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Don’t think he’s having a go at all - nowadays people will deliberately take things the wrong way if at all possible.

Have to say it is a little odd how it’s only us that has been given all this ‘defend like that and they’ll be relegated’ stuff, when we have have 4 sides beneath us and only one of us played the European Champions....

Not really going for them is he? He seems to be alluding to the fact they got drunk together and he can’t remember all of the conversation.

WTF do you mean by that? 😠

Just some summary thoughts from the match; At half time, I am pleased to report the vibe in the away end was not a reflection of the negativity of the pinkun match thread and 'chants of ‘yellows yellows’ rung out as the players wandered off. There were no grumblings and no finger pointing at individuals (although Hanley did have a stinker...). There was simply so much from us to enjoy from the performance, we had taken the game to Liverpool at Anfield, created excellent chances and played big bolluck football out from the back with no fear. The scoreline itself felt like a kick in the stomach, but I don’t think anyone thought 4-0 at half time was a fair reflection of that game. I did wonder if this would become the theme of the season as has been the case in previous years. The ‘proud of the lads’ posts, the plucky underdog moments and all of those what ifs and maybes. I spent halftime pondering all of them. It all seemed so unfortunate yet so familiar. That said, I thought offensively we had looked even sharper than last season, considering there were no new additions starting and the huge step up in quality of opposition, we managed to up the tempo and play our intricate football at a pace I have not seen it played at before. I was also impressed with the freedom our back 4 were playing with in possession. Particularly Lewis and Godfrey. Liverpool’s press was putting a lot of pressure on us and we generally coped with it well, I don’t recall us stupidly losing possession many times at all in the first half. They made it super difficult for us but when we managed to beat the press - sexy football ensued. Was great to see Cantwell continue his preseason form, he looks a completely different prospect this season. Krul was also calmness personified on the ball. He seems to have turned a mental corner from where he was at 12 months ago - there were no jitters, he was not to blame for any goal and he looks reassured as our number 1. I was really pleased with how things panned out in the second half, without actually playing notably better. The luck appeared to balance out somewhat, with Liverpool missing some great chances, Krul compounding his stable first half performance with some superb saves and a great goal for Pukki to boot. Excellent! However it did appear that Liverpool had taken it down a gear in this half, understandably so. There were also some really sloppy moments from us in possession that we didn’t concede in the first half, Godfrey and Cantwell both at fault for dallying too long on the ball - fortunately neither chance led to a goal. Buendia had been fairly quiet but grew into the game and capped it off with the assist. I thought Leitner’s introduction really helped us galvanise some neat passages of play, allowing us to apply more prolonged pressure on Liverpool. As to the negativity and finger pointing in the match thread, really? Hanley getting some unnecessary stick, other than the stinker I thought he did a decent job. He is about the level I would expect our 4th choice CB to be at. Our midfield pair of Trybull and McLean got overran, yes they did, good spot guys. This PAIR also played in the championship last season and are now playing against Liverpool’s midfield THREE (three is more than two) at Anfield! We let in 4 goals, Krul must be benched! Come on! I am not against constructive criticism at all but this is pathetic to read after just the first 45 minutes of our season against bloody Liverpool. I saw plenty of signs tonight (even at half time) that this will be a really special season and I am despondent to see others clearly not on board and showing so much negativity. This team is going to make mistakes, we are a young side making a big step up with very little in the way of financial support. We are playing the best football I’ve ever seen us play; in a more sustainable way than any other team in the league. What isn’t to like? I can confidently say that I will be sticking with this manager and team all the way wherever we finish this season. If you have not bought into this model by now (which I can only presume is the case for some in the match thread), please just don't bother contributing - because it ain’t getting much better than this.

Just watched Match of the day, lots of talk how well Villa spent £140 million, how they played good football, Sheffield United how good they move their three Centre backs around the pitch, how they are sticking to their style from last season, a few minutes given to them both, Norwich, nothing just how naive we are at defending, really! How about the way we moved the ball, the chances we created! I bet if we beat Newcastle next week will lead to how poor Newcastle were.... I’m done with reading or watching the BBC, they do have a serious downer with Norwich for some reason!

Just looking at previous premiership tables and it’s made me sure Norwich will stay up. The teams that get relegated nearly without exception - can’t score goals. (I believe Norwich will score lots) All teams in the bottom half concede a lot of goals and have negative goal differences. However, it doesn’t really seem to matter as they tend to concede roughly the same amount. The exception last year were Brighton who conceded a few less goals then the surrounding teams but they only just scraped over the line. With they way Norwich play, they will always create and more often than not covert a few of their chances in each game. ‪They will concede a lot too but it’s quite likely that in many matches they will be far more clinical and score 1 or more and the other teams will have and off day. Not every team will punish us like Liverpool did in the first half. But I am confident that Norwich can score against anyone in this league. A side point - (When Norwich finished third in 1992 93 they had a negative goal difference of -4 and lost 7-1 to Blackburn along the way - if in remember rightly that season we didn’t get relegated ; ). A specific example from last season - Bournemouth finished with 11 more points last season than Cardiff (relegated) and finished four places above them. They did that by scoring 22 more goals whilst conceding 1 more than Cardiff. The goal Norwich scored against Liverpool would have beat any team and they created over 10 decent shots on goal - that’s more chances and goals than Barcelona managed in their 4-0 loss. They will get some fantastic memorable wins this season by really going for it. Scoring wins games - Norwich will score lots. OTBC

MB posting on Youtube under his own name, not sure if he will be doing a video report on every game but found this one from Fridays game.

Just how naive is Chelsea's defence? Losing away at team of multi-million pound footballers too on their first day of the season. Ooops.... Wrong team.

If we keep flying up the table like this, we'll be in the European places in no time.

So we can prematurely celebrate winning the next 3 games but had to hold fire on the promotion party when we were home and hosed already . Fair enough .

No one can know for sure. I remember back in Lambert's Premier League year the opening game v Wigan, we were very lucky to scrape a 1-1 draw with a relegation rival, their winger Moses tore us to shreds, some of our star players from the year before like Crofts and our Cb's looked very weak at that level and I came away after the game thinking uh oh, we're in trouble here. Then we ended up finishing 12th and having a really comfortable season. Same thing with Hughtons first year, got battered 5-0 by another relegation rival, looked not just weak but utterly hopeless and we finished 11th. His second year we had a great performance in our opening game v Everton and got relegated..... Last year we looked vulnerable in defence away at Birmingham and West Brom carved us apart at will in the second game, Leeds a few games later also took us apart, then we won the league. I don't think you can draw too many conclusions from early season form. In our favour we've been slow starters before under Farke, then improved massively in the autumn. But by the same token I don't think we can take Fridays game as a guarantee we'll create loads of chances and score loads of goals at this level either. I honestly have no idea where we'll end up come the end of the season. I hope we'll stay up but at the moment none of us have a clue really.

Norwich fans seem to have a bit of s victim complex about this at times. "We never get any credit", "nobody cares about little old Norwich", "Why does nobody talk about us", "Why did Wilder win manager of the year?" etc. Maybe it's a psychological thing that stems from the fact we're all Norwich fans so just want to hear loads of good things about ourselves, whereas the media give us what they feel is the correct balance in terms of our place in the food chain, i.e. one of the smaller Premier League clubs. But look on the bright side: we aren't going to stay up based on what the MOTD pundits say about us; we're going to stay up based on what we do on the pitch. It doesn't matter if the pundits think we're terrible or if they think we're brilliant.

A public consultation is simply a PR exercise. The ones over new road, new airports and new runways , high speed HS2, means nothing. They will pretend to listen, then simply carry on and do just what they intended. I would love to think our club is not like that, guess we will find out soon!!

I was waiting for Shearer's dull analysis too, anticipating the negative slant. I wasn't disappointed because he came up with the goods as predicted. To add insult to the expected injury, Linekar then asked both pundits who would win the league...both went for Liverpool! The irony of it.

Who cares what this nobody has to say? 🤷‍♂️

From the Telegraph The ease with which the biggest two football signings of the summer were funded could hardly have been more different. In early July, Atletico Madrid paid Portuguese club Benfica €126m (£116m) for 19-year-old forward Joao Felix – the third-biggest upfront fee ever paid for a footballer; and the fifth biggest deal of all time. Two weeks later, Frenchman Antoine Griezmann left Atletico for Barcelona in a deal worth €120m. The Griezmann transfer caused a right ruckus, according to reports in the Spanish media. Barcelona had hoped that local lenders such as Santander, Caixabank and Sabadell, would stump up the transfer fee to Atletico. They refused, it is said. Having already lent Barcelona around €600m to revamp its stadium, they weren’t going to hand over any more. And so, Barcelona turned to 23 Capital, a London-based firm set up specifically to fund big football transfers, El Confidencial reported. The fund is majority-backed by billionaire George Soros. 23 Capital also financed the Felix deal. Sitting on the sunny terrace of its new offices near Oxford Street, co-founder Jason Traub says the transfer of the Portuguese teenager “was much healthier for us”. “We were involved throughout which means we can really help both sides get what they want.” Traub is resolutely tight-lipped on the Griezmann deal but the inference seems clear. Barcelona were running around like headless chickens for someone to provide the financing for the deal, reports suggest. For Felix – a move that the ex-Investec banker is at liberty to speak about for the first time – 23 Capital was involved from the outset. As a result, it was a comparatively pain-free experience, he says. “What is common among every transfer in the market is that you have a selling club that wants all their money today and a buying club that would rather not pay everything today.” And if football clubs are prepared to accept this reality, we could soon see the death of eleventh-hour deadline day deals, he argues. “For decades, look at what happened with the transfer window. Ten years ago nothing happened until the last day. “Then there was a frenzy, that was all negotiation. Because one club wanted £100m today; the other club wanted to pay over five years. And everyone went: ‘I’m not going to blink until we have to.’ And we’re talking about clubs with some egos at the top. And so it all used to come to a head in the last hour.” Michael Savva, a specialist sports finance lawyer at Watson Farley & Williams, points out that clubs which are looking to sell a player use the deadline as leverage over those that are buying. “The frenzy on deadline day is the result of a knock-on or domino effect of one long-running transfer deal feeding into two or three other ones... So there will inevitably always be a mad rush in one way or another. Would we really want it any other way?” Traub’s fund is just one piece of a financing jigsaw that has evolved in recent years. As the money in the game has rocketed, so has the way clubs are funded. “In the early days obviously less capital was required, so local owners were able to fund moves personally and normally via their other business relationships with the bank,” says one former Premier League chief executive. “It then all started to change when the Premier League emerged in 1992.” With transfer fees soaring “normal lenders disappeared, leaving the financing to owners and specialists”, he says. Football transfers are generally reported by way of a headline figure. How much money changes hands on day one is much more complicated than that, however. Often fees are paid in instalments; if this is the case, the selling club is often unwilling to wait; it wants the money upfront. A specialist bank will therefore loan the club the money, with the selling team repaying the debt as it receives staged payments from the buyer. Beyond transfers, loans can be advanced for future TV rights money or sponsorship earnings. Savva says that the rise of football banking specialists does not necessarily fan the flames of transfer fee inflation – it’s something of a chicken and egg scenario. “There are examples where actually the reverse is the case. In other words, because of the transfer fee inflation, new liquidity is required to come on tap,” he says. While the likes of 23 Capital target football’s “blue-chip” names, mainly on the Continent rather than at home, there is concern about a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots in English football that a new wall of finance could create. “The knock on effect of the growth in the Premier League has been devastating for lower league clubs as they try and keep up but [struggle] without the revenues,” says the ex-Premier League chief. Richard Price of New Century Finance, a self-styled “packager and arranger”, brokers loans from merchant bank Close Brothers and football clubs. Since 2000, he’s been involved in transfer deals totalling £750m. He says the financing of transfers has changed in England in recent years as a result of the increasing amount of TV money that has poured into the game. “The Premier League clubs are so wealthy, the top 10 don’t really need help,” he says. “You will rarely see Liverpool or Manchester City go into market.” So instead Price is rushing to seal a £7m deal between two club’s from the Championship, English football’s second tier. “The Premier League clubs borrow less and less. And the Championship clubs borrow more and more.” Does this mean the market is saturated with lenders? “There is still not a queue,” says Price. “Traditionally, banks do not like football clubs.”

Well according to Mark Lawrenson : 1 -3 The Big 3 4 - 6 The other Big 3 7 - 20 Who cares?

Football

It can hardly be a surprise the utter boIIocks that Jools spouts given his Avatar; it’s the mentality that if you say anything often enough and shout down anyone who disagrees often enough your opinion becomes ‘fact’.

We could have spent hundred and thirty million and still lost 3-1

We’ll call it quits for when you took Mike Walker 😂

Can't argue with this. 😀

With an avatar like yours I just can't take anything you say seriously.

I’ve just been looking at the West Ham away situation. Why do they only allocate 2,800 away tickets? It would be bad enough in any ground that seats 60,000/66,000 but we all paid for their stadium!

Looking forward to our boys getting stuck into that Chelsea defence.

Quick...end the season! ....and they have Liverpool next in a cup!

I understand you did had to have purchase history to buy a membership. Didn't see anyone near us celebrate Liverpool goals but know from a friend there were 6 in the next block who were removed. I assume rightly or wrongly tickets were bought by ncfc fans & passed/sold on

FFS. Everyone knows it is possible to win every game. Whether the pinkun board believes we can beat Man City or Chelsea will have precisely 0% bearing on the result.

Beating West Ham will relegate us.........

If that's the case it's beyond me why we'd sell memberships to someone with no purchase history.

It doesn't matter if MOTD have a highlights show or not. The fact remains that anyone with a keen interest in football will have already seen the highlights and analysis on another channel or online, so they don't particularly want to see it all again. A lot of fans have a chip on their shoulder about this. Had Derby, West Brom or whoever else gone up, they wouldn't have received any more favourable coverage than us (unless Lampard was still in charge of Derby). A team like Leeds would've received more coverage as they have more fans nationwide than us. I think it's a psychological thing that fans naturally want to see more coverage of their team in the national media than other sides of a similar size, because they're obviously biased towards their own side. The national media balance it out based on how many fans that team has or how interested the neutrals are. There is no national agenda against Norwich.

Were the Liverpool fans annoyed at the sheer amount of your personas in there too 😉

Trouble is we will have West Ham , spurs etc on there as well. Really disappointing that genuine fans didn’t get to the game

I agree with that, but there's a difference between the approach of your play and your expectations of what you'll get out of it. We went to attack at Anfield and I'm sure we'll do the same at home to Chelsea and Man City, but we don't expect to get three points out of these games because they have much better players than us. Example: we attacked and played well against Liverpool but got battered 4-1. The reaction was mostly positive because it's a game we never expected anything out of anyway. If we play really well and get smashed 4-1 by Newcastle next week, it won't be positive, because that's a 'real opportunity' to get some points.

I don't worry about the pundits, I don't think they influence our players and while I certainly think a lot of ours deserve recognition im (selfishly) happy for them to get little notice and fly under the radar while having success with us. As far as the media were concerned Leeds won the championship last September but I didn't see them lift the trophy in May. We have a united squad here and any disrespect or patronising will be used by Farke and his team and twisted in our favour I think.

https://www.premierleague.com/news/1262217 It seems it will be points then GD then goals scored. This rules just tries to avoid a playoff match I think

You would think the Marxist Biased Broadcasting Corporation would have been good to our Suffolk Socialists. Just thought I would say it before Jools and Moy.

Snap!

Astoundingly amateurish asking who is going to win the league after 1 game! Let fans debate such nonsense over a few pints, you’re supposed to be providing a professional product.

Who cares what an Ipswich player says/tweets? We are playing against the best teams in the country in the highest profile league in the world. Let them enjoy their tittle tattle about us this season, while we pit our wits and our not inconsiderable talents at the top table, while they feed off scraps from the floor of L1.

what manner of newspeak mumbo jumbo is 'digs out' ?

I don’t need the stats to tell me we played well for large parts of that game although obviously they are reassuring. There was enough there to suggest we COULD do ok this season because we will create chances against any team. There is a reasonable argument that in the balance of play we didn’t really even deserve to be behind at half time because it’s not like they had us penned in or cut us open constantly we just kept making errors which gifted them goals. The first was unlucky but Aarons should not allow that cross, the second should have been cleared on two occasions and the other two were just appalling defending. In between we arguably had just as good quality if not better chances. However, unless we can stop gifting the opposition a couple of goals in every game we are going to struggle because any team at this level will take advantage of defending like that and it is the one black mark against Farke in my book that he still does not seem to be able to sort out our defending at set pieces in particular. I don’t know if this is a blind spot or the players just are not doing what they are instructed but perhaps he needs a bit of help from a specialist in this area.

Totally agree with you there - in my opinion you can’t judge a team until midway through the season unless they have had a really good/poor run. Say we beat Newcastle and pick up at least a point out of our games against Chelsea, West Ham, and Man City. What could we possibly look like after the following 4 games against Burnley, Palace, Villa, and Bournemouth?

We've seen in this division time and time again - you can't sit back for 60/70 minutes and expect to get much from the game. As soon as they took Wesley off there was absolutely no hold-up play or forays into Spurs' half, and it was extremely unlikely that Spurs weren't going to get a golden opportunity at some point. I prefer our approach and think it will bring us success this season, but we certainly need to find a bit of balance and steel so we can do what Villa did for shorter periods of time.

Finally Wacky, some more realistic ratings. For all the improvement in the second half (which I loved) you can't be giving 8s and 9s to players in any team that loses 4-1 - give yourselves somewhere to go when we win, people!

I've left some comments but haven't given my ratings yet, so here goes. I'll use the Italian ratings system as they take their ratings very seriously and have a universal system, so some of these ratings will appear harsh on the surface, but here goes: Krul 6.5: OK, he conceded four, but he wasn't at fault for any of them. He made a few good saves and seemed to give confidence to his back four. Aarons 5.0: I'll get criticised for this, but he was at least partly responsible for two goals. I know he's 19, he was making his Premier League debut, it was away Anfield and he's one of the brightest talents our academy has ever produced, but I'll still be harsh on him. Origi was completely unmarked for the fourth goal and although I'm not 100% sure whether it was Aarons or Hanley who lost him as nobody really had him in the first place, Origi should've been Aarons' man. Also, he maybe could've done better to cut out the cross for Liverpool's first. He looked decent going forward and grew as the game went on, but a defender, first and foremost, he needs to do better in stopping the opposition scoring. Hanley 4.0: Not a good day. The own goal was unlucky, but also a result of being cumbersome with questionable technique. It seemed to epitomise his evening as he was exposed more than anyone else in defence I feel. I can't see him playing much more this season when the other centre backs are all fit. Godfrey 6.0: The best of our defenders. He is already showing maturity beyond his years in the way takes charge of situations and the way he plays out with unflappable confidence, but he still had a couple of hairy moments and ultimately was part of a defence that conceded four. It does look like he has cemented his place as the number one centre back though. Lewis 5.5: I'm not sure if he was supposed to be responsible for picking up van Dijk for Liverpool's third, but he ended up as the man challenging him and didn't put up much of s fight. Despite this, he generally looked decent on the ball and, like Aarons, grew into the game. Trybull 5.5: His main job is to protect the defence and he didn't really do a great job, but the mitigating factor is the quality of the opposition. If he plays next week, he needs to step up as he has very strong competition now. McLean 5.5: Not his greatest night. In that position as a deep-lying playmaker he needs to be more creative, even with Liverpool's 'gegenpress' all over him. He worked hard, as always, but he too needs to raise his game with Leitner knocking hard at the door and Vrancic waiting in the wings. Buendia 6.5: Arguably the quietest of the front four in the first half, but certainly our most dangerous weapon in the second. Great assist for the goal and showed numerous examples of his quick feet and incisive passing. He will be our key man this season and possibly the difference between staying up and going down. Stiepermann 5.5: He was involved in a lot of attacks in the first half, but wasted a couple of presentable openings by blazing high and/or wide. If either of those had gone in then the game could've been very different. Still a useful player to have in that role, but he isn't untouchable, although he has enough credit in the bank to keep his place for now. Cantwell 5.5: Showed some glimpses of his quality with deft flicks and neat passes, but did lose possession a little too easily at times. Doesn't necessarily deserve to lose his place on this performance, but the competition for a place in this area is strong and being 'alright' may not be enough. Pukki 6.5: Lively as always with exceptional movement. He got in behind the defence on a few occasions and took his goal very well. A positive start and he should continue to score goals based on last night's performance. Subs: Leitner 6.5: Changed the game when he came on. We were being overwhelmed at the time, but we picked up and started playing very well after his introduction; keeping the ball better and creating chances. I think he did enough to get a start next week. Hernandez 6.0: Looked lively as usual and always looked to put the full back under pressure. Not a huge amount came off for him, but you can see that he worries defences, particularly when they're tired. He'll be a decent weapon this season, whether as a starter or an impact sub, as he offers something different. Drmic N/A: No time or opportunity to make an impression.

I don't understand the Cantwell omission. Thought he was one of the top performers last night. Really looked a step up on last season. I'd be tempted to try him at number ten if we really want to bring Onel into the 11. I'd keep Cantwell in the lineup though.

What the **** is your actual problem? I have a fairly high tolerance when it comes to idiots but as an old man retired from the police you should really know better. I have zero interest in your pathetic online feuds and the little snipes from you are unnecessary and have gone on long enough. I suggest you block me and I'll do the same. Alternatively, meet me for a pint before a home match next season and you can vent all the problems you have with me in person instead of dragging it into half the threads I post on. Ta. 😊

The best of them all by a mile.