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Rubbish. He's probably been the most commited player all season.

What made me curious (or maybe I ought to say, sceptical) was that when Webber sacked Daniel, I assumed he had a plan. That he had one or two (even three) lined up. He seems to be the sort that claims his thinking is long term. Am I right in thinking I've read that from him? Yet, he himself has stated that when he heard Dean S was available, he couldn't turn down the opportunity. So, that is either sheer luck on his part...or I'm beginning to think, it's Webber who moved away from his plan (which he must have balanced all the risks beforehand. Well beforehand). Knee jerk you might say? I'm not a Dean Smith hater etc but Daniel Farke was far more suited to our strategy (build, be patient, develop youth, develop the infrastructure, pay your way and fund sustainably). Some posters agree with that. I can only assume Dean S has bought into that. Reading his comments since he arrived, I think that's correct. Yet, it feels an awkward fit. The Bodo Glimt fella was possibly not a runner at the time. But if we were going to change the manager then he would have fitted the bill, given his background and his apparent football philosophy. We might even have waited until he was free. The timing was strange. Dean Smith is an odd one, given that he has been round the houses a bit with an experienced Shakespeare as main coach. I hope Smith is given a chance next season. I dislike lots of changes at the top. Given the Championship is odds on (96% chance of relegation before the Leeds match) for us, it may well be that we have to have a season for re-adjustment - like Farke had in his first season. But....I can't get over very easily my view that Farke was our Wenger. He had an ideology, an identity, he was part of the Norwich way if you like. There was something uniting about him and an eternal vision. You don't get this often. And when we were lucky when we did, Webber jettisoned. I get that we (I mean our club) needed to do something after such a poor start. But we have potentially lost something greater. It's a metaphor for modern football and the money game, instant success. Webber's decision (let's say it was a full board decision) was very 'Premier League'. A league I want us always to aspire to, to get towards, to be able to compete in. Yet, it's a league that I also hate with a passion. It certainly isn't anything much to do with competition, with sport itself. It's mainly to do with money. That's the bottom line.

This is the heart of the matter. The recruitment last summer was appalling. Not necessarily because of the quality of the players (although we can all see that wasn’t great) but because it introduced a wholesale change of system that bore no relation to the philosophy of the head coach and the system we had committed for the preceding four years. As a consequence, we effectively sacrificed the best head coach we’ve had in years, abandoned our principles and now look an absolute ****show. I’d dearly love to know what Webber’s thinking was and the extent to which he involved Farke in that thinking. Take Gilmour as just one example. Why sign a player like that when last time round in the Premiership Farke effectively froze out Leitner, who was pretty similar in stature and style? It boggles the mind. At the same time, I do think we need to give our collective heads a wobble. We’re in a pit, for sure, but I still take pride in the idea of our model, the determination not to sacrifice financial integrity in pursuit of the big league. Sure, I wish things were different, but most of all I wish the Premiership hadn’t become so corrupted by dirty money from Russia and Saudi - and elsewhere for that matter. It’s not sexy, but it’s what I believe. One way or another, we’ll build again. I just wish we could turn back the clock to last summer and have a word with Webber before he embarked on a Football Manager-style ego trip. OTBC.

Focusing only on the recruitment side is somewhat minimising Webber's impact on the club, not to mention not providing a full picture of what he's meant to do. He's helped turn around a club in a parlous financial state, and in Farke brought in a manager who gave us some wonderful entertainment after a stodgy first season. We've cleared a heck of a lot of debt, upgraded our training facilities greatly, and had a dramatic - albeit annoying in the Premier League - run of seasons. Not to mention maintained a decent financial position despite a prolonged pandemic. Furthermore, we did this from a base that would indicate we were basically makeweights in the Championship, and indeed no doubt a not completely insignificant number of us thought we could have been at the wrong end of the Championship and looking at the trapdoor to League One. Off the pitch, the club looks in a much more resilient position compared to when he started.

I'm absolutely in no doubt that Farke worked miracles with the quality of player he had at his disposal. Since his departure the team has lost all identity, sense of purpose, shape, togetherness. The rot had clearly started with the summer transfer window, but at least there was some continuity and a plan. Ok, the plan wasn't working, but you knew how we were trying to play. Now it's just a shambles. These are our easiest fixtures, but we're being outclassed, resorting to hoofball with nothing from the midfield. It's unrecognisable from the quality passing, movement and possession we were treated to under Farke. The club has gone backwards in both personnel and tactics. We're worse now than at any point in the previous 3 seasons. I'm struggling to imagine how we could finish in the top half of the Championship. (Posted at half time so let's hope this ages really badly)

The irony of corruption being discussed by politicians is remarkable! You only need to look at the billions in contracts awarded by our own government during covid! Laughable!

Was it Gibson who completely misjudged the long punt ? I hold him more at fault than Brandon not taking a red … route one schoolboy stuff

For me, the worst thing is that we have thrown away the style of football we developed over several seasons under Farke for no benefit whatsoever - in fact, probably to our long-term loss.

I enjoyed it a lot more when we were the most entertaining worst Premier league team. Now we're just the worst.

The Conservative Party passing judgment on football and the fit and proper person test makes me smile. These people gave a Russian crook a seat in the House of Lords in exchange for a big donation. And the list of Tory MP's who have their noses in the Russia trough is quite long. How dare they even comment? Their party has been funded by Russia for quite some time. Please don't reply suggesting I'm a raging lefty. I'm not. I detested Corbyn and would have voted for Rory Stewart if he had won the Tory leadership election.

Wow thats harsh on Smith. Have you looked into his history or are you choosing to just try and paint as negative a picture as possible? As with Farke and many other managers/teams, some context is often required rather than just sweeping generalised statements. He laid the foundations for Brentford to become the 'darlings' they are today. He instilled their attractive passing style, and he did it on a tight budget. Much like Farke with Norwich or Frank at Brentford (but minus Buendia, Pukki, Mbuemo or Toney) he played lovely football and had success. This goes against those arguing about poor football we play now. NO, he is trying to get the best out of an extremely limited squad. He gets better football out of better squads. Wait and see what happens next season for proof. He took over Villa when they were 14th. They were virtually in the play offs when Grealish got injured for a couple of months. Before anyone says you shouldn't rely on one player....Imagine losing Emi for that period of time? And remember we were apparently completely useless without him and never won a game. So surely credit to Smith for not letting them drop completely out of the picture until his return when they then stormed up the league - and deservedly won the play offs. He brings through youth, he plays to the strengths he has rather than naively, stubbornly and foolishly try and play one way. Has a track record of improving talent and is known as a well respected and liked leader. Hes far from perfect and he really didnt need to take on the challenge of us. But we got the best option at the time in my opinion and a fantastic leader for the best chance at another immediate return to the PL.

We had a Farke-style squad in the championship, from which we sold and lost our two best players in Emi and Skipp. All the recruitment from then on seemed to want to move us to playing a different style of football, with a focus on pacey wingers (which Farke often avoided). However, we didn't sign enough quality or quantity of players to play the new style, and hence Farke just stuck with his old system - often leaving out the new players like Tzolis, Sargent and Rashica. I think Smith was brought in with the intention of making us a tough to beat countering team, but when I watch us now, I genuinely don't know what our system is outside of the general formation... Pass it around for 5 mins, then hoof to our small striker for the rest of the game. We had some joy with a direct 442, but the club refused to sign another striker - so after Idah got injured we went back to zero system again.

Obviously we need to replace Delia, Webber etc. (but we cannot) but Dean Smith is pretty woeful. so who she we go for next season? I would go for Robins. (Shame we cannot get a ‘new Farke’) Dean Smith was a knee jerk appointment and just doesn’t have what it takes.

The amount of threads on these issues is amazing and pointless. NOTHING changes the fortunes of Norwich City until the ownership changes. Why people are even thinking about and debating next season is beyond me. Next season is irrelevant. There is literally no point in challenging for promotion under the current owners. Unless you are happy to be nationally humiliated on a weekly basis. Best thing now is to stay away for however long it finally takes for the owners to sell up or pass away. Then hope we are taken on by owners who have the desire and financial clout to take us to the next level, a club who can be competitive in the Premier League for a few seasons. Wouldn't that be lovely. Then again there seems to be those who hate the big bad 'corrupt' Premier League. I'm guessing they will be hoping for a few seasons of championship mid table mediocrity and hoping and praying we aren't taken on by owners capable of taking us to the next level. Perish the thought! All the best. Big K.Scott.

There certainly seems to be some similarities each time the far right raises its ugly head in this nation. I'm not talking about a bunch of knuckle draggers like the EDL. But the money men in the background. And faceless men like Chandler, who have no allegiance to anything other than promoting their own interests. These men are the Krupp and IG Farben of Germany's early 30s. Nothing to lose but everything to gain in the world becoming polarised between right and left and ensuing wars and realigning of power. The world is in crisis. Climate change and Covid have been universal. The power of China financially. And so many nations electing right wing leaders have put even more money and power in these people's hands. Democracy is in mortal danger. These people do not want discussion or votes about their actions and investments. Deregulate and prosper. We think we are democratic because we get to vote now and again. Or check the dividends of our paltry shares. In some nations racism will not be solved as Trump and Co continue with censoring education, celebrating history with only might is right. While history cannot be changed, it is also pertinent to believe it was acceptable then but now. But I'm afraid the Trumps, Chandlers, Rees Moggs and Putins were all cut from the same tree.

Webbo was between a rock and a far place......

I actually hope they take away parachute payments once and for all This club is built on sand and thats a large part of the finance Take that away and it would put more pressure on owners who believe they can own a club without investing in it...but wont sell to anyone who might

If you haven’t heard it already, give their album “Stupid Dream” a try. A friend of mine was before he heard that album, only liked certain songs and wasn’t too fussed by whole albums of their work.

I think our transfer strategy of always signing previously crocked players / or ones struggling to regain form was always going to be risky. It would be ok if it were the odd one, but seems like too much focus was spent looking at the potential of players to regain confidence / fitness etc from the off was a big ask from the outset.

Webber has vastly increased the stability / infrastructure of our football club, I dont think that has ever been in question. However what is under scrutiny is his recruitment, where he needs to shoulder considerable blame as its been sub standard for a long time now.

Am I being harsh? Or are you being a bit kind? He did nothing better than a good job at Brentford. Remember, they were the team that lost out to Middlesbrough for the right to get taken to town by us at Wembley that season having finished 5th the season before Dean Smith took over. It's a bit of a stretch to say he laid the foundations, credit for that should go to Mark Warburton or even Uwe Rosler. And there squad was ridiculous for that level. Despite the injury, Jack Grealish still played in 35 league games, which you might want to note was 1 more league game than Emi Buendia played in for us that season. Without him, Smith had to make do with the likes of Yannik Bolasie, El Ghazi, Kodjia and Tammy Abrahams. Dean Smith was the last person in that league who could complain about availble resources, particularly when it was widely reported they were almost certainly in breach of FFP rules and would have been in major trouble had they not won the playoffs. So no, I don't particularly give an enormous amount of credit for Dean Smith stopping the wheels coming off in Grealish's absence, particularly in a comparison with Farke who was actually without his star man for one more game than Smith was without his, and still massively outscored him by 18 points despite a massive disparity in wage budgets in Smith's favour. He failed to get Brentford into the playoffs, something which they managed the season before Smith's appointment and something his successor managed, and was comprehensively outperformed by Farke in his Championship season with Aston Villa despite a comparative embarrassment of riches (and wage budget). None of this is conjecture or opinion and it's worrying typing it. We are in a proper pickle and there is little evidence to suggest Smith can get us out of it.

Good article Kirku. It seems the Chinese author (and he obviously presents a quasi official Chinese view for Putin to read) thinks basically Putin (and by extension Russia ) is f xxxx ed be that long or short term and that China's best interests lie in aligning with the West while trying to talk him down.

The EU without a military and NATO, a defensive alliance, which Ukraine talked of aspirations to join? The idea that Putin intended a maximalist invasion of Ukraine, calling its very existence a historical aberration and pledging to fully "denazify" and "demilitarise" the country with the intention of "protecting" Crimea is....not a view that will be shared by many.

Rupp is a useful player but not really at the standard we need if we actually want to make a better fight of it IF we are promoted. Sargent may be young but I sadly think he is missing some of the key skills to be a premier league (or even championship) player. ie ball control, awareness, weight of pass, vision. Many of these arent things which come with age and cant be taught. Have a look at some of the top young players (eg Greenwood, Foden etc) they have these capabilities despite their age. They may be the exceptions but even the likes of Cantwell, Aarons, Omobamidele and most recently Rowe show that some qualities are not age related. Sargent certainly give his all and cant be faulted for his desire and determination but if we could sell him I would.. but sadly the reality is we paid so far over the odds for him that we wont be able to offload.

https://uscnpm.org/2022/03/12/hu-wei-russia-ukraine-war-china-choice/?fbclid=IwAR1BgkpS-KodLTLanBh-O0lbjNJspY4fuqVzd3X7ohOEbhA6bjEg2w0KnFo Very interesting article on Chinese interests by a top Chinese academic - did the rounds yesterday TLDR: China has much to gain from helping to stop this war and very little to gain from standing aside as it continues or escalates

1) You may be right re Kabak. But i'd say he looks a little behind what Godfrey looked like for us in his first Premier League season. Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up making it in the Premier league. 2) I personally think it would be suicide to get rid of Hanley, as finding more good CB's is incredibly difficult, and in my opinion he's capable at a low Premier League level. He's been our best player statistically this season, but more importantly defensively he's one more headers, more tackles, more interceptions, made more clearances and more blocks than any other defender in our squad. To replace him would be very hard, even at Championship level.

Absolute nonsense. Loans can take a team to the next level, as Skipp did for us last season. The key is to have a plan to replace the player once they've returned to their parent club. Again, sorry to sound like a broken record, but I've come to really question the succession planning (among other things) in place at the club. That's entirely down to Stuart Webber. When Skipp left we should have had a list of players who could replace him. Gilmour is not that player. Normann has not been that players. PLM is definitely not that player. When Farke left, we should have had a list of managers capable of replacing him, not just Frank Lampard and oh look Villa have sacked Dean Smith let's chat to him. If Teemu Pukki leaves us tomorrow, a plan should be in place to bring in someone who can replace him. Right now I'm thinking we'd probably panic and bring back Josip Drmic.

What on earth have you been watching… exactly what, how, where has he improved…. He’s evidently utterly awful, gives the ball away at will, rarely actually gets a cross in and not with any particular quality not that he has much to aim for and of course doesn’t offer any defensive cover for Aaron’s since he keeps losing the ball and putting Max under pressure. Come on though, stop bigging up dross! Happy to hear your justification for your statement but you’d need to provide some evidence which might be quite tricky! He’s not a Championship quality player either.

If you measure the 'stewardship' of the club from how things stood since Webber's appointment up until the the present time, I think you'd have to say we're in a better place overall. But the intelligent scouting/bringing through of Godfrey, Maddison, the Murphy twins & Jamal Lewis which has helped to keep the books on an even keel (80-90m?) got moving before his arrival. Signings such as Buendia, Pukki & Krul have been hugely successful. Other successful signings (for me) would include Hanley, Vrancic, Stiepermann, Onel, Trybull, Zimmermann, Leitner (for the most part), Byram, McLean, Gibson, PLM and Rashica. The loan signings of Jordan Rhodes, Harrison Reed, Oliver Skipp & Brandon Williams have all contributed well on the pitch. It's a bit easier to list the Webber-era signings which could be deemed unsuccessful, depending on your criteria: Srbeny, Marley Watkins, James Husband, Marcus Edwards, Patrick Roberts, Raggett, Franke, Heise, Passlack, Ben Marshall, McCallum, Amadou, Duda, Drmic, Sitti, Placheta, Soto, Kabak, Gilmour, Sargent, Tzolis, Normann...could probably list a few more. Webber could rightly point to the fact that the owners' relative lack of wealth puts huge constraints on the markets in which the club fishes for talent. Signings are made & contracts are signed with one eye on an immediate demotion back to the Champo. A club looking to consolidate in this most unforgiving of divisions would not normally be primarily seeking out cheaper imports, players out of favour/contract, loan signings, young prospects, players with a poor injury record etc. expecting them to deliver. There are many positive aspects to what the Webber-era has delivered. He has shown with Huddersfield and now twice here that he can facilitate promotion to the top flight. But he has most definitely not achieved the stated aim of avoiding relegation. He has also publicly stated that his next job won't be in football, I believe, which is an interesting aside. Imo, it's hard not to come to the sad & simple conclusion that you need hundreds of millions washing through the club accounts annually to be genuinely & consistently competitive at this level. We have proven that 'self-funding' will not succeed at this level.

No, I looking forward to getting promoted again and stinking the place out. It's what the Premier League deserves.

She was not our saviour in the days of Chase. Watling bought Chase out in May 1995 and she bought that shareholding 18 months after that in November 1996.

I think that there needs to be a significant injection of "new blood." I can't help feeling that there is a danger that players who have been promoted twice and relegated twice in fours years are likely to be mentally "shot." We need a significant injection of fresh players to freshen up the mentality apart from anything else, so that we have some new players hungry for promotion.

Pretty short memory, I didn’t see much proper football this year under Farke either.

No, it's the performances. I could take losing if we were still playing proper football. It's the total abandonment of everything Farke worked into the club.

I hear there's a Head Coach available who recently left his post in Russia who has a track record of success in the Championship...

The man’s inherited a demoralised squad of poor quality players, with few if any real PL players and even fewer weapons capable of changing a game at this level. With no backing in January to change any of that. I don’t see what changing him achieves other than placate people who want someone’s head and accept it won’t be Delia or Webbers. Absolute scapegoating. He deserves a Summer of rebuilding IMO and show what a Dean Smith built team can actually do.

It's not really hindsight though, is it. Plenty were questioning his sacking at the time as well as Smith's appointment. This thread is evidence of that. And Smith has an ok Championship record, 9th, 10th, 9th with Brentford (who would improve significantly soon after his departure) and a 5th with Aston Villa, who he overtook when they were 2 points behind Norwich with a more favoured and valuable squad and ended 18 points behind Norwich. Oh, and Aston Villa would improve significantly soon after his departure. And for all his improvements, which have been fleeting and not consistent, he's still averaged a PPG that would see us firmly bottom of the EPL in the majority of seasons. Only a handful more than Farke managed two seasons ago but as we know, that was a squad that had £250,000 spent on it. It'll be something we'll never get to find out, but I think Brentford away was a turning point that we missed the fruits. If Farke was given the Southampton and Wolves home games and the Newcastle away game (an abject performance) then I think he'd have matched or bettered Smith's scores and really built some momentum. As it is, we're flailing around with odd starting elevens, not starting games until half time and losing to teams who simply cannot buy a win. And not just losing, being comprehensively outplayed by teams in dreadful form. Given the opportunity and context of the season, the recent Brentford and Leeds games were much more embarrassing than being annihilated by Chelsea and Man City. Sacking Farke may have been right (I don't think it was personally). Appointing Smith never was.

You said reinvent the academy which i took to you meaning Colney in general so apologies as i was talking about Carrow Road.

The very fact that Rowe cost us nothing and yet has shown himself (other than a cup match against Bournmouths reserves) to seemingly be a better and more promising player than Tzolis is pretty worrying to be fair

No we did not. Gianoullis and Gibson had already been signed under previous budget. Then deduct the fee for Buendia etc And we spent out around £15-20 which is a poor outlay for a serious attempt to stay up.

Pretty Awesome Six Diesel I'm still shocked you risked using my pick let alone it won. Congrats to Till as well.

We’ll I disagree on two fronts. 1) What have ‘they’ done to this club? Apart from navigate past a tricky financial situation, reinvent the academy, transform the infrastructure and get promoted twice (when bigger clubs are stranded in the championship)? Not a lot. Yes we’ve failed to step up again, it’s not been good enough but objectively as a club, we’ve made progress. 2) Don’t reinvent Farke please. There wasn’t an identity or continuity. It was all over the place. Farke ball was dead, 5 different formations. Players in and out of the team. Odd comments to the press. Smith isn’t an odd appointment, especially with Shakespeare. He’s failed to pull off a miracle that’s all. A reminder that Liverpool under Klopp were not good for a whole season. Give him a chance.

Maybe if fans didn't cream themselves because Dean Smith bigged us up when playing the top teams, as opposed to bad evil Farke who said we didn't stand much of a chance... The results are the same. Smith deserves a chance with his own players.

This is the key bit for me and I said it at the time. Farke was arguably the perfect fit for the self-funding model of developing young players for profit and there was a clear identity in the style of play. Even though we were going through a bad spell, progression isn't linear and as a club, over a longer period of time, we were progressing. We've seemingly ripped up a large part of the plan and I'm not sure where we go from here to get it back on track.

And yet we’ve still lost 2 must win games against teams of equal ability who are on terrible runs of form, and both times our performance has been absolutely shocking. Simply isn’t good enough.

More nepotism tilly. Just what's needed🙃

Get shot of that Charlatan Webber first.

So she never accepted his hospitality at Stamford Bridge? Not getting at her particularly. Just pointing out that we all have a level of hypocrisy and its at its highest when confronted by good guy bad guy.

Please help.

We don’t have the players to compete at this level, it wouldn’t matter who was managing the team.