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I am always worried before a match and then super confident after we win it. Then I find myself worried again when the next match comes along. The closer we get to the prize the more worried I become. When we win it I will claim to have been confident all along⚽⚽😀

Is it a good or bad thing? What are the implications of this? Will this time be any different? I used to think of WBA when thinking about this accolade and envied them for it. If we do go up, as now seems highly probable, it will be the 4th. time since the inauguration of the Premiership/Premier League, since Delia took over the reigns and since our last play-off defeat to Birmingham City in 2003 under Worthy, that we have achieved the assumed very difficult feat of being promoted from the Championship. In relative terms, promotion has been easy for our club and this compares favourably with the travails of other big clubs (Derby, Forest, Leeds, Villa,) and smaller outfits notably our hapless rivals who have spent some eighteen seasons stagnating in the Chumps without hardly a sniff at the big-time. We will surely now assume the title of current "YoYo Champions" at least. Is it a good thing? Well it's certainly not boring for the fans. The thrill of a promotion season, be it a Wembley Final or the current euphoric dominance certainly keeps the fan base on it's toes. Being a yo-yo club gives the supporters full value for money. It gives the club for, one season at least, a taste of the big time, a place in the spotlight, the chance to see the top clubs and players grace the turf and an ensured income from television,sponsorship and full houses for every home game. Weekly streams(or whatever) are a massive bonus for the long distant supporter and for all others on away days. We always get the parachute payments in order to "start again" at the very least. Bad thing? Well it's no fun constantly being on the losing end of things as a matter of course and being subject to, for example, the backs to the wall defeatist football that the Hoots subjected the Carrow Road faithful to. Also, financial collapse, despite the parachute payments, seems to be common and expected when a club gets kicked off the top table. The massive wage gap ensures this. What are the implications of having assumed the mantle of being the number one yo-yo club then? The first is the obvious ie. That's our lot, that's our destiny, we are not one of the big boys after all so at the end of the day we must be reminded of our place in the hierarchy. Perhaps there's more to it than that though. Smaller fry than us seem to be doing rather well up there at the moment and for various reasons. It is probably true to say that, in the past, we have neither been prepared nor structured to cope with along stay at the top. The air has been too rarified for the likes of 'Lil 'Ol Norwich." However this implies criticism of the club's hierarchy, and I do not wish to go there at this moment in time. Suffice to say that, the last time around, the decisions of that ultimate gambler Mad McNally ensured that the club became massively unstuck both in the bank and on the park. Again, I do not want to go there as nothing is black and white, the dice rolled badly for the Hoots, for example, when RVW turned out to be a dud and Alex Neil constantly had the Simon Hooper's of the refereeing world to contend with. It's always small margins and we didn't we aquire the likes of Aarons, Maddison and Godfrey whilst McNally held the reigns? Can it be different this time? Well the structure and planning at the club is surely the soundest ever. From Webber through to Farke, from the scouting to the technology involved in doing this, from Category A to the excellent Neil Adams as loans manager, everything seems well put. This is the most professional that the institution/business Norwich City Football Club has ever been. It is proving it's self on the field of play, by the success of the youth players and by the perceived enormous value of our current squad and the almost certain realisation of yet another promotion. This time around it might be different. We can but hope. All success in this precarious business is ephemeral. The club (Webber) has suggested that the club should not venture any further than is absolutely necessary down that perilous big spending route should we find ourselves among the elite. The fans (on this forum at least) seem unanimous in not wanting to see those same mistakes made again. That's a start then. Is our current mode d'operation enough to finally ensure some decent top flight stability though?

-------------Krul Aarons Zimmermann Godfrey Lewis ---------Leitner Trybull Buendia Stiepermann Hernandez -----------Pukki Easy decision. As our recruitment has been so good and the team has such great cohesion and understanding i don't think we can afford any player who's any better than what we have. It would cost 10 million plus to replace any of our regular players, we also have great depth with little quality difference between starters and reserves. What we need is different options but to stick with roughly the same team. So one striker who's big, fast and good with his head, one winger with a good set piece and long shot to give us tactical flexibility and help us grind out some games. Also maybe young GK who wouldn't expect to start every game in his first season but is good enough to keep Krul on his toes. Aside from that I'd then look for future stars like Maddison and Buendia. Most won't come off, but all we need to do is find one of them for the approach to be worth it.

sophist noun soph·ist | \ ˈsä-fist \ Definition of sophist 1: someone who argues for the sake of arguing rather than with the purpose of arriving at truth 2: a captious or fallacious reasoner. e.g. Lake District Canary who will make a point and stick to it despite overwhelming detraction for it and actually dig himself an even deeper bloody hole trying to support his case. see also Big Vince, pete Synoym - farage

Given our current position we need everybody to be onboard and to be positive. From now on it's all about confidence, momentum and everyone having total belief in the team. The last thing we need is LDC endlessly expressing negative thoughts and having doubts about our ability to get the job done.

Thought he excelled yesterday in a slightly different role. He seemed to be dropping deeper and offering himself for the ball from the defenders and even sitting in between Godfrey and Zimmermann at times in the way Leitner did previously. I'd been concerned before that we'd lacked some control in the midfield with him and Steipermann together but we had it in spades yesterday.

Teemu clearly doesn’t wear a suit very often, don’t even get me started on his tie 😁

Mike I think you’ve lost mate. I wasn’t super confident when I took your bet but this team have outdone where I thought they’d get. I was kind of wishful thinking on 6th maybe 5th. Am I right in saying we are now guaranteed a play off place? I am so thrilled I’ll even split the bet with you. Happy Days.

Why should a fair proportion of our squad not already be considered of Premier League quality? The PL is not just the top six and although some of the lesser clubs now seem to possess their fair amount of costly players with exotic foreign names are they really that different from or superior to most of our squad? OK. Spend a bit on another striker and another 'keeper,but start them on the bench. But, say I, give the present squad their head at PL level until they prove otherwise. Farke should stick to his policy of never changing a winning team into our expected PL season. Don't do a "Malky" on any of them. They deserve a chance. No doubt Farke-Webber will have starlets lined up but of more consideration is just who should be retained. We all love Dennis but he'll never be PL quality and he's done enough at Carrow Road to earn a decent move. Hanley was needed at the time. He seems redundant now. Rhodes would be a useful super sub on occasions I feel, but at what cost? Tetters deserves a decent move as I cannot see him surviving for long in the upper environment. The rest are already out on loan, or something.

Yes definitely; he has done it fitfully on other occasions, but yesterday I thought in a more disciplined way. Can't argue with the results, but as DF likes to remind us, results don't tell the whole story. The McLean/Godfrey pairing produced a shift in balance between defence and attack compared to Leitner/Klose. Look at how xG has risen compared to the reverse fixtures earlier in the season, while at the same time, to begin with, xGa deteriorated. Now it looks as if, with the long run in the side and the coaching going with it, McLean and Godfrey are closing that defensive gap on the other pair. These last two matches are the first time we've recorded successive clean sheets all season.

What’s the alternative to being a yo-yo club? Becoming “established” in the PL. I think we all can name recent examples of clubs who would have been called established but turned out not to be. I would say an almost inevitable result of staying up is that your annual spending will gradually increase, meaning the longer you are in the PL, the greater the impact of relegation when it happens. For the next season or two, I picture our campaign as a guerilla raid - we’re not setting up camp for a long-term project yet, just surveying the land and seeing what gains we can make. Given our financial situation we always need to be prepared to go down again, otherwise it could seriously damage us. So strategically, I think we will behave as a yo-yo club for some time to come. BTW, I work with a Brighton supporter. Every time I see him, he talks about the Championship with a little bit of regret, the PL slog is taking its toll on them. Is that the best we have to look forward to?

This one seems appropriate. 😀

Give it a rest. If you want to be a miserable git then crack on, the rest of us are going to enjoy it.

For me the natural move would be for McLean to replace Buendia in the forward right position and for either Leitner or Vrancic to come into central midfield. Snake

Maybe Idah will have a chance next season or will us getting to the Prem cut his chances? My guess is he couldn't have a better manager to give him the chance but a half season loan to a championship club (remember them?), might be wise.

Two games ago I was approximately in the Lake District camp (no- not Great Langdale), but the wonderful performances and results at Boro and in yesterday’s home banana skin finally allowed me to believe we’ll do it.

I find it quite amusing that people believe that fans over confidence has any bearing on what will happen in 90 minutes on the pitch! If we **** it up from this position it will be the **** up of all **** ups! Fans over confidence will have had no influence on it.

Who's having a pop? The OP was simply asking whether people thought he was to blame or not. Can't imagine there are too many on here with anything other than praise for the big man? And FWIW, Deulofeu took it very quickly and left him a bit flat-footed. Excellent finishing rather than goalkeeper error IMO.

That’s just it, I’d give Wolves a chance against City, on their day they’d give them a decent game- and they have had quite a few good performances against the bigger clubs this season. I hope I’m wrong but I can’t see Watford putting up much of a fight.

Cracking game though.

I dispute the characterisation of McNally as a reckless gambler. He took us from league one to three continuous seasons in the premier league, overseeing the clubs rescue from the previous financial disaster. There were plenty of accusations of 'no ambition' from the level of spending during his tenure as well.

I'd argue Buendia isn't a conventional winger nor does he play like one.

I'll leave it to Webber and Farke. They've done well enough without any help from me😀

I'd like to see us continue taking the cups seriously when we get promoted and from now on. We need to make the most of the momentum and quality we have at the moment, it won't last forever, in 10 years we won't look back on 5 years in the PL with much fondness, i mean how comforting was the fact we had 4 seasons up there recently when we were struggling in this league a bit? To me now it just feels like a wasted opportunity. But a league or FA cup would be amazing. In terms of the league we should aim to be comfortable in the PL for a decade but not necessarily expect it. In the top league you're just one or two bad transfers away from being in serious trouble. Every other club up there that's a regular at that level seems to have their house in order currently as well. it's not like in 2011 when we had clubs like Bolton/Blackburn/Sunderland/Wigan/Fulham etc clinging on for dear life, with no identity, trapped on the manager merry go round with bloated, expensive but ineffective squads.. Even the teams always near the bottom like Burnley and Palace have very effective, fast, physical lethal counter attacking teams that are a nightmare to play against and will punish any mistake. It's gonna be really tough next season and any other season we're up there. Staying up will always be a remarkable achievement at least on par with what we're doing this year. We shouldn't forget that when times get tough.

I don't mind it too much it would be nice to have a few successful years in the prem though, maybe keep the likes of Aarons and Godfrey while they get full international honours and get a bit of widespread respect for our club from other fans. Inevitably we will eventually come back down and have to go again but this time round I hope we can actually enjoy it for a few years first.

I still think it will be Todd. I've never known Farke to use anything but the direct replacement. I certainly don't think he will move others around or change the system to facilitate fitting in someone else.

Ian Holloway on Quest EFL now says we are on a par with Wolves' performance last year. The world awakes ...

Webber has already said there is a shortlist for both him and Farke when either of them leaves. He has had a hand in creating both shortlists to ensure that it will be someone who can continue the legacy, rather than someone who the club guess may be a fit. Those lists are evolving pieces of work, they are not set in stone. Presuming Kensell is not in the running as his brief seems to be solely the money side of things, I expect Kieran Scott, the current head of recruitment would be an in house candidate to take over Webber's mantle as he was one of two that Webber headhunted to come and join him as soon as he was through the door near enough, but no doubt there are others on that list - the other who was headhunted - Chris Badlan - left to take on Coventry City's head of recruitment role.

Leitner alongside Trybull, then McLean further forward.

I've read that the cost of Neves + the wages of the loans cost them 60 mill. That's over a million a week, if they hadn't been promoted they might have disappeared without trace.

The way we play is absolutely the right system for the Prem, but obviously we’ll have to step it up another notch for it to be successful. I genuinely think the current squad has the potential to do that and it’ll be important that we stick with them and that we’re not tempted to bring in too many new faces, simply because they have Premier League “experience”.

Waveney lost interest when he could only have one account.

Yeh, but we may not score another goal, and concede a hatfull. Let's wait until we score 1 more goal before we come out with this sort of eulogizing please.

I imagine they’ll all be court martialled but until then, as with everyone else accused of a crime, they’re innocent until proven guilty, so just what exactly do you expect the Chief of the General Staff to say at this stage? As for racism in football, this mirrors racism in society in general. People are far more aware of it now and, quite rightly, it gets flagged up whenever and wherever it happens, but let’s not pretend for even one second that it’s anything like it was in the 1970s or that it’s somehow suddenly getting worse.

LDC always takes the opposite viewpoint to create a bit of drama and attention for himself. If we were ten points off the automatics he’d be relentlessly telling us we could still do it, and bemoaning anybody that realistically knew we couldn’t do it. The majority of Norwich fans know we’ve done it - there’s no way we’re mucking it up now. I’m already looking forward to the Premier League in August - and yes, the parade too. I reckon it’ll be on a weekday a week after the last game.

50p foot? I remember when it was Toblerone boot

2 "And Pukki is through on goal, he's rounded the keeper.................................and his missed, and open goal ! Well, what do you make of that Darren ?" "That can only be put down to an over over confident crowd................. putting him off. They weren't too over confident when Buenia played him through, but that changed in those few seconds after Pukki got the ball. Maybe they were distracted which Pukki picked up on, or perhaps being Finnish he was picking up on the nervousness of the Rangers fans"

It’s not worth mentioning that we were behind in games when he went off - most memorably 0-3 vs Forest? He’s a good little player and been on form , but we’ve got plenty of options if/when he’s out.

Shhhh. No one should make a noise because we might unsettle the players! 😛

"E I E I E I O, Tentatively creeping up the league we go, If we manage to possibly, maybe get promoted or even the title, then this is what we might sing in that hypothetical scenario but remember nothing is setlled yet...." "We are currently top of the league but appreciate there is a long way left to go" "Ole, ole, ole, ole, possibly going up, up, up" "We are (currently in the championship but hope to be in the) Premier League (if we can obtain the requisite points for mathematical certainty)" "Farke was once on a horse, but not anymore so let's stick to the facts and not make up speculative rumours, What a great team to support..." All straight from the LDC song book.... Wonder if any of those will get an airing on Weds?

It was dull and grey when I awoke this morning from a very disturbed nights sleep. I was still awake at 2am with various permutations of the league table going through my head. Its like the inverse square law where the nearer we get to the prize, the more worried I become. The line up was again no surprise with yet another unchanged side. From the start City looked dominant and purposeful, sweeping the ball about with a crisp accuracy. Rangers looked very open at the back as both City fullbacks revelled in the spaces out wide. We were only just beyond five minutes when Aarons had all the time in the world to flash a low cross that found Buendia just staying onside and scuffing a low shot just inside Lumley's righthand post. It was just what was needed to settle the nerves and it quickly got better when Marco Stiepermann surged forward and unleashed a low shot from around 25 yards that seemed to go through the keeper. The visitors defence was completely at sixes and sevens as Hernandez worked himself a shooting position but this time Lumley was equal to it with a smart stop to his right. Then it was Stieperman racing through again only for the ball to run away from him. Buendia was in imperious form, snapping into tackles and setting the home side going with some crisp shrewd passing. Hernandez should have netted when the little Argentine slipped him in on 20 minutes but his shot on the turn flew across the face of the goal from about 8 yards. It clearly wasnt the Cuban wingers day because another great opportunity went begging when he clipped Pukki's cut back a yard wide on the half hour. It was breathless stuff but the home crowd were in fine voice as City continued to run Rangers ragged. Krul had been a virtual spectator for most of the half but finally earned his corn with a good save to his right as a low shot came in. City were soon back up the other end and it was Buendia nipping in again as Rangers tried to play out from the back. A quick pass to Pukki gave the City striker the chance to break his drought which he did with a coolly taken effort beyond Lumley's left hand. It was virtually game set and match now as City strolled off to raptuous applause from the Carrow road faithful. Three nil but it could easily have been six. From the whistle for the restart you could see it was a case of game management. City played it around with the visitors rarely getting a touch but the intensity had certainly dropped a couple of notches. Krul had to make another decent block whe the visitors earned a couple of corners but in truth there were few alarms. Hernandez made an outrageous run along the Rangers by line on the hour and somehow retained possession after twice going to the ground. Then a lovely sweeping move ended with Buendia trying to place a shot which went fractionaly over the top with Lumley beaten. Buendia had been hacked down more than once but it was the little man who saw red with 20 minutes left for an injudicious tackle on Scowen. Very disappointing to lose him for a couple of games but its not like we dont have capable replacements. It gave Rangers a bit of momentum for a while but apart from a shot straight at Krul and an angled effort over the bar they never looked like reducing the deficit. City still dominated possession and opened up the visitors again with five minutes left as Pukki raced away and netted in the top corner giving Lumley no chance. Cantwell, Leitner and Rhodes all got a bit of a run out as time ran down on what turned out to be the most impressive display i've seen in many a year. Buendia, despite his dismissal, my MOM.

LDC, if we draw the next 2 games and Leeds win their next two, we will still be 4 points(and a few goals) ahead with 4 games to play, that is not snapping at our heels. Look, we get that you are hesitant. 99% of us are not, and there are plenty of us who have seen a lot of things in football, can see how we are dominating the opposition and we are embracing the moment, and the immediate future. We are also respectful of all other teams, but most of us cannot see a weak enough link in our team to see that we will capitulate on such a massive scale, so excuse us, whilst we, and the rest of the footballing world are 'presuming' our promotion. EFL on Quest didn't have us as the first 2 games tonight. They are focusing on the battle between Leeds and Sheff Utd

If SU win all their remaining games they will finish on 95 points If Leeds win all their remaining games they will finish on 94 points Therefore we only need 11 points from our remaining games to win promotion with 95 points. So we could either - (1) Win 3, draw 2 and lose 1 (2) Win 3 and draw 3 (3) Win 4 and lose 2 (4) Win all 6 It is highly unlikely that both SU and Leeds will win all their remaining games. It is almost a given that we will at least achieve (1) or (2), probably (3) or possibly (4)

It's not a question of doubt, it's a question of having respect in mind for the teams we have to play, who will do their best to take points off us and who if we slip from our high standard can take points off us. We are not there until we are there

He's an arrogant powder-puff squad-filler. Not good enough for the Prem and not strong enough for the Chumps.

Nah. As it stands, the gap will be bigger anyway and The Champions of Europe will be wearing brown trousers in the playoffs. Such a shame after they'd already won the league by the end of August.

Binners two up. Worth another star.

Awesome picking Me Apples.🙃 £27 to start the new presentation pot.