best players and the likes of Sara, Núñez, Sargent and Idah are just not up to the same standard.

Forget managers, Norwich need major changes in order to becoming regular mid-table championship also rans.

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1 hour ago, djdabush said:

I think Smith was always going to struggle there as quite simply he's not Daniel Farke. Read the Pinkun Forum for 5 minutes and you will realise how much affection the average Norwich fan still has for him and its understandable given he got them promoted twice. I just think that any new manager would have had to have had a really impressive start and I don't think the squad is good enough for that. Losing Buendia and Pukki being a shadow of the player he once was has essentially meant they needed to replace their 2 best players and the likes of Sara, Núñez, Sargent and Idah are just not up to the same standard.

Forget managers, Norwich need major changes in order to becoming regular mid-table championship also rans.

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.

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On 23/04/2023 at 14:18, Naaaaarch said:

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.

This Rashica fella, tell me more 

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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.

1 minute ago, Follyfoot said:

This Rashica fella, tell me more 

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.

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4 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

Josh Sargeant would be some player if he wasn't so bad.

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

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  • 2 weeks later...

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. 

 

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Yeah, I'm surprised by that take. He's shown he can be a valuable player for a team that comfortably won promotion. He'll be a year older and he's slowing down, but it's a freebie to add some valuable experience.

He's not going to win them promotion on his own, but he'll do a job, and frankly, we spent a lot more on a lot worse when we were down there

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