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Here we go again. Moan Moan Moan. It’s not as if we’re top of the league or anything. Season ticket holders are getting full access next season plus free Ifollow this. Do you really think it’s unreasonable to charge for the games we can actually get a ticket for you. Guarantee the moaners are the same people who will be pleading for the club to buy in January.

This sort of attitude I find bizarre. The club offered us the chance of a refund or to carry it forward for next year. You are now paying for next year's season ticket. It was plainly spelt out in communications and letters from the club. These tickets have nothing to do with next year's season ticket. Treat them like cup games. Don't blame the club because you couldn't be arsed to read the letters they sent out.

That's not really how it works. You need to look at 'burden of proof'. The person who makes a claim has the responsibility to substantiate it. We know that a significant proportion of the current injuries were in-game injuries and international duty injuries. We also know that there is a heavily congested fixture list this season. We also don't know how training is precisely conducted at Colney. The one thing to say is that you can't have a superbly coached and peak fitness squad without training hard. You may have to accept that doing so increases the risk of injuries, but the benefit is the well drilled patterns of play and fitness that put us head and shoulders above most of this division. You can't have one without the other.

Presuming Pukki is not fit.

You don’t have to guess if you can ‘read the book’. Think about what you know to be true. Norwich have a massive injury crisis. Drmić and Leitner are well-paid, established players who have either been important at Norwich or at a higher level. Neither can get on a reduced bench of 6, with 5 of those players untried Academy youngsters who Farke did not use vs Coventry despite some clearly tiring players on the field. In the ‘old days’ you could control players, discipline them, fine them and control their contracts. It would have been meaningful punishment financially and a risk to your career. Now you cannot meaningfully do much of that at all. Particularly at a club like Norwich, you (Farke and Webber) have limited disciplinary measures. Money or fines have little resonance almost after a young players first contract. You want to create a tight knit unit, a unified squad, there are players you don’t need immediately who you’ll really need and have to rely on at some point in the near future. The (very difficult) skill is keeping numbers 12-20 happy and ready. Young players see this process as an opportunity, their moment to breakthrough. Older, experienced players see it as a demotion, an insult, their career on the wane, not what they signed up for, not what they were told, promised, they know careers are short. So what to do? The Farkes and Webbers of this world often look for ‘set piece’ control opportunities. The psychology of male groups tends to be re-inforced and defined most brutally and decisively by who you exclude, not who you include. Thus - given all of the above - you tend to see ‘names’ (who are conveniently higher profile, though not immediately strategically central) ostracised to make real the only threat or power of the modern coach: removing a players chance to play. This is an expensive gambit, though it is Napoleon shooting a random General. It works because it is seen to work. It actually must be maintained even - especially - in times of greatest need, or the very premise - the entire principle of key crack unit team - is a house of cards and everything the coach says is then up for question, mutable. I suspect that Farke - and especially Webber - view this kind of absolutism as fundamental to discipline, control and hard-won harmony. That it also polishes power buttons and shines superiority stripes will be a pleasing side bonus. Parma

Let's be blunt about it, if it wasn't for yet another ridiculous injury crisis the people moaning about Leitner and Drmic not being available would be moaning about unused players hanging around and not getting a sniff of the match day squad. All clubs try to strike a balance.and Farke prefers a smaller, tight knit squad. Yes, it's nervy times and we have a little egg on our faces but we're ten games unbeaten and 2-3 players should be back for Luton. It's not doom and gloom.

What a man: The last 10 minutes or so are particularly interesting regarding last season (though I found the whole interview fascinating).

Sorry Nutty. Only just opened this and had looked at Ron Obvious' post first. Great to see such a long feature rather than the usual snippets and clichés. Daniel Farke lives and loves Ncfc doesn't he. Obviously, we've been a very good fit for him and what he values in life.

Thanks for this Ron. I've watched the last 20 minutes or so for now and will give the rest a good listen tomorrow. It just strikes me how different he is to many of our managers before. There is such warmth in him as well as passion, through the way he speaks. One of my all time favourites because he understands and loves Norwich City. So lucky to have him as the boss.

Seems an extremely fair deal to me, how anyone can even remotely complain about getting what they paid for albeit next season maybe even in the PL, plus all home games for free this season is absolutely beyond me! By the same token, maybe all of the NCFC supporters around the world who are paying £10 on iFollow for literally every single game home and away this season will get discounted and priority offer of tickets for next season as a little thanks for their support too 😉. The club have been really generous, be grateful.

I just hope we don't go with all 3 CBs, in both games v Stoke and Coventry as soon as we did that we defensively went to pot, with none of the CBs seeming to know who they should be picking up.

That's how I feel about it and have decided with my bubble that we wait until we can get as "normal" matchday experience as possible. The match alone is not enough, never has been, and would rather watch either in iFollow or stream with beers in hand.

I’m no financial engineer, but if one part of his business loses £10 million and another makes £50 million and gets taxed at 20%, doesn’t one offset the other? This is grossly simplistic but here goes (using your eg): ME's companies, without ITFC make £50 million profit and he pays corporation tax at 20% leaving him with £40 million net. With ITFC,e makes the same £50 million minus the stated £10 m in loss from ITFC. As you say he offsets this against the profit elsewhere meaning his profit is only £40 million. At 20% he now pays £8 million in tax, leaving him with £32m. He is now £8 million worse off (ie £32m rather than the £40m he would have had) as a result of his ownership of ITFC - as I said, he still loses 80% of any loss that ITFC make despite offsetting it against tax (in this eg £8 million of the £10 million lost by ITFC). Even though he can offset the loss against tax, he is still far worse off as a result of his ownership.

Imagine stating that you've "done well" out of Covid in this moment when tens of thousands of people have lost their lives and hundreds of thousands are grieving. It is insensitivity in the extreme. His name should enter the lexicon, when new dictionary words are added at the end of the year -A "Dechan" is when you cheerfully pose outside your home.....(folk can add the rest as I'm too dismayed)

You're getting home games free on ifollow and the money you are paying this year covers next season. If you don't appreciate that you can of course have your money back.

As always, it’s hard to know if there’s any truth in the matter but I think there was a bit of a bust up between some or the senior pros and him after his sending off at the end of the prem season. In a nutshell I think he basically didn’t give a monkeys and refused to apologise and a few (quite rightly) took umbridge. if true of course!!

https://www.canaries.co.uk/News/2020/november/ticket-application-process/ Only £20 for us coffin dodgers but not for me i am afraid. Seems a weird way to thank season ticket holders who are continuing to pay by DD or for those who paid upfront for this season.

Parma is right (as usual!). It's a power thing and gives Farke the ability to have everyone know exactly where they stand with the club - you either have the right attitude to how the club want you to be, or you are out. It sends a clear message to players and it is good for the group as a whole. Of course there are stages within that - a player is given the chance to put it right, but if they spurn that chance, then they are out for good. No bad apples allowed.

The point, as Parma has said, is that the short-term gain, of a ‘better’ striker than we otherwise have available for a couple of games, isn’t worth the long-term pain, of a shift in the balance of power between the coaching team and the players. I’m not entirely sure what (some of) the players would do if they felt more empowered, but I’m fairly sure playing Drmic for two or three games isn’t going to guarantee two or three wins that would be losses otherwise.

I knew those turbines were a danger to wildlife.

Again, there was no mention of bringing these two into the fold 2 games ago, so we're looking to do it out of desperation. Considering how threadbare we are, might it be worth considering that the headcoach who won this league 2 seasons ago and is currently topping it again now, might have a good reason not do get them involved? We have no divine right to know why especially if we don't want to publicise situations. Of course, should there be no problems behind the scenes id want both back and playing, but since we arent privy to all the information its easy for us, isnt it?

Farke's "greatness" is the style he has the team playing, his weakness is his substitutions. I know he has made good attacking changes in games where we were chasing goals - Vrancic, McLean, Martin, Mumba all came on in recent matches and won us late points - but bringing on Vrancic with 10 minutes left and needing a goal is that's not rocket science - most managers would do that ! No-one could say for sure that fresh legs for experience would have won us 3 points today because the subs never happened. But the sub that did happen Zimmerman for Martin most definitely cost us today. I'm not sure if Martin was tired or wanted to come off, if not it's a blunder - conceding the ball and inviting the opposition to swamp you. Farke has not learnt from Stoke - same player coming on to replace a forward. I know Farke takes advice from his no 2 during "live" games - so it's not all down to him. Our passing game, winning the ball in the attacking third are our strong points so why change what you're good at ?

Seems fair to me. A lot of extra costs relative to the amount of people going. If you are lucky enough to be among the 2000 that get to go, you are getting a treat that many people will not likely get this season - the chance to support your team in the moment. Seems worth £30 to me.

Congratulations to @Hissing Sid PUP of the Month for November👏🍾💪 Sid wins two stadium tour tickets🎫🎫 Hissing Sid 4 4 100% 2.51 Indy 4 4 100% 1.57 WWIAFTM 4 4 100% 1.37 Greg 4 4 100% 0.76 Kiwiscot 4 4 100% 0.72

Bit unfair to call McCarthy a failure I would say - he got that shower into the play-offs for goodness sake.

Who would you have liked to have seen?

Not a bad idea by the club, I cannot believe people don’t understand it!

I presume he won't be working for Sky that night?

I hope Soreness feels well enough to play.

Your report seems to be everywhere, all quoting leaked NHS documents. As far as AstraZeneca goes I think you will find it’s approved and there will be ongoing research for more data into the 1/2 dose ect. I feel our usual sources are making more of this than the experts and we might as well have some protection especially if it stops severe symptoms. If the deadline for Brexit deals is Wednesday expect this the same day I reckon, lots of good news or something good so we don’t take much notice of the bad news.

As soon as you 'make an exception' you lose the credibility you built up in the first place.

This is a unique season with 46 games pushed into just over 7 and a half months, plus all the internationals and cup games. So I'm not sure predictors can hope to be accurate. Squad size, injuries etc will have a huge impact. Even if it was a normal season there is no outstanding team so far and no one is going to run away with it. At the moment I wouldn't take 4th. I think based on the 14 games so far, with a reasonably sizeable, fit squad over the 46 games, we should be top two. Bournemouth and Watford look strong, but I think we have better players than both, and if we can get through this current crisis within a few points of 2nd I think we could power up in the second half of the season. I'm still going for autos.

Not seen the FT @Well b back but I am expecting that we hear this week. Otherwise, that exclusive report detaling the Monday week start of distribution looks ill-founded. I read that they're doing more research into those AstroZeneca datasets. Yet, I'm also hopeful we hear about approval for this vaccine also soon. I suspect given the Brexit deadline (isn't it Wednesday?) for any deal, to give time enough for ratification, that the media will be full of this particular story over the next two or three days.

I'll burn the beggar down if I locate it. We don't need tossers like him down here. I suppose he will claim it as an air bnb and want a grant to improve it.

We have to consider the possibility that the training load has contributed towards the high level of injuries. We were asking the same questions last year in a 'normal' season, and the added load caused by extreme fixture congestion is likely to have exacerbated any risks associated with our training intensity. As with most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle ground; we clearly try to eke out 'marginal gains' by training that little bit harder than most teams, but we've also had a bad run of luck at the same time. Once you have an injury crisis as severe as this one and the games just keep on coming, it increases the chances of further injuries for the remaining players as we're not able to shuffle the pack as often as we'd like. I would imagine that they're dialling back the training intensity a bit; I know the first team didn't train on Thursday, for example. We'll have Emi back for Wednesday, Pukki for Saturday (possibly even Wednesday), and then by my estimation Hugill and Cantwell shouldn't be too far behind. The difficulty, of course, is avoiding new injuries and steadily increasing the pool of players available. To my mind, this means that Academy products may be integrated by choice now, rather than by necessity should we lose another three or four of our remaining fit senior pros. The next two weeks will be absolutely pivotal to our season. Stay in (or within touching distance of) the top two and get a few players back, and I'd fancy us to win this league. Too many more injuries, and we might be struggling to keep tabs on the top six.

Sour grapes methinks

To be fair it was an horrendous challenge by Max, and in the EPL may well have been straight red.

I dont agree. All it does is argue the point hes injured which is probably for any prospective clubs knowledge rather than wanting to play for us. His agent was pretty clear pre season that Drmic didn't want to play championship football.

Spectacles, te$tacles, wallet and watch......

10 games in and just 1 point. I mean I guess it could be worse 🤣

How do you bring a player back into the fold you don’t trust? It’s not as easy as your making out. He won’t be match fit to start and why would he even want to when he can sit at home and be paid? He’s not going to come in and do us a favour, most likely sit on the bench for Pukki until Hugill and Idah are back fit and be not needed again.

He's averaged about 5 games a season across his career.

Jobello, who came on for Dabo, hadn't played in 14 months. Biamou was in non-league as little has 3 years ago. I don't really get the point that you're trying to make-we are delighted with a point for a reason!

Absolutely, it's one point we didn't expect to get. Mind you it's probably one that we should've got at Watford so I suppose it's an evening out of fortunes.

This does make me chuckle somewhat when you compare the value and presumed wages of both starting 11s today. Even with the Norwich injuries this should have been a home banker. Cov also without first choice keeper, striker, McCallum unavailable etc etc but don't have another first team as back up in case the other one's injured.

A huge mitigating factor here is that they were free agents in the summer, when there are always good players available out of contract, if you can find the ones that are good enough within your price range. How many decent free agents are available in November? Even if you look back over several years, I think you'll be very hard pressed to find many decent free agents that Championship clubs have signed at this time of year.

Where's the fun in that? Good grief, this is my third favourite sport.

The dumb thing is the international friendlies and competitions that have zero merit to them. Having a two week international break and then having to play midweek for 7-8 weeks in a row to catch up.

To me it's quite clear that our training regime has an impact on injuries, we know from numerous ex players how hard our training is compared to what players have been put through with other managers. There are obvious benefits of our training regime and the number of late goals supports this, however, the downside is we are more prone to injuries. I remember reading something from Klopp last year where he was speaking about training intensity and that in his first two seasons at Liverpool they suffered a large number of injuries due to his German style training regime not mixing well with the physical nature of the Premier league and the number of games played during our seasons in England. He mentioned how one of the biggest changes he had to implement to prevent injuries was reducing the training load and this has resulted in far fewer injuries, as shown by Liverpool last two seasons. I'm not suggesting Farke's approach is wrong as we have had great success under him, but you do wonder whether we need to tweak our training regime to prevent these early season injuries we keep seeing.