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I’ve thought about this @Taiwan Canary. No there are no weapons really. Though just to re-clarify you can have very good players that are not weapons, and conversely not very good players that are weapons. To explain by using extremes, I could probably argue that Kevin de Bruyne is not technically a weapon, he is ‘just’ brilliant (that is weaponish of course, I know I’m reaching, humour me), though Andy Carroll - who is now not the greatest footballer - still is a weapon. The weapon can do certain ‘special teams’ things that you cannot as an opposition coach ignore. You have to change your own preferred tactical blueprint for your own side, to take account of the the opposition’s weapon. Carroll gets thrown on in the 80th minute. They go high and long and hit early deep balls to him. He is not mobile, but he’ll win the headers. You definitely can’t sit deep and let crosses rain in. So you have to get one in front one behind, get your midfielders to be alert to second balls, try to get wide players alert - and quite possibly pressing a little higher - to stop full backs at source. Conversely what exactly are you going to do about Kevin de Bruyne? He’s just better than anything you’ve got (He is a weapon with his set pieces too, so you really can’t give free kicks away), you certainly have to go 3 in the middle if you don’t already and you have to keep a tight catenaccio 4 with very short spaces between them to prevent slide rule balls. Ok so he is a weapon, but you know what I mean now… 🤗 Anyhoo, we have nothing like either of them. Only Pukki. I won’t be disingenuous to @Petriix and - here’s some hope for you and @nutty nigel @Taiwan Canary - will acknowledge that when clumsy Sarge starts driving hard and cutting into spaces, looking to shoot, he can look hard to stop, though I’m afraid he is ‘a level’ player. With a fraction more time and space, and a fraction less diligent and counter-threatening opposition he can look quite a handful. Take those things away (higher level) and I am afraid he doesn’t and won’t. Sara and Nunez are interesting additions that represent gambles on a number of levels and have novelty value and some nice moments. We will see whether diligence and positional discipline come to both or either. I am not at all sure I have seen it yet. The good news: Love Nunez’ free kicks, that’s a weapon actually, as he genuinely strikes them all well and correctly. Sara’s corners also please me, they should be more weaponised, though I dislike our attacking of corners. I don’t yet see the quality of runs and movement I would expect. I am not knocking Alan Russell, who has good pedigree and valuable ideas, though Gibson and Hanley are simply not good enough at attacking headers (as opposed to defensive headers, two very different techniques). Kenny is the best at getting into good positions, though he is not as good at finishing as he might be either. Sarge is good in the air, though makes poor runs, gives free kicks away cheaply and is too ‘noisy’ about it all, often getting ‘tagged’ by referees (and thus treated sharper, to his and our own harm). It’s a wasted opportunity from one of our very limited weapon-like things (best phrase I could find). I imagine Alan Russell is a bit frustrated by it and Smith might well want to add someone who can profit from these deliveries better. It’s a huge source of cheap goals that we don’t get. Aarons can be weaponish when he is really on song. His advantage is his deep position - with often plenty of time and space - and his ability to cut both ways and accelerate past players. Wonderful in full flow. Hard to defend against sometimes, so opposition coaches have worked out not to. They actually overload his side, pump balls high and get him defending. Not a great compliment really. He’ll have to overcome that to move on (and not just be distant back up). His sliding last-ditch save was absolutely magnificent yesterday by the way, I thought it got a bit overlooked. Every bit as good as a goal I’d say. That’s what’s he can do. Cantwell I desperately want to do ….well?…better? It is there, striking cleanly off both sides, magnetising the ball at his best, though - sorry Todd - I do always think of Brian Clough when I watch him play, what he said about how he achieved his success with provincial players: ‘They come to me with false confidence, I strip that away and give them real confidence’ Onel flatters to deceive, Dowell doesn’t run hard enough and gets bypassed too easily, he also isn’t nasty enough. Psychologists studied the best players, trying to find out what really made them great. They found all the things you’d expect: drive, determination, will to win, an attitude of continual improvement…but that was just the averagely good ones…they found that the very best had all of that, though equally just hated losing, couldn’t bear it. It Pathologically troubled them. One doesn’t get any sense of that from Dowell. We have finally woken up - I think Smith totally knew it from the outset to be fair - to the fact that we need the role of CDM desperately. You need 2 good CDMs at least actually. To have none in the Premier was madness. The only way I could forgive it, is if we totally threw everything at getting Skipp and it fell through on us….though a Plan B was surely in a drawer somewhere too?…Quite how that drawer ended up marked ‘Gilmour’ is far beyond me. The Gunn-Krul axis is far too good - and surely too expensive - for this level. So that is a positive that must surely be fairly short-lived. The Hanley-Ono-Gibson triumvirate is super strong at this level. Though Gibson has been strangely below par, his passing can be quite sweet, with good range and accuracy. Perhaps Omo can start scoring a few more goals too, he has quite a decent presence and eye I think. Giannoulis-McCallum is of course good enough. McCallum has something about him too. I like him. Giannoulis can look dynamic and daft in the same minute. Bit frustrating for coaches that. Ramsey is a good player and it’s perfectly ok to have good loan players at 10 - or even 9 - if you don’t have them. Assist and scoring players don’t need to care much about the team, they can be selfish and just want to look good, get headlines and further their careers. It fits the space in the jigsaw anyway.. Pukki is brilliant. He is and always has been our weapon. The only issue - and anyone (any forward) that has dropped down the leagues from a good level knows this - is that you are reliant on everybody else. And they don’t and can’t think as fast as you. They make the right pass half a second too late. Lots of what you have doesn’t get used. It’s frustrating. It can make you snatch at what does come your way. Pukki is better than this, he has a world class temperament and a supreme level of movement. We’re just not good enough for him. And we are increasingly not completely set up to serve him either. Whisper it, but the way we are starting to play looks better suited (designed?) more for Sarge. That’s where the money went and we probably don’t have any more to spend. Strikers are bloody expensive. Personally I dread the day we don’t have Pukki anymore, though - as @chicken says - it is the model. Rinse and repeat. We have bet some of the farm on Sargent and we are - again - going to bank on him. If I was feeling a bit Norwich Private Eye, I would say this was fine. He will fit our requirements perfectly. Somewhere between 8th and 4th in the second tier. Parma

The real weapon was the Emi / Teemu combo. It seems neither have hit the same heights since. It was a weapon that fell into place rather than planned. I don't think either was bought with the other in mind. But that's often the way in football. That's why the future is of hopes and dreams as much as plans and the past. A big part of the state of the nation is Colney and the Academy and making sure that pathways are made to the first team. That was the first priority of this board even though originally funded by fans. I wouldn't have stumped up to pay players wages even if those players were Emi and Teemu. But Norwich fans have always supported the academy ever since the events of the mid- nineties. Let's not forget that Ray's Funds was originally Rays Funds for FONCY and we took pride whenever one of our own made the first team. For me playing a small part of the FONCY story was a bit of a dream come true. When premier league riches brought the prospect of Cat One Academy our contributions would make little difference so now we take even more pride in our wonderful DS and pan-disability football teams. However that connection we feel with the club and the youngsters of that time will always be there. Now as well as our own youngsters we buy in young players from other clubs and try to make them better. But that' won't work if there's no pathway to the first team. I remember a post on here from 2018 stating that having sold Maddison and Murphy there was just Lewis left with any value. Within a couple of months Aarons, Godfrey and Cantwell had found their paths. Mistakes are always made when buying players but we mustn't compound those mistakes by having them here blocking the pathways for our youngsters. Calls to sign a journeyman fourth choice centreback would certainly have stopped Tomkinson's games this season. Keeping Rashica and Plachetta would have blocked Rowe and Springett. Of course you have to have a manager who's prepared to use those pathways and it seems Smith is carrying on where Farke left off in that regard. So although I haven't really taken to Smith I do recognise and appreciate that continuation. As for Sarge he is still very young for the type of player he is. He played 50 Bundesliga games before he was 21. He's still young and still one who can improve further and become that weapon for us. I've always liked him and made no secret of that. So as well as Sarge (and we still have Pukki) other reasons to be cheerful include Gunn, Aarons, Omobamidele, Tompkinson. McCallum, Gibbs, Cantwell, Idah, Rowe and Springett. Also Saxon Early and Bali Mumba appear to be having good loans and if that's not enough a young Welsh centre forward called Roberts signed a pro contract last month.

This is a simple equation for the USA. No American soldiers coming home in body bags. Bleed Russia white by financing the Ukranians. Brutal but in the long term, essential. Encourage other NATO countries to continue their support both militarily and financially. Russia cannot be allowed any sort of propaganda win.

A couple of things. First, Parma makes a suggestion that basing our team around Sarge up front will do very well if our aim is to finish between 4th and 8th in the Championship. I am at a stage where I'd be happy with that provided the general quality of play is pretty good and exciting. Even when I watch a Premier League match described as a "poor match between two poor sides" I end up thinking that those teams are way too good for us - maybe I haven't recovered from last season. I don't enjoy watching EPL matches nowadays even if they're really good if I start thinking about how we might compete with them. I prefer to thinking of it almost as another competition which has nothing to do with us - then I can enjoy it. I actually quite enjoyed Saturday's match. I thought it was a good performance and I'm happy watching us play like that even though it may not have been as good as Farkeball at its best - and even though we might lack weapons. A few special moments from Sara in the first half and Max's rejuvenated performance were great to watch. My second point comes from the news that Hasenhuttl has been sacked. The Guardian report from their match yesterday said "their pressing game is gone, replaced with a method that involves bypassing the central areas – criminally underusing James Ward-Prowse – and playing on the break." That sounds as though he/they came to a similar view to Webber that we needed to move away from Farkeball in order to survive/flourish in the Premier League. It doesn't seem to have worked for them so far..

It's a shame because the level of analysis and quality of debate in this thread was on another level to what we often see on here. No need to drag it down into squabbling about opinions on things we simply cannot know one way or the other. Ultimately you need to look at the bigger picture of where the club is now. It's pretty unequivocal that some big mistakes have been made and the excuses are wearing thin. I can understand some of the choices, but others were seriously questionable even without hindsight. Now we know the outcome it's strange that people still want to defend the indefensible. I get wanting to support the club. Me too. I'm even happy with how Dean Smith has responded in the last 3 games. But I won't be leaping to defend Webber's transfers or his performance as 'director of football' - the football has only been going in one direction until very recently.

It all comes down to this central issue doesn't it ? Whether or not you are in the Farke had to go camp or not (I am firmly in the "not" camp btw) Webber tore up the blueprint that he himself had created, binned the concept of incremental progression (the Top 26 metric,) the model regarding playing style (and arguably elements of the recruitment process) and threw the manager who had helped make all that possible under the metaphorical bus in the process. The metaphorical bus that we were still unable to tactically park under the new manager anyway I might add. Was it because he bet the farm on bucking the trend through imposing a new set of tactics and a new set of players - the infamous bazookas and grenades - so that he himself could go out with a bang ? This isn't another lament for Farke per se (although I wish we'd never dismissed him in the first place.) Or even another diatribe against Smith (again, although for various reasons I wish we'd come up with a better alternative.) It's recognising that having established ourselves as a club with an identity and a process and achieving relative success on a relative shoestring whilst playing some great football in the process, we managed to throw all that away in a transfer window and the first dozen games of a season. We have gone from defiantly yellow and green to the same beige of the lower-mid premiership and upper-mid championship because we were chasing the dragon (or perhaps chasing the chicken might be a more apt metaphor) of Premiership survival without the idealistic pragmatism - if you'll forgive the oxymoron - that got us there. Yes, it would be great if we could afford to speculate more money on a higher class of player, or retain the good ones we have. But we don't. And in line with Sam Vimes's 'Boots Theory' of Socioeconomic Unfairness we end up wasting cash on what turn out to be inferior players we can just about afford because we can't afford to spend a little more on better ones. The following quote is an extract from an interview Webber gave to The Athletic after that first relegation. "Now is the time for us to be backing him. Not talking bad of him or putting him under any undue pressure. As far as I’m concerned, he’ll be here as long as he wants to be here. If he doesn’t, then that’s a call he has to make himself [...] We’re going to be in the Championship next year. Why do you not have the guy who just won the league with 94 points taking you forward [...] Will Daniel change how he plays? I hope not because that would cause a problem. We’ve built for three years on this. But do we need better personnel in there and a better profile of personnel? Definitely." Source https://theathletic.com/1925314/2020/07/13/stuart-webber-norwich-city-relegation/ What changed in a year Stuart ?

Do you know what? I think this post brings us full circle. Webber - whether club-wise or personal ambition-wise - couldn’t bear to accept we had reached a sporting ceiling, so sacked Farke. The glossy 2022 Annual Report could not be clearer that the driving goal behind every decision, every investment, every forecaster meeting, is to retain top level Premier status. That is the sole economic and sporting driver, benchmark and focus. And yet, and yet….. @Rottingdean canary doesn’t really want it, the football you have to play is attritional, you cannot be ‘the protagonist’ and almost none of your players are good enough upon promotion. Any that are, the self-sustaining model can’t afford to keep. And certainly not for long enough to crack the strategic ice to the next level. Farke’s positional play methodology was demonstrably too good for the Championship, though only the preserve of the superior at the top level. In fact as @Rottingdean canary painfully - and sadly fairly - says, even the lower-mid table scrappers are miles better than us. So you you keep solving yesterday’s problems. You bring a pragmatic lower Prem style coach in to manage a team that doesn’t have the coherent swarming flair to be special in tier 2, though you do develop a team that looks a diluted version of low prem scrappers that just sees you embroiled in a lower league me-too bunfight. Now of course with no weapons and nobody at all good enough to compete at the top level. Nor do you have the money to ‘do a Fulham-Forest’ - and almost certainly nor should you - so how central really is that Annual Report driving ambition? Strangely, Webber did demonstrate the centrality of the ambition by sacking Farke. In many ways that was coherent with the stated objective. Though as @Barham Blitz and now @Rottingdean canary have shown, other plans, decisions and sporting approaches do not seem to adhere quite so stringently. I’m afraid We simply wouldn’t have made many of the decisions we have made if we had more money. A bit more access to cash, a little bit more wiggle room for weapons and ephemeral nexus point opportunities. We have got used to them coming around reasonably often. They don’t have to, do they @nutty nigel @ricardo? Parma

It will be a fan buyout so watch the shoplifting hit new heights in Liverpool.

Do you actually go down POW Road on a Friday night?🙃

What is there to negotiate? Russia has no entitlement to any Ukrainian territory whatsoever as basically if they did get any, it teaches that might makes right!

A club like Saints have been even more keen on selling their best players than us. Van Dijk, Mane, Bale, Shaw, Walcott etc. And they have had a very good youth system. So there will be periods when they suffer, understandably, and the directors need to accept that. The wealthy Liebherrs didn't exactly throw money at the club. So I don't see that he has done a bad job. Just one that was only going to end in tears.

Oh, it was carnage. There was tutting, fists being shook, raised voices and once there was a bin knocked over. Dark days my friend. Ones we don't want to return to.

We've all agreed that anyone that can keep a straight face while claiming MBB is remotely funny needs to be removed from the forum

Exactly this. The parallels between not helping Poland in WW2 and this look very similar. That wasn't one of Western Europe's finest moments of judgement, that one.

Buendia had 3 years left on his contract at the time of his sale. Sold to Villa in summer 2021. Signed deal with us until summer 2024.

Between the pair of you, I think that nails our State of the Nation. I do sense a corner has turned this season, ditching Webber's "we need to prepare for EPL and only use 4-3-3" with a false assumption that it would get us promoted, to a more pragmatic "let's just get promoted first" then try again over the close season to make minor amendments to the plan. And I do mean it that Webber has been driving the 4-3-3. Smith strikes me as a pragmatic bloke, I'm grateful he has finally had words with Stu and cleared the decks!

100% would take Ralf over Smith. Quality head coach. Natural leader. Good football. Lost his way a bit this season but that's what happens when a club consistently sells their best assets.

You can't deny it's peak PinkUn that a thread asking if fans are happy with the result on Saturday has led to an argument on the European Court of Human Rights view on smacking children.

I think it’s because theirs would have changed the game and levelled things so was more of a dramatic moment. Plus the fact the player was carded and the ref got some player/supporter stick all makes some lovely TV drama. I wouldn’t read to much into it, it’s TV, if our missed penalty opportunity is what stopped us winning the game or even losing it I suspect it would have been featured on the short highlights, especially if our players had reacted similarly. edit: Unless I’m mistaken our club highlights is missing their penalty shout isn’t it? In which case hilarious 😂

The first and third are, but the second and fourth make valid points.

I thought last week was half term

This is Episode 1 of alternate reality Norwich City- a Fifa story- the unrealistic re-rebuild! Set at the start of last season. This is a comedy for Norwich City fans, so I hope you can get a few laughs. 👍 EDIT: If you enjoy this please share with friends and/or subscribe to the channel.

I lost count of the amount of interceptions he made and movement off the ball to create room for other players, not to mention the goal he scored. I can see why people slate him but sometimes got to look at the bigger picture, two managers have regularly picked him now

Buendia is a key figure in the the State of the Nation, though some of the key elements are lost If we are not careful. Good players move on. Weapons are always desirable. Anybody any good always wants to move to Real Madrid and earn more money. Everyone. Every day. All the time. In modern football, with eye-watering sums of money available in the Premier League, nobody - literally nobody - sells their key weapon at the point of promotion. It doesn’t happen. It’s suicide for a number of reasons. Momentum is utterly, fundamentally important in football. There is huge collateral damage in the morale and belief of all of the remaining players. I can assure you that this was the case post-Buendia sale. It is very difficult to attract weapons and really good players to Norwich. Football is funny though, it only takes Guardiola to say ‘I love watching Norwich’ and your chances might go up 25%. Players across all clubs are forever talking about which clubs ‘are on the up’. We really were. Then we sold Buendia. And then we really weren’t. The narrative spins on a dime and the ‘feelings vultures’ circle. ‘Brave, fluid, highly-technical… positional play adherents’…outside bet’…..becomes ‘not trying’….’they don’t deserve promotion’…’Norwich never give it a go’….’whipping boys’ I can tell you now that players do not ignore that noise. It is the water cooler currency of footballers, and it was ever thus. Statutory accounts are generally about 18 months out of date (versus Live-feed Management Accounts). This is quite handy here because we don’t now have to guess, we can read the book. We have taken out advanced monies of around £66m, which has allowed us to remain within our financial limits-covenants-overdraft-access to cash. This means that we needed somebody to advance us cash to cover what we wanted to spend - were obliged to pay. This means we needed cash to conduct our affairs and - as an extension - to fund our purchases of Rashica-Tzolis-Sargent. Aston Villa not only paid a good price for Buendia, they structured the payments so we received a good amount of cash early on. So even to buy what we did-will now do, took a large £66m loan and the sale of Buendia and the cash from the deal weighted up front. But we did it because a player threw a tantrum? 🤣🤣🤣 Like they all do, every day, and have done since time immemorial? They are 22 year old boys earning £50k per week (they get double upon promotion upon bonuses), they have had to bite and scratch every minute of every day since they were 7 to get here. They have girls throwing themselves at them at every night club and bus stop. And what? They are a bit of an **** sometimes?…🤣🤣 Oh no, Quick get rid! ….you’d have a squad of about 3 (and they’d all be crap)….🤗 Any star player loves limelight, attention, a bit of drama, some success, the headlines. A bit like you get every week in the Premier League really. One goal, one assist, a bit of attention and the world is full of Buendia-tinted rainbows. At the point of maximum excitement and positivity for all. It is the timing that is so exceptional, not the event per se. Some context. I have seen really serious fights so often in training so many times. And been involved in several. In nearly every single case it was almost completely forgotten by all the next day. There are players who hate each other. There are players who are not at all ‘team’. Buendia was not like that. Other Players love weapons too. It is professional football. It is about success. And more money. And a big move. But not at the point of promotion. Ever. Smith would have made it a back-me-or-sack-me-moment. It’s a no win for a head coach. You’ll be gone in 12 games if you’re not careful. It would take £66m reasons for a club to do something like that. Parma

Not if you read/believe some of the stuff from Sheff U and Rotherham fans recently.

In Ipswich, no one can hear you scream.

We used to, twice a season.

Doing what they are doing is fine - money and appropriate weapons.

I'm getting confused now. Are you arguing that Buendia did or didn't want out or that we could or couldn't have kept him if we'd wanted to ?

He probably has to get away to ease his mind.

To quote an old Hagar the Horrible cartoon - "Why is the world full of old cynics ? Because cynics live longer ..."

Have said before that positionally he is just what we need even if physically he’s not quite up to speed yet. I think/hope the World Cup break comes at a good time for him. Only a little thing but what I liked a lot on Saturday was the way he read and intercepted opposition players trying to break away after our corners had been cleared on two or three occasions. He intercepted and stopped them in their own third of the pitch rather than them being allowed to run unchallenged for 50 yards as so often has happened in the recent past. It makes a big difference.

Cor! There's a lot of words on this page.

Agreed, that is down to poor recruitment, as you say, Rashica and Tzolis were supposed to be the solution, why however they persisted with 4-3-3 nearly 20 odd games without the personnel can only be down to dogma!

Tbh Essex this gets more tedious by the day. It's like this forum is your very own complaints desk. I get that you feel hard done by about the shares you bought in 2002. But you were not alone. And as far as I'm aware the associate directors have the means to get together to air their grievances. If the other associate directors aren't really bothered can I suggest the Football Ombudsman as a way forward?

Putin is looking for a Stalingrad mk2. Hopefully the Ukrainians don't fall into the trap.

It's probable that UAF might ignore Kherson and make a drive for the coast instead

Bit early in the week to be drinking at 10 in the morning?

Did you ?

This forum is just not an enjoyable place at the moment. Win, lose, draw it is the same arguments being gone through by the same posters with very little actual discussion about the football or relitigating old issues around Farke or Webber.

Pipe of pringles will suffice.

He never wanted to leave Everton and is very much on record as saying so. We just threw enough money at him to convince him eventually. I agree that he was excellent in that game but I suspect the opposition is what motivated him there.

I'm no Smith fan but if you are able to read the article linked in the OP - or more pertinently to one of those linked from it - there is quite a detailed account of how Hasenhuttl reacts when things go against him which would hardly be unexpected managing us in the Premiership. If you aren't an Athletic subscriber and can't or haven't read the articles then, as I stated in my response, I had thought Hasenhuttl had been doing a reasonable job in difficult circumstances with the implication that had he been interested (although I am with those suggesting that such a link isn't one that I remember and would be unlikely in the extreme) then he would have been an interesting candidate. However - and this is the key point here - having read some new information I would be potentially changing my opinion. Which I realise is an alien concept to some on here. If you both still think the same afterwards having read them both then fair enough. We can agree to disagree. Otherwise you are basically responding to half the post with Pavlovian Smith out responses. I might even agree with that, but it isn't really the point.

Yeah but Ashley kept getting hammered at matches. Oh wait....

Bullet dodged?! I'd have him over Smith in a heartbeat.

Ramsey is doing well for us, but I think comparisons with other players, e.g. Cantwell (no goals, no assists) are unfair. Cantwell is being asked to do a lot defensively, to pick up the ball and carry it forward, and also to create chances up front from midfield. Ramsey is playing much further forward, with fewer defensive duties, asked to do little of the 'water-carrying', and allowed to stay mostly near the opposition's penalty area to sniff around for scoring opportunities. It is not surprising that he is getting better figures than Cantwell in terms of goals and assists. This is not an anti-Ramsey post. He's doing well, but we should compare him with what other players might do in his role rather than those in completely different roles.

Suited and designed. That has been the way since we were last promoted. Sargent was surely signed to replace Pukki in the short to mid-term in that 4-3-3 because surely nobody could think that approach would get the best out of Teemu or indeed that Teemu would represent the optimum focal point for that approach. That he did as well as he managed is bordering on the miraculous. That he got the opportunity to is probably a testament to the collective failings of the new signings up front last season. My only surprise is that nobody has really come in for him in the last few years. He'd be a great signing for a Brighton or similar. I would actually be intrigued to know if Teemu could coach that sort of movement and decision making into a younger player like Sargent or if it is something more instinctive.

100% Pretty much live my life by that. Established early on that to be "normal" you had to "follow" some group at school etc. Why should what other people think determine my own path? Especially when the main choices always seemed to be "the cool kids" who went off in a big group to smoke out of sight or the "yes sir" kids who just got on with what they were told never questioning, never really having much curiosity. Make your own choices, don't be normal, be a floating voter, don't staple colours to a mast and refuse to move them. Constantly question, challenge if needed, listen to all, make your own mind up given the information available.

He brings egg on the face of short sighted "fans" like you.