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Sorry folks, I posted my report at 11pm last night but it got eaten by the 502 Gateway problem and is lost somewhere in the ether. Suffice to say it was a wonderful night of raw emotion. We have only ever clinched promotion in a home match once before. In 1960 I stood in the old Barclay stand with my dear old dad. Last night i was at the other end of the ground with my son. Neat bookends to a lifetime of supporting our beloved club. At the end I didn't want to leave the ground and watching the players on their lap of honour I couldn't help but think of what a wonderful roller coaster ride its been, so many ups and downs, despair and elation in fairly equal measure. What a time to have been alive and experienced it all, I am indeed blessed. What a night, what a team and what a very special club we support. On the ball City, never mind the danger. Hopefully more to come next year if I'm still in the land of the living😀

I find this whole debate completely illogical. We had a shaky start to the season and a bit of a nervy end. In the 34 games we played between 03/09/2018 and 08/04/2019 we only conceded 36 goals; only 3 teams conceded fewer (and only 1 of those has a positive goal difference) while we scored 73 goals at the other end. Our defence has been exceptionally good, especially when you consider how open and attacking our system is. Even if we finish 11th in the Premier League, we would not be expected to have a positive goal difference. If we can score 45 then we should stay up, even if we concede 60. We will obviously play a more defensive system against the better teams, but that doesn't mean that we need to change our entire system for every game; we should treat the majority of our games next season like our games against top 6 Championship teams this season, playing with free flowing, creative, attacking purpose. We have some of the most valuable defenders ever seen in the Championship. They are valuable because they are young, already very good, but also rapidly improving. We absolutely do not have the budget to spend the £10m+ it would need to buy anyone who could improve on what we have. Any defender we do sign would be replacement cover if Klose or Hanley leave.

https://www.swfc.co.uk/news/2019/april/club-statement/

I see that it is currently 49 % to 51 %. Should we maybe discuss this for the next three years and then talk some more about whether we want a second vote?

I'm assuming that the delay in Ipswich doing the same thing is because Paul Lambert is currently working on the congratulations speech which he is going to personally deliver from on the pitch at the Wes/Russ testimonial.

I sit next to an ex-pro keeper and he reckons Krul has been given a harder time than he’s deserved. Friday was a case in point, unsighted, the ball came through (deflected by?) the defender and only just inside the post - it’s tough to blame him when there was no closing down at all. Re: our defence, it, or rather, the way we currently play, isn’t going to work out at PL level - we’ve let in 50+ goals this season which would surely be 60-70 in the PL. We’d get caught tonnes of times if we give sides the same opportunities next season. The thing is, I’m undecided whether it needs different personnel or just a tweaking of what we do with our current guys. It’s a difficult one, but we can’t be as ‘gung ho’ at the higher level...going out to outscore sides is a lot harder.

Are these the sort of posts we are not supposed to revisit NN? Just wanted to be sure so I don't make that mistake.

The latest football podcast from 5 Live is on the BBC Sounds App and features Stuart Webber. Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere

And "binoculars", "hedges" and "Make sure you're not seen this time "

Did City put a statement on the website to congratulate L1pswich when they were last promoted. Actually, did clubs have websites then … ? Did the internet even exist ? Perhaps a statement could have been put out on the wireless.... or we could have sent them a telegram maybe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire

Keepers are tricky, I think you need to watch them across a large number of games to get a good understanding of how good they are and I just haven’t seen enough of anyone who isn’t Norwich this season to make a really confident judgement. But... From what I have seen this season, and not just the recent game at Norwich, Martinez at Reading looks a good keeper. He’s on loan from Arsenal and if they don’t see a place for him there, he might be available relatively cheaply. He’s good with ball at feet as well which is so important. He’s also from the same town of Buendia and I think they were both at Getafe together.

When we played Arsenal and Chelsea last season (without the quality of player we now have throughout the team) we tightened up the system and played much narrower than we have done this year. I would expect a refined version of our style next year - if we play the same, open way we will get murdered by faster and more athletic players. Our DMs will be crucial to that change - I don't see Tettey being able to be the main man anymore so we need at least one more to play alongside Trybull, so that we can adequately cover the space behind the full backs and Buendia. We fail to close down on the edge of the box because one of our DMs goes missing or has been sacrificed in order to be more positive going forward and we have let a number of goals in because of that - doesn't matter when we score 2 for every 1 we let in, but PL teams will take advantage of that to try to get men free to score from 18 yards - doesn't matter how good our keeper is if he is facing a free shot from 18 yards. So we definitely need a starting DM. We also need a keeper to push Krul (who perhaps isn't good enough, but will be given the chance to keep getting better), and decent cover at right back/centreback. Someone like Semi Ajayi could be good enough to cover that as well as be the DM - Godfrey likewise. It's all about having a flexible squad.

Big Vince!

I really don't think the central defenders are the reason we've conceded so many goals. The problem has been in midfield imo. A DM in the vein of Tettey in his prime and a Leitner alongside him to control possession and our goals against would dry up pretty fast.

Doubt central defence is too high on the list of priorities, but does depend on how Klose and Hanley see their futures. Hanley pushed to leave Newcastle because he wasn’t playing, so can’t see why he wouldn’t push to leave Norwich now. I’m sure a new keeper will be one of the top priorities for Norwich. Krul has provided solid leadership and experience at the back this season, but has struggled with the basics of saving shots. The goal conceded against Blackburn was another example of him failing to make a save from a not particularly good long range shot. I would worry if Krul is first choice next season.

We have a decent goalie in Krul and back ups, unless McGovern is leaving. We also have Zimmermann, Godfrey, Klose and Hanley, who if they all stay are enough central defenders all of who, have the capability to do well in the PL.

Always liked Ivo - clearly gave his all everytime he played and seems like a nice bloke too. Was club captain not that long ago. Wish him the best of luck wherever he goes next.

Now the hangovers have subsided – a bit - and while we wait for Sunday, a Promotion Quiz. Very simple. Just give the scores, teams and venues of the specific games (not necessarily all involving Norwich City) that ensured mathematically that we were promoted in each of these 10 seasons: 1959-60 to Division Two. 1971-72 to Division One. 1974-75 to Division One. 1981-82 to Division One. 1985-86 to Division One. 2003-04 to the Premier League. 2009-10 to the Championship. 2010-11 to the Premier League. 2014-15 to the Premier League. 2018-19 to the Premier League.

exactly 44 years ago to the day as to this nonsense " couldn't give a rats about a meaningless title tbh " what world are you living in ?

Pleased for them, got a soft spot for them as my uncle has lived there for over 45 years and I used to go to Kenilworth Rd with a Luton Town supporting friend (was there for the last game on their plastic pitch, which was also the game that saw Mick Harford deliberately score an own goal which helped Luton avoid relegation - 1991 I believe).......

nice to see a bit of ambition this early on 😕

502 is not a database connection issue or a code issue - it means the upstream server (PHP FPM I expect) is not available. It's also nothing to do with the web browser in usage, or the client type. There's a lot of partial and/or misinformation floating around on this thread. In simple terms, the web server (nginx in this case) handles the incoming connections from users' web browsers, and then decides what to do with it. For some files, such as images, it may serve them directly to the user, but in the event it determines it should be handled by another server (in this case I expect everything matching a .php file extension), it will try and connect to the other server(s) and return the response they give. In the event it fails, you get a 502 error indicating nginx has tried to contact the upstream server but not been able to. Whilst the specifics are hugely dependent on configuration, I don't think this forum's problems are resource related; my guess is that the nginx web server and the PHP upstream server run on the same machine. As the nginx server always returns promptly it indicates that RAM and CPU are not particularly stressed. In addition, it usually works 1 in x times if you refresh (although this doesn't help people who have POSTed long posts and lost them), making me think that either the PHP FPM server is not configured to allow enough connections to satisfy demand, and rather than waiting is rejecting connections, or that certain workers processes are dying and not being restarted correctly by the host process. It is also possible they're running multiple upstream services on different servers, and some are timing out - but usually nginx is intelligent enough to exclude upstreams that fail so I'm not sure it's that. In summary, I'm pretty sure this is a config issue that should be easy to fix.

This is interesting..I don't mind Wilder, he obviously loves sheff utd and like us all goes too far sometimes. https://www.thestar.co.uk/sport/football/sheffield-united/blades-match-reports/sheffield-united-which-rival-manager-was-the-first-to-congratulate-the-blades-on-reaching-the-premier-league-1-9741152

I was wondering whether the Binners would offer formal congratulations ? Nope . Instead they congratulate Sheff Utd and Scumbert says Sheff U are the best team they have played all season. Lacking in class doesn’t even come close does it? What a grubby scabby little club. Delighted with 10k season tickets and now they have a “young” team because all of the old rubbish lambert signed to keep them up proved to be useless.

Think it's a bit of a Stiepermann/Leitner thing.

But did those that voted leave want him to leave completely or leave with a deal meaning he still hangs around the club a lot, helps the players out but doesn’t technically belong to us? I should’ve had more options on the ballot paper

Usually Jamesons.🍾

"Why why why Delilah" seems an appropriate song for Todd then.

I would add that our recent away match at Stoke was PLesque in that we appeared to dominate but created few clear cut chances whereas Stoke played a less attractive brand but had more shots on target. Basically, in the PL we risk getting picked off. We do not need to create half the chances we do but we need a better conversion rate. In other words we have plenty of scope to tighten up and trust in the likes of Buendia to create chances in tighter games.

Makes sense. They only had a few games when they played football too.

Class

85-86 Bradford City @ Odsal (?) 2-0 to Norwich

I think that's both of us in the dog house now Drazen🐕🙃

For me it's the DM that needs strengthening rather than the Center Halves, along with a tactical switch to be more ready to hold that player back almost as an extra defender. Tough on Trybull, as it will be for anyone who drops out from the current starting 11, but I can't see DF sacrificing the threat we get from pushing the full backs on in order to tighten up at the back.

I agree with those who see it as much tactical as anything else. We play a wide expansive game which leaves gaps, particularly central mid in front of the CBs which has been exploited at times as the CDMs have more space to cover. In the Prem this will be punished more. So maybe a combination of a narrower formation, the full backs not pushing up quite so often or far and an extra Tettey type player will all help with that. However the zonal marking at set pieces is a concern, too many free headers allowed.

This is the dilemma for me. We've been too leaky and could do with strengthening, but the strange thing is, nobody deserves to be dropped. It's a tricky one.

An old aged team past its usefulness to a decent number of Germans, some very young home grown academy guys, then a sprinkle of Finland, Holland, Scotland, Cuba, Argentina...but then add the special ingredients..DF and SW, two hard working, humble guys who believe in team and club spirit and togetherness and join them with a loan arranger who knows and loves the club from top to bottom, and a major share holding couple who in their 3rd decade continue to uphold the beliefs and characteristics of what NCFC are all about...a local, family, community and social club that continue to fly in the face of modern day big time charlies and conglomerates yet manage to make the yellow and green a hugely bigger symbol than perhaps its roots would suggest is possible. Im sure there are many other staff at the club that also gel into what i describe above but yea...what you see and hear from those 3 guys are what we have and where we are with City at this moment in time. The success thats come along this season has been incredible but for me its something else that this club has thats more special to me..that togetherness and spirit...and it started to form last season, well before things started to get exciting on the pitch. Its a special, magical moment in time for City, maybe it wont last forever of course, but while its here, live it to the full i say.

First thing Todd should do is grow his hair again, he seemed much stronger when it was longer Do Leeds have an undercover Barber in their spying department?

Link here https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/sport/ipswich-town/leeds-manager-struggles-to-pronounce-ipswich-1-6021249

I don't believe that Daniel and klopp have any kin did a relationship as klopp had left before Daniel arrived, however, I do remember reading that vrancic had a very good relationship having been the best friend of klopp's son and I think he lived with them for a bit as a youth...

One or two loans, that's all, rather we scouted some of our own. Not interested in developing other Clubs' talent, besides we could surprise a few. If we are relegated, so be it, we'll still have recovered financially and have plenty of assets to move on, plus we would be well placed to 'go again' at the top of the Championship.

Connections all over the place then. We are awash with connections. Actually BC I would prefer for us to explore the German market again as it has been wonderful for us. To admit that we will need Liverpool youngsters to give us a chance next season is an admission of defeat. Them and us again really? We might surprise next season,we might not. I personally feel that the present squad is capable enough to be given a chance without being replaced by newcomers, although another striker would be useful. We would still have the January window to stock up, although avoiding the"Fate worse than death" McNally route would be essential.

Reading that article, it could just as well have been a description of how we have played, with the exception that we don't immediately foul the opposition if we lose the ball - Buendia just niks it back off of you instead.

He's a great shout and likely to be cheap. Exactly the kind of signing I can see us going for.

Think it is background noise to Aarons negotiating a new contract with Norwich. I can’t see a ‘big 6’ team moving for Aarons yet. Wan-Bissaka is going to be the right back of choice for clubs at the top of the Premier League. Once he is sold then there might be some who consider Aarons, but he won’t have done enough yet to convince them to part with the huge sum of money that will be needed to get him out of Norwich.

Three hard working defenders to replace which of our existing ones Jools, you don’t mean our non-German Aarons, Godfrey, Lewis do you?

What comes across to me is that they're all so happy to be part of this team/club/city. You can really see the value of having players here who want to play for the club, rather than people like Marshall, Pritchard or Howson. No disrespect to any of those players - they're all quite talented - but SW and DF were right to send them packing as soon as they mentioned that they wanted to leave.