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I think the problem at West Brom is deeper than Jordan Hugill

Sorry, this is rubbish. Normann was brought in to replace Skipp. Are we expecting a possible £10million player to be better than a player that is starting regularly for a consistently top 6 side? No, don't be daft. As for improve the side, yes, we did. Gibson and Giannoulis both improvements on the squad last season and made permanent this season. £15m for the pair. Presumably you didn't mind that as you said you'd rather go with the players from last season? Gunn - £5m for a premier league experienced goal keeper who was 25, now 26, and knew the club well and performed well with us during a previous spell? Bit of a no brainer. Better than McGovern? Yes. Strengthened the squad? Yes. Kabak - 21, has shown glimpses that given more time in the English game and the right coaching, he could be quite an asset. On loan, so if it doesn't work out, and he's not for us, nothing lost. Deal already agreed should we want to keep him if we stay up. £10m is the rumour, and that is cheap for a PL level defender. Without him we would have had to play games without a recognised CB. Williams - you'd struggle to find any reasonable argument to suggest he hasn't improved our squad, let alone strengthened it. Normann - injuries aside, many feel he has been a class above. A quality signing. Improved the squad? Certainly. PLM - For Lees-Melou you need to look at who we were losing, Tettey, Trybull, Vrancic. None of them were really premier league quality anymore. Tettey has since retired. Trybull went to a Bundesliga 2 side. Vrancic has continued to do well at Championship level but was never going to be a regular started for us. So whether you agree or not, PLM is an improvement and has strengthened the side. Perhaps we are seeing more consistency from him now he is adapting to the English game? Debatable, so that's 1 out of 4 so far. Gilmore - tough one. Has he got the quality in there? Yes. Consistency? Not yet. He's 20, and like Tzolis, you have to expect that unless that are already at a fantastic level, consistency is something you expect from more established players, more experienced players. He has played well at times, again, glimpses, but is the squad stronger with him added to it? Arguably at this point he's not done anything that Vrancic couldn't do, for example. Rashica - now here's the thing, if you are considering him like for like with Buendia, then no, not as good. However, for the money, I think we brought in a very good player. Clearly gifted and much faster than Buendia. Arguably spends less time on the floor complaining that he didn't manage to dribble past 3 players either. Again, seems to be hitting his stride after a period of adapting to the English game etc. So a yes/no - better than Dowell/Hernandes/Placheta - yes. Better than Cantwell this season - yes. Better than Buendia - no. Currently our best wide player. Tzolis - we were told one for the future. The only really questionable signing in many ways. Can we afford to pay out £10m for a player that will be good in a couple of years when what we need is a player that can help us stay up now? He really is one that we'll have to judge with time, though he has shown glimpses of the quality he has. Sargent - £8m. Better than Hugill? For me, yes. More mobile, more adaptable. Hugill scored 5 goals in 34 league and cup appearances last season and cost us £5m. At 21, Sargent has 4 goals in 21 league and cup appearances this season - at a higher level. A certain improvement on Hugill and along with Idah, means we have essentially a two horse race to be the successor to Pukki... though, as things are at the moment, all of them on the pitch together appears to be working pretty well. So overall, I think there are genuinely two players you could genuinely suggest haven't improved the squad. Have they performed consistently enough? Not yet. The only way you can spend more money on fewer players though, is to not make some signings and to keep some of the players we released from their contracts. Skipp was never ours too keep, so holding onto him isn't part of the question. Nor was keeping hold of Buendia - something we now know we did last summer because of an agreement to move him on this summer. A deal largely in place from early last year by all accounts. So at that point you have: - Skipp, returning to Spurs. - Buendia, sold to Aston Villa. - Nyland, released. - Heise, released. - Tettey, released. - Leitner, released. - Trybull, released. - Vrancic, released. - Klose, released. - Thompson, released. - Stiepermann, released at his request. - Drmic, loaned out. - Soto, loaned out. - Hernandez, loaned out. - Hugill, loaned out. - J.Martin, loaned out. Those are the main players considered to be in and around the first team squad or at least have been in the past. Out of those who would you argue to have kept? Out of those, do you genuinely believe any of them are better than what we have now? Then which of our signings would you have not spent on? We can't consider Gibson and Giannoulis as the deals that brought them to us last season meant we were locked into signing them, and wouldn't have gained promotion without them. That leaves: - Sargent, £8m. - Rashica, £9.5m. - Tzolis, £10m. - Gunn, £5m. - PLM, £3.75m. - Normann, loan. - Kabak, loan. - Gilmore, loan. - Williams, loan. You could argue to keep Nyland and not bother with Gunn, that's a bit of a gift but doesn't help anything long term, purely a short term stop gap, IF Nyland is happy to play backup again. Though, £5m would then presumably be added to the pot for a striker, so no Sargent? Isn't enough to have landed Armstrong... Tzolis perhaps? For me, that's really what it comes down to. Tzolis. Not that he is a bad player, it's clear he has quality, but that are we able to afford to spend that kind of chunk of our budget on a player who will be good but isn't there just yet. Honestly, that's the only real criticism I can see. You could arguably make the same point about Sargent, Kabak, Gilmore and Williams. Gambling on the consistency of youth, investing in their promise rather than their current levels, to keep us up?

I still miss Daniel. I genuinely thought he had the opportunity to transcend the managerial merry-go-round and build a dynasty here. I know things were bad at the start of the season and accept what happened but I'm still gutted by it.

I keep hearing this 20m on a player mantra and it’s devoid of reality. It’s not really the fee that is the issue it’s the wages, the likelihood of relegation and the relegation wage drop clause that stops us getting a top player in. If Nice in France can offer same wages, without fear of relegation, possible European football and won’t ask for a relegation drop clause, you’ll pick them all day long. Other clubs in Uk won’t have clause either as they have owners who can stomach subsidising for a bit. The criticism of signing Tzolis is very harsh too. The only way to bring in a top talent to the current structure is either a loan or get them young and try and make them reach their potential. It’s been our biggest success. Maddison, Godfrey, Buendia have been obvious examples. It’s what we have to do. Tzolis is 19, same age as Maddison when we bought him. People were patient with him for over a year before he broke into the side but are already writing off Tzolis as a waste of money.

The Away crowd done themselves proud here, what great support!! Not seen this video before but came up on youtube just now as a recommend. Love it! 🙂

Boris's jibe to Keir Starmer "he's a lawyer, not a leader" seems pretty rich given Boris's total lack of leadership and the fact that Boris could do with a good lawyer 😛

Well, I mean, he started all of this before his diagnosis so I don't see what the cancer has go do with it. That's a side story. He's just a super fan who has collected some mad Norwich stuff. Therefore, allow the AP joke! ☺️ Good luck to him! I hope he makes a full recovery and can come back to Carrow Road soon. OTBC

Where is the scrutiny? with all the diversions and mistakes and long term issues that we face as society, whether its the never happening 'new care system', a non functioning judiciary who is planning to get rid of the jury system, i.e. justice is not seen to be done, when it is the judges that are a problem ( 1,6% of rape cases are prosecuted). A new policing bill that criminalise environmental protests that are too loud, the wrong T shirt slogan, or are obstructive, and these laws are passed by edict, a HoC governing with emergency rules, then something is wrong. How is it possible that a man playing ball with autistic son, alone in a park, is fined thousands of pounds, and when he refuses to pay it, has it deducted from his wages without his agreement, whilst those who locked us all down were getting sh..tfaced at No10,, then something is wrong. The police protecting No10 did not see anything? heard no laughter or merrymaking whilst all of the revelers had to file past them? then we are operating to the same rules that kept us down in the 1800's. here is a great critic and article from an ex MP from humble background, who felt like she had landed in an alien place when she got elected. Enjoy and polish the pitchfork. https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/01/the-whole-ruling-class-has-got-to-go

Good stuff, worth a watch or listen.

Yo-yo.

That’s for sure. And if you read that report - or even just look at the embedded charts (UK is pink line in first chart and yellow line in the others) it’s a damning indictment of this government’s mis-management of the economy. Worst economic contraction, lowest consumer consumption, highest government expenditure, collapsing trade - but hey “our growth is the best” blah blah.

Yeah it is of course impossible to say with a hypothetical 'other.'

Exactly this I'd say. Tzolis clearly has some talent even if he's struggled to show it. Adding more talent is always good, especially when they are young with the potential to grow. In a vacuum it makes sense. However, knowing we had a relatively limited budget by Premier League standards, you have to step out of that vacuum and look at the wider picture, which showed us being well stocked in that position, having a sizable hole in central midfield and a budget that means we can't afford both the flashy and exciting young winger AND the defensive midfielder. So you need to make a call on what is likely to help more in the short term, which is a bit of a no brainer in my opinion.

Not without them playing for us we don't though. That is the key difference here.

But if we were expecting more from Cantwell and Dowell then that makes the importance of Tzolis' signing even less so though doesn't it? We already had Sargent and Rashica too so that's plenty of good wide options. I'm surprised we went down this route with Tzolis when there was clearly still a glaring hole left by Skipp, and it was obvious after 1 game of watching Normann that he was not going to plug that gap and is better suited further forwards in the box-to-box type role. Whichever way you want to cut it, spending close to £10 million on a future prospect, for a club with a transfer history such as ours, was always going to be a controversial move - particularly with other areas in the current first team in need of addressing. It is a strategy that I think can justifiably be questioned at this stage in the season given our position, and will represent one of several factors which contributed towards our ultimate failing this year should we go down (hope not but most probably).

Of course Cuba wasn't being fair by allowing Russian missiles on its soil but its OK for NATO to be on the Russian borders. Not sticking up for Russia particularly but just outlining the hypocrisy from the West as much as anywhere.

I'd say PLM's last two games were probably better than anything Vrancic came up with in the Premier and if he's showing signs of getting to grips with affairs, he's going to look like a very canny signing at the price paid. Don't get me wrong, PLM can't pick a pass like Vrancic, but is a more balanced midfielder than Mario ever was. That said, we do lose a major threat on set pieces with Vrancic gone. The concern I would have with PLM is who does he link well with? Certainly not McLean or Gilmour. Not sure it would work with Rupp as for all Rupp's ground-covering diligence and awareness out of possession, he's still weaker in the defensive side of the game and if anything, is a bit too similar to PLM in that they're at their best driving forward, linking up play. The combination with Sörensen looks really promising and I'd like to see more of that. If we're going to have a midfield three then Sörensen, PLM and Normann is what I would like to see for a few.

I don't think its a harsh criticism at all, in respect of the examples you made: Buendia came in and was one of our best players within weeks / months, so hardly 'one for the future' and not an example that justifies the Tzolis signing. And for the likes of Maddison and Godfrey, the key difference is that these transfers represented very small outlays in comparison to the rest of our spend. Both players were brought in for / during the 15/16 season. Maddison was reported as £2mil and Godfrey £150k, and during that campaign we also brought in (approx) Naismith for £8m, Tim Klose for £7-8m Dorrans for £3m, Brady for £7m, Matt Jarvis for £2.5m, Ivo Pinto for £2m amongst transfers for s. That's ~7% of the above spend on 2 players for the future. Tzolis on the other hand at just shy of £10 mil represents roughly 20% of our overall spend, on someone who doesn't look close to capable of contributing in the PL this season. Throw in Gunn as another 'future' option that we didn't necessarily need to make, and we're close to 30% of our overall spend on players who aren't tangibly affecting our season's efforts (I'd argue we could've kept Nyland as a cheaper number 2 option and utilised the money better elsewhere). Considering the importance in getting players to hit the ground running, in the face of losing two outstanding players from the prior year (and they have shown to have been freakishly important in Daniel Farke's system), then I think its clearly a questionable use of a significant portion of our budget. That's not to say either player won't come good, we may even profit significantly from Tzolis in the next 2-4 seasons, but more a question of whether or not the signing was the right player for what was needed at the time. Given we are still in a position where we look more likely than not to go down, then I think its a valid question to ask.

PLM is starting to show his quality at this point, I think he offers more than Vrancic could at this point. I agree on Gunn and Tzolis. Spending £15m odd on players 'for the future' (and I remain unconvinced Gunn is actually good) is all well and good if you've got right now sorted which we didn't.

Not even whataboutery. More like 'comeupwithafactuallyfalsecomparisonandhopeno-onenoticesitstotalirrelevancery'. Blair was interviewed as a witness. The likelihood is Johnson will be interviewed as a suspect. Even the Daily Mail knows enough to keep on stressing the significant difference.

That's funny I don't remember it working that way when Teresa May stepped down... ???

Imagine if your partner was a West Ham fan, and naming another 'Nobles'. ...I'll leave the penny to drop. 🙂

It was yeah, but then Jamie Vardy played in the Conference, so when you say a league is poor it doesn't mean there aren't some rough diamonds.

Perhaps it was due to cake and wine in the garden.🍾🎂

I cannot for the life of me guess what might have prompted a catastrophic fall of the pound against the euro five or so years ago that reduced the rate to very nearly parity. A total mystery.🤓

Isn't that a bit like saying Norwich are set to win the second half of the season?

It only goes so far. Abuse doesn’t always have to be offensive or illegal to be hurtful and mentally harmful to players. The CCTV is only going to try to identify potentially criminal abuse like racist abuse, throwing things etc. If you are say Sargent, basically getting laughed at and called **** by thousands of people, well wouldn’t that be pretty mentally awful for him? Yet fans feel entitled to throw abuse at players because they pay their ticket money, or buy stuff from the shop or whatever.

Lol how naive are you 😂 Look up disposable email and vpn. The truth is its no different from hurling abuse from the stands, and often far less bad. Look at the snake pit when an opposing player comes near them, the abuse is utterly vile, and at times threatening. Yet nobody wants to clamp down on that, no just people online sending hurty words. World needs to grow up and deal with some important stuff.

When looking at the price” per game “ don’t forget that if we are relegated you’ll have four more home games.

This, and the generally poor choice of loan signings, are the main topics of contention.

The PM's spokesman now using semantics to try to get out of this. The charge was that Johnson intervened to get the animals out. So: Asked at the post-PMQs lobby briefing about the latest revelations, the prime minister’s spokesman said: “It remains the case that the PM didn’t instruct officials to take any particular course of action.” No one is saying he did order a particular course of action. He is hardly a details man, after all. All he had to say was 'Do something.'

Agreed - sorry should have been clearer in my post - however for some reason it wasnt the right thing to do this season! hence im expecting an increase.

Let's be honest - not only is Johnson a contemptible toe-rag clear for all to see but the yobbos on the Tory benches yelling their support are now equally complicit in this government without any standards of behaviour or shame. Unthinking minions Get rid of the lot asap.

I prefer the concept of a "community pension" where provision is made out tax receipt from both employers and employees which actually goes into a community fund from which pensions are funded. As the fund would not be distributed as part of the will* it would remain in the community fund which would therefore grow as a consequence building up a large surplus that could be used to address other community priorities, to be determined by the community rather than the state (as socialist, I have a deep mistrust of the state and would want to see communities empowered). The current "national insurance system" is not fit for purpose - it is really just a tax form and more regressive than other forms - it does not fund what it is supposed to fund. *There would be nothing to prevent people from having private savings and pensions which they could pass on in the usual way, although the tax on this should reflect all the tax free bonuses should be taken into account

In 1986 the Club's wage bill was of the order of £0.75 million. 35 years later it is 100 times greater. I wonder how many ordinary people are now earning 100 times more than what they were 35 years ago? I suspect the Clubs season ticket charges are now comparatively much higher relative to other clubs now relative to then. If people genuinely want to pay more then fine but why in that context do ordinary fans want to pay more to fund extortionately paid footballers when household bills are rising considerably?

👍

The other argument being made (forcibly by the Mail now Dacre is back there) is that this is a storm in a teacup when there are serious matters (such as Ukraine) to be dealt with. Except that Partygate symbolises how BoJo is not only morally corrupt but staggeringly incompetent to boot. He doesn't even have the brains to break the covid rules so no-one could find out. And that incompetence runs right through his government. Just one example is the billions lost to corporate fraud by companies supposedly involved in covid measures.

https://www.cityam.com/brexit-and-pandemic-have-cost-uk-businesses-250bn-each-but-eu-departure-tally-now-rising-faster-than-covid-disruption/ Commenting on the figures, David Jinks, who is head of consumer research at delivery firm ParcelHero, said: “British businesses have had a torrid few years.” “Brexit or Covid, which has been the heavier burden for them to bear? The shocking answer is that the entirely avoidable Brexit crisis has had as much of an impact on UK businesses as the unforeseeable Covid-19 tragedy, and its costs are still rising,” he added.

it's not what we think that matters, Russia has said on many occasions that if Belarus and/or Ukraine joined Nato, they would be surrounded by Nato and would consider it a prelude to war. it's the reason they grabbed crimea, as it was the long standing naval port of the Russia Fleet. Under no circumstances where they going to give their own port to nato. Nato making a big issue out of the 100k troops (that are still on Russian soil). But the reality, Russia is/was making a point.... that it can get 100k and mobilised very quickly. They will go home again in a few weeks... just like last time.

Had no effect either. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that my dog is illiterate.

Them Ruskies come ashore at night for a trip to Rick Stein's restaurant at Padstow. Yo heave ho.

Russia already invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. Russia is entirely capable and willing to use both tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, alongside its very capable conventional military - so it is extremely unlikely that anyone would seek to invade Russia. The main fear at the moment is a far broader Russian attack, swiftly moving on Kyiv from the mobilised forces in Belarus to the north and potentially from Crimea to the south. Put it this way, Farke would be "far too close for comfort" if he'd taken over at Dynamo Kyiv, exponentially more so than he is at FK Krasnodar.

Jim Guy-1947-48 season- Wing half https://www.11v11.com/teams/norwich-city/tab/players/season/1948/

This is now on FIFA’s goal of the year ( is it the Puskas trophy ? ). If you think it was not meant and a fluke he turns to celebrate pretty much as he hits it. I appreciate not EPL goal of the month, but worth a watch. https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/12523483/non-league-player-scores-outrageous-40-yard-volley

I feel very happy with the 3-0 away win & 3 points we departed with on Friday pulling us out of the bottom 3. No beef with Watford but I couldn't give 3 fuchs about their situation. Hopefully Palace will make it 3 wins in a row & we finish at least 3 places above them in just over 3 months. I like the number 3. 3

This is why i love having a family club and why Delia Smith is good for us. This is also why i never understand the body of our fans who would have been over the moon if the Saudi's had bought us instead of Newcastle. Rather League two and a soul than Premier league and classless.

Ruel Fox

Didn't stop the PinkUn massive making up a load of nonsense but glad Max cleared up a nothing event. By the way, ask any NCFC player in person who one of their favourite teammates are and they'll answer McLean. The desperation from some on here to criticise him is beyond delusional, and shows how egotistical people are online when they maintain they know better than multiple professional football managers and their coaches. Its quite funny 😅