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TK has signed a contract and is stopping here

If it is someone like the French lad from Lorient who can play wide and as a striker, Rhodes and Pukki as Norwich’s three strikers that isn’t awful. Building a strike force is also tricky. They command the biggest fees and wages, so having good back up is difficult. You’d ideally want your ‘2nd choice’ striker to be first choice in another position, so his wages and the fee aren’t going to waste. 3rd choice strikers will rarely get many minutes and an experienced player there can be good as they are better at being able to hit the ground running should their chance arise. To survive next season Norwich will need a bit of luck, and the luck they could do with most is Pukki not being injured. Any promoted side that needs their 3rd choice striker for significant amount of game time is probably screwed.

They would have a gargantuan task to stay up. They ended twenty points behind us and their best two players are loanees. If they couldn't loan them again, they'd be looking at spending 30-40 million just to maintain a squad that was twenty points worse than us.

Nobody said it was difficult..

When does the new season start? I can't wait.

If we'd signed other players the cost of promotion would be the same. Don't fret about which players get what money because it's all gonna go to someone. At least we got a subsidised trip to Wigan🙃

.... and if we hadn't been promoted, we'd have lost Max, Ben, Jamal, Emi and Teemu, all for a lot less than they'll be worth with a season in the Premiership under their belt. So, horses for courses.

Given their results, I think Edward Woodward should be on the bench.... he was great as the Equalizer. 😎

I thought it was a good OP . I mentioned this to my mates a while ago. If only we had known as we walked out of CR after The QPR game ( and Emi’s Red) we could have all relaxed . I love the idea that Leeds wouldn’t have lost to Wigan and Brentford if our results had been different . If anyone can be bothered to look back I said that we would gain promotion against Blackburn. And I didn’t start going until 1972.

I think I’ve only heard criticism of Woodward for the last couple of seasons. He has targeted players that generate revenue through large commercial opportunities over building a cohesive squad. In fairness to him, he isn’t a sporting director etc. He is a business man and under him united have increased their commercial revenue massively, they turn a very healthy profit and allow their owners to skim off a huge chunk of cash every season. There is talk to Man U getting in a director of football, it was suppose to be done when Jose was sacked, but for whatever reason it hasn’t happened. The two most likely candidates so far have been Rio Ferdinand and Darren Fletcher - which shows they aren’t taking it particularly seriously. Hiring OGS was a huge mistake. I get that he was doing well at the time, but there was no reason to give him a permanent contract when they did. Should have got in a proper DoF first and then let him choose the permanent head coach. Luckily for United it seems Real Madrid will be stupid enough to give them a very large sum of money for Pogba (who is an amazing footballer, but not what United need when trying to rebuild and progress).

Bethnal usually seems pretty on the pulse but just got rekt by this kid making his first post. lmaoooooo This is clearly actually Gregor Kobel posting.

You mean Luke Chambers. Good teams pay money for Calum Chambers.

Whatever would us mere mortals do without you Bill? 😇

Fantastic news, that’s three quality CB and Hanley 😂

He’ll find another club, he’s still got plenty to give. With the way Ipswich is at the moment, getting out of the club isn’t a bad move for his career anyway

Need one for the german league really.

Not a great deal left for anyone to pick over, is there?! I imagine they’ll find it harder to get decent loans being in L1, it could be a bit of an eye opener for their supporters. I still recall an interview of Lambert’s before our derby match. He said: “When Norwich were in League One they had Championship players. That’s the difference. You could go through them all – Holt, Hoolahan, Daryl Russell, Chrisy Martin, Fraser Forster, Russell Martin. They were top players who all knew they were better players than League One. All they had to do was gel together, get a wee bit of momentum and get out the league.” IMO he got that pretty much right - the problem for the binners is that there isn’t that quality there in those bare bones...

If you cryogenically brought the Beatles back to life and go them to play Hey Jude , the Euro's still wouldn't vote for us.

A much missed opportunity by the UK

The only circumstance under which I could see myself watching this pile of sh!te is if they could persuade PJ Harvey to perform To Bring You My Love solo.

There are barely any worth signing

So after all the hand wringing and teeth gnashing wondering if Buendia's self-inflicted absence would cost us big time it turns out that we would have achieved promotion with the win over QPR not needing another point. Thanks to Leeds wonderful implosion, more spectacular than normal even for them, the 84 points we had at that stage would have seen us squeak into 2nd place. Football, eh ?

They have just announced the release of 10 players and loanees have returned to their clubs, don’t think you have anyone to sell Mr Lambert so I guess your comments are technically correct. The Phrase ‘ WILL THE LAST ONE OUT SWITCH THE LIGHTS OUT PLEASE ‘ springs to mind

Seeing as we tend to side foot a daisy cutter straight at the keeper I'm not sure it matters to us.

There is also a point with our transfer policy this summer that we have to at least half-assume we will get relegated. In that case, while Rhodes might be a third-choice striker next season (taking Bethnal's point that the Lorient player or someone similar might provide goals while not ostensibly being an out-and-out striker), he could easily be our second- or even first-choice striker back in the Championship. As such, if the finance can be worked out, I can see the logic of signing him. If we stay up, then he might end up being surplus to requirements, but that is a dilemma we may well be faced with. Just to illustrate the crazy world we are entering, this perfectly serious headline from the Daily Mail: Liverpool join Arsenal and Man United in race for Bournemouth ace Fraser as they eye cut-price £30m deal dalyyanet

I think it is pretty clear we have a wage structure at the club that will not be broken, we also have an ethos and character requirements. If this doesn't allign then you won't be at NCFC. Rhodes knows that, he also knows there are 6 strikers at Sheff Wednesday and it is unlikely he would play for them next season. I think he may be in that place where he knows he will have some minutes And is in a squad, facility, area where he can enjoy his football. It is an exciting journey and players rarely get them in a career. This is an exciting time that I think he recognises. I would think discussions will continue but if one thing doesn't add up it will be no hard feelings and move on. Either way we would need that 2nd string striker as we need someone with the energy of pukki but with the ability to shoot from range. Something that is a little different to what we have in Rhodes and Pukki.

Not when it's taken, but I think as soon as the ball is kicked then it's fair game for anyone.

In a few weeks, we will have cleared out most of the dead wood.

Agree with you Wacky, it seems that every time I put a point forward to negate concerns regarding expansion, there's a counter argument fraught with conditions that only exist if we're in 1p5wich's position. Sure football is cyclical but on average we're an upper Championship lower Premiership Club, have been for almost 50 years. If we're going to maintain that position we have to invest in infrastructure.

If that's the case, apart from the extremely poor recruitment, it's diabolical negotiation. Surely they could have included a clause, provided the players contribute to say 50% of the games that get us promoted. In Naismith's case we were paying a fortune for a fringe player who Everton clearly didn't need.

I'd consider it if we needed the extra capacity in the downturns. Success in football is cyclical.

As we have not had a penalty in the Premier League away from Carrow Road since September 1994, I doubt whether this will bother us much. I remain convinced if we get awarded one at Old Trafford, Anfield etc, VAR will overturn it.

They said The Eurovision Song Contest is a non-political event and Madonna had been made aware of this." So was our song really the worst of them all ?

Yes, that's exactly the context in which journeyman is used in football circles.

Damn. Wish we'd stayed down now.

Watching Man Utd struggle has been a sheer pleasure. The ownership model is morally bancrupt and the owners are just in it for the money they can make from the club. And they lost the plot with the appointment of Mourinho who was never going to recreate the glory days and give them the kind of football the fans wanted. Just another big club with no idea how to use the resources at their disposal well enough. Liverpool, Man City and Tottenham are showing how it should be done, even Arsenal may be on the right track despite them fleecing their supporters with ticket costs. Norwich will prove we are doing it right too next season, along with other well run clubs who have a better ethos than just having money as the main motivator. It's never about how much money you have, but it is about how to best use what you do have. Man Utd will never be a Man City or a Liverpool or even a Norwich until they get the right kind of owners who set the right kind of tone in the club. Just having money is never going to be enough when there are clubs that are so together on every level that just being able to spend big looks crass and becomes just posturing (as with the buying of Pogba) It is clear that money alone does not do it.

....and most of his players are worth next to nothing.

I think it is a fair point regarding our current keepers and that adding another 30year old may not be the best move. Yes we need a second set of sure of hands in our squad in the keeper position. But for me with our European scouting network I would expect our team to find a goalkeeper who has fresh eyes to the premier League with experience in another league. They will be learning and challenging Krul and also learning with McGovern. It's a great set up to come into for that younger keeper to push for number the number 1 spot. Am I right in also noting that krul and McGovern are signed through to the end of next season. Therefore take advantage of having two fantastic seniors who can push an upcoming starter who may have impressed with a few years experience in the European leagues. Goalkeepers are undervalued, in regard to transfer fee, when they are so important. So I think a good investment in fresh eyes from targets across Europe makes sense.

You're really not going to get any joy from next season, find another hobby.

I think it shows what can be achieved when people form around the world, from different nationalities, races and religions, unite. Maybe I'm just a dreamer......

We always get this and it is a fundamentally flawed argument in as much as it only concerns it's self only with the now and the immediate future. With a full, sold out ground every week and with a cap on season ticket sales it is hard for potential and younger supporters to get to see a live game. These are the likely attendees of the future, those extra heads that have the bug enough to fill seats when the club's fortunes eventually dip. Notwithstanding that the argument minimises current income from seat and other sales ( a mere £9m after all) it therefore also disregards the importance of creating a more solid fan base for times ahead. The main stand pales into the stupid compared to the other parts of the ground by the fact that it is of League One appearance. For sure, attendance numbers are far from the most important sauce of income at a Premier League club, but City's esteem as a club that exists at this level, and on a regular if short lived basis, is reduced by the sight of it on the television screens if nothing else. An extra five thousand on the gate is imperative to my way of thinking, the problem with creating this does not lie in the fact that it will not be financially viable at this moment in time but in the logistics involved by the complicated problems that will need addressing during the construction period. A few seasons in the Premier League and I foresee the matter of crowd expansion becoming more and more pertinent. It must always be on the drawing board even if not for the now, as this would mean 'doing an Ipswich,' but for the long term. Additionally, we are a "one city club" which is an advantage that needs exploiting via the "shrine" that is Carrow Road. A reported 50,000 people attended the open top bus celebrations, trade for local businesses flourished as never before, club/community relationships were at a peak. Need there be any better indication of the interest in the club and the need to transplant this to the stadium on a regular and future basis? Think small and you get small.

Eurovision is basically a reminder that the rest of Europe hates us 😉

I read somewhere Lambert saying just because they were relegated it was no good clubs thinking they could sign his players for next to nothing. Obviously he had forgotten several are out of contract and most of the rest are loan players.

Wonder if they will have a better start to that League than we did...