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It really is. For a Championship side it is dreadful. In the last three years; Tzolis - £9.5 million Sara - £9 million Sargent - £8 million Gibson - £8 million Giannoulis - £6 million Gunn - £5 million McCallum - £3.5 million Nunez - £3.5 million Nunez would be the record transfer fee for Preston, Luton and Millwall. It's been five years since Sunderland spent more than £3 million on a player. It's been over two decades since Coventry have spent more than £2 million on a player. Blackburn have spent over £1 million on just one player in the last three years. Watford are in a similarly bad position to us in that they're struggling with a massively expensive squad for a Championship club, but at least they netted over £20 million profit in their summer transfer dealings, we forked out an eight-figure sum and sit just three points ahead of them. Burnley netted £30 million plus profit in their summer transfers and sit 30 points ahead of us. Webber could teach McNally a whole ****ing degree course on pissing money up the wall.

I’ve never known an away end just fall entirely silent as we did at the final whistle last night. No applause. Nothing. Fans just wearily trudged out of the ground in silence after another completely underwhelming game. We weren’t terrible, although there was the usual ridiculously bad defending for their goal. There was a spell after we equalised where you thought we were going to really take control of the game and win it. But then we made an error at the back, nearly conceded and lost all momentum. in the promotion seasons you always felt we would score late goals to win games like that. The fans knew we would and the players knew it too so they kept plugging away and more often than not we scored. This season is the polar opposite. They don’t have the belief or the desire or most of the time the creativity, not helped by some strange substitutions most games as well. it’s been a tough watch this season. Looking forward to the season ending if I’m honest.

Now I'm going to be the first to admit that we haven't bought well in recent seasons but there are some perfectly adequate players in the squad. It is just wildly unbalanced with some obvious and glaring gaps, no clear tactical direction since Farke and the playing squad is currently an unholy balance of three different approaches most of which are largely incompatible. For all the money we have spent, a quick glance at Transfer Market demonstrates that we are operating at a massive transfer surplus since 17/18 despite the additional Premiership income and bearing in mind the impact of COVID. So yes we have spent some money - a lot of money by our standards - but we have also generated a lot in sales over a longer period. The issue for me remains that last Premiership season additions in particular have all massively underperformed and the squad as a whole cannot seemingly be moulded into a coherent system. Which is an indictment of the SD model designed to avoid precisely this issue as well as a wage structure which apparently swallows any Premiership money faster than success - and net player sales across a wider period - can earn it. We need a clear tactical vision and a clear out of players unsuited to that vision. Of course that is not to say that the squad as a whole is good. It has gone backwards in the last 5-6 years and of the players we have bought very few - maybe Sara and Gunn (and technically Aaron's) will have have appreciated in value. Which considering the income generated and the fact that we apparently have nothing left in the kitty to rebuild is frankly embarrassing. But to look at how much we have spent (and I would agree largely wasted) without looking at overall net expenditure is only looking at half the story. It was the gamble last Premiership season which has cost us - betting the farm on promising but relatively expensive players to support a flawed tactical approach which has resulted in the careful building across five or six seasons to disintegrate into the mess we are currently experiencing. To compare us to other Championship team's expenditure is slightly disengenuous. We have operated in a different market to them for the last three seasons. The Burnley comparison is more apt and more damning however. We need to recoup whatever we can on the likes of Rashica and Tzolis and start building again towards a coherent system and squad to get us back to sustainably challenging in the championship, hopefully supported by the odd yo-yo foray into the Premiership but not dependent on it.

It is what it is Sonyc. But the blame game we've gone through this season you couldn't even make up. The final straw for me was the happiness that Kenny and Hanley had bad injuries. Hand on heart I believe we'd be in the top six this morning if they hadn't. It's not lost on me that missing these two so much is an indication of how poor this squad is. But like with the unwarranted criticism of Delia it's been totally unfair. Should Kenny get POTS? Probably, there's been no one better. Will he get it? Probably not.

On the other hand @sonyc if he is sacked we will miss out on the odd occasion when Angela Rayner stands in for KS and Rabb stands in for Sunak. It's a rare event but a joy to behold. He is absolutely terrified of her and she knows it. I suspect he's frightened of women in general. When it happens I drop the 5 o'clock alcohol rule, sit down with a glass of red and some Lindt chocolate and giggle my way through it. I should be slightly ashamed of myself but I'm not. He's a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work and he deserves it.

I have been to ten away games this season and fourteen last and can say i have never heard a conversation ' drawing attention to the absurdity of Stu's boss being his missus ' yet here you are at your first away game in three years and one of your Pinkun pet subjects was up for discussion amongst the away fans. How spooky is that ?

I have followed this team since the late 80s. And this is the single weirdest season I can remember. Emotionally if feels as bad as the year we fell into league 1…and yet we could yet sneak into the playoff adventure. Bonkers! Of course the main reason for our emotions is twofold; high expectations/realisation that we should be getting more bang for the buck, the fact most teams are awful too. Let’s be honest - most of the games have been drab and there is an obvious disconnect at present with the whole club from top to bottom feeling in transition… Bottom line: the performances don’t merit 10th let alone a playoff chance. This club is at a crossroads. The Farke era is over and parachute money about to go up in smoke. We have gone backwards rapidly. We have possible new owners in the wings who might change our fortunes but there is no guarantee of it. We have few saleable assets and too many average players on big wages. It really is all about what happens at the very top now. For years I have been saying the Smiths have held on too long and it is hampering us. This season those chickens really came home to roost…

Pretty much the same. I think she's been negligent putting so much trust and power in the hands of a married couple, but that doesn't mean I don't think she's been a brilliant custodian of this club. In an era of football where it is exceptionally difficult to achieve anything in the top two leagues of English football, we've witnessed a playoff final victory at Wembley and three Championship titles under her and her husband's watch. That we've pissed away the opportunities of the successes doesn't alter the fact that the successes came under her stewardship. Delia and MWJ have basically been playing Monopoly against people who start with more money and properties and beating a lot of them. The fact of that matter is though, if you're playing people who have hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane whilst your sat there with Pall Mall, the Electric Company and Fenchurch Station you can't realistically expect to reach the top table. Having said that, the same analogy rings true for why people are so frustrated this year. Because of parachute payments and our brief jaunts in the EPL, our wage budget and squad means that a significant chunk of the Championship can look at us as being the club holding serious property at the business end of the Monopoly board but we're being beaten by teams with much more meagre possessions.

Still love Delia, still love the club. It's been a poor season, we've had plenty in the past, and we'll have plenty more far worse than this.

I’ve just seen my first ever wild owl! A beautiful tawny flew past me, landed in a tree about 20 yards away and turned around for a square on view. I feel so privileged and a little emotional with that piece of good fortune.

Pretty sure a poor performance or result affects them far more than the average supporter. I think the problem is likely more related to an over-willingness to do well and put in a good performance, and it's weighing heavily on them the more we trip up. There's also no sense thinking that players put all those hours into training throughout the week, to not care for a much smaller period of 90 mins on matchday. They need support and belief, not accusations of not caring or trying. (IMO).

It's not at all the worst squad, in a decade and going back further people appear to forget the Roeder year and post that......we had some ****e even playing the ginger Pele up front as we didn't have a striker, Andy Hughes anyone! utterly rubbish. This team is absolutely devoid of confidence and has lost all focus, we still in touch of top 6 and so it's a blow not to get promoted but daft to be so dramatic, there are too many on here who started post 2000 when before that we drew a crowd of 13K and had some really poor teams.

Exactly. McLean is a decent Championship midfielder, he's proven that over three Championship seasons with us. But if he's going to be one of your top two or three players (or even your top one) then you're not getting promoted from the Championship. You need several players much better than him to be a promotion contender. I can't remember who was top 3 in the last title-winning season, but you'd put Buendia, Skipp, Pukki, Krul, Hanley, Gibson and Aarons ahead of him in any POTS award. Two years prior to that he only really came good towards the end of the season so you'd have Pukki, Hernandez, Zimmermann, Aarons, Stiepermann, Klose, Godfrey, Vrancic, Leitner, Tettey and Lewis all ahead of him. The fact that he will deservedly be in the top 3, and possibly win, POTS is a damning indictment on Webber's ability to assemble a competitive squad in the past two seasons.

Am going to use this much-appreciated annual opportunity to say a heartfelt thank you to @nutty nigel..🙏🏽🦮 ..I think we are lucky to have the opportunity to be part of the wonderful, rewarding adventure that is the pups 🦮…and it is thanks to Eddie ❤️ His continued commitment, dedication to the cause and sheer decency is hugely appreciated. It is appreciated because it allows us a moment or two per week to take a vaccine against individualism….it is not just about doing something kind for the boys and girls - it is about us gaining from the pleasure of thinking of others and actually doing something about it. @nutty nigel kindly provides the vehicle, all we have to do is ride along… …to our own benefit 🦮👏🙏🏽 Thank you 🙏🏽 Parma

Yes Grant Hanley is a stalwart for sure...not my favourite CB, but you can argue that we do look less assured at the back when he hasn't been playing. He wouldn't be in the Scotland team either had he not have been better than his contemporaries. Steve Clarke is no fool of a manager. We may not see him back for quite a while. As for Kenny, he had my vote. He clearly (in my eyes) has been like the captain nearly all the season. He has given it all. Just what my eyes have told me. Sara is the better player but he has been great for about half the season. Delia will stand down I think. Whatever all of the plusses and minuses of her time with us, the overall scorecard is in massive credit. I would bet nearly every club in the country might have wished for an owner like her. She will be remembered very well and its been a matter of pride for me that she has been our owner. But then I like the way she sees the world anyway...plus she sticks to what she believes.

Exactly. Nothing is ever one person's entire fault. Smith, like Wagner, like Farke in the PL and so on couldn't get it to work very well. There are so many variables and in a season you also have luck or you don't. You have a perfect team spirit or you don't. No one single team can expect to always be at the top. There is responsibility however and it rests mainly at the top table. As it does in any company all round the world. What will happen we wait to see. Change is afoot, a change of the guard...maybe that very fact might indicate a huge transition, an end of a cycle and our season is just a kind of microcosm of it all. Our expectations were higher at the start of our campaign...always a dangerous thing. Sometimes it is healthier to lower our expectations. I'm neither being apologist to the present set up or team or manager nor am I uncritical. We can always look forward to new ownership as an opportunity for change, a new team and a new season. No point in losing too much sleep on something completely out of our control.

i think it is the most expensive thats what is the real lump in the throat , if we had these players and bought them for cheap money then nobody could complain but the money that has been wasted to build this squad is unbelievable

What had Farke and Lambert achieved before coming here? Sometimes you have to judge an up-and-coming coach on their potential and individual merits when considering what they could bring to a role, and not just what they've achieved, otherwise the same old faces on the managerial merry-go-round will just keep coming back over and over again. Martin has a clear philosophy, seems a good man-manager and is someone who would trust and develop young players. Even aside from the Norwich connection, he was my first choice in January and I think he'd be an excellent choice here when the vacancy next arises.

The ONLY reason anyone wants Russel Martin is because he played here and not because of his managerial record. It would be a real symptom of all that has been wrong with this club- cosy little Norwich syndrome- to appoint him until he has actually achieved something in his work as a manager not a past player.

They’ve not done a good job. They’ve squandered every opportunity we’ve had due to their obsession with keeping control of the club.

It is not even speculation. It is an infantile accusation with nothing to support it motivated purely by an animus against Delia Smith. There is no evidence there is an unexpected delay. Takeovers are often long drawn out affairs. But as you indicate, if anyone was holding things up it would be more likely to be Attanasio.

Something has to give to stop the wage spiral where we see journeyman players and completely unproven youngsters or loan players earning £50,000 a week in the Championship. It isn't the system of payments that's wrong, it's the incompetence of those employed by football clubs who themselves earn millions for doing very little. Our club should be absolutely loaded after our last 4 years - the fact that we're not is down to simple mis-management of resources. If we had any scrutiny at Board level it would help, but we don't. Hopefully, Attanasio coming in will change everything.

Unless there is something in the Hallam report that the BBC missed it looks like a very poor analysis and Parry is just making another grab at EPL cash. The gap between the EPL and EFL is enormous and that probably explains the success of the relegated clubs as much as anything. Without parachute payments no promoted club would be able to fund the contract commitments and that gap would be larger, rather than smaller. Would be better if the EFL got their act in order and worked up a package for the Champs, maybe starting by reducing the size to 20 clubs.

For me this squad has to go down as the worst Norwich squad in a decade. Even with previous mid table finishes we had exciting talents like Hoolahan, Huckerby and Maddison. I can’t remember watching a Norwich side so devoid of quality since we got relegated under Gunn.

Just because you've put your hazard lights on doesn't mean you're OK to park wherever you want. Similarly just because you can fit your whole car on the pavement/verge it doesn't mean the yellow lines on the actual road don't exist. Bellends.

I have an infants school round the corner, mothers park as close as they possibly can, including across residents drives so their little darlings don’t have to walk more than 20 yards 😡

His track record with the Brewers over the last 10 years or so on the sporting side has been terrific though. They've consistently outperformed their payroll relative to the rest of the league. He might not sign off cheques which makes him lose boatloads of money but the Brewers are easily one of the smallest teams in baseball yet their payroll is roughly league average.

I have to admit I was rather sanguine - too sanguine in retrospect - about the injuries to Gibson & Hanley. Kenny i always thought was a real miss. My feelings about losing our 2 CBs were that they are both rather cumbersome & not suited to our preference for playing out from the back, so Jacob & AndyO had potential to improve us. However I must say I think the lack of experience, both in working in partnership & in general, has made things worse. I'm not sure CB is one of Lunghi's stronger suits anyway, & I'd have preferred Byram yesterday; when fit he's still a very good player.

Because why not, let's have a little comparison 1 D Marshall = Gunn - Probably not a lot in this one, both good shot toppers, Gunn has pretty good distribution which probably edges it 2 J Otsemobor < Max Aarons - Max every time 4 J Shackell = Andy Omo - Probably not a lot in this 12 G Doherty > Sorensen - in midfield he's better, but I'd rather have ol' Gary 21 R Bertrand > McCallum/Dimi - Arguably Bertrand is better than either of our LBs 7 L Croft > Marquinhos - Crofty probably wins this one, at least you knew he was on the pitch 8 S Clingan < Sara - Sara is a baller, our best player this season by a country mile 20 D Russell = Hayden - honestly, haven't seen enough from Hayden to suggest he's better than Russell or Clingan. 17 A Gow < Hernandez - Onel every day of the week 23 A Lee < Gibbs - Gibbs has plenty to learn but is showing enough 18 D Mooney < Sargent - I think Sargent edges it, but worth pointing out that Mooney scored 3 in 9, a much better return than Sargents Substitutes 25 S Nelson > Byram - The Admiral might not have had the ability, but he had leadership and passion 19 S Lappin > McCallum - king of spain every day of the week! 27 C McDonald = Idah - really is there much difference between these two? Run a lot and not do a lot else looking very much out of their depth! 22 A Leijer 30 K Smith = Tzolis - honestly, Korey could probably edge this So overall, worryingly, there's a number of scary similarities.

We call the mute button the Shearer button in our house.

It was a very good thread and devoid of nonsense, I understand the frustrations but there are 100 other threads with anti board feelings why bring it onto this one! I hope that as soon as the season is done we see movement on the investment / takeover front, it would be nice to go into the summer without boardroom issues so we can focus on the football cone July.

Which Smith?

I have equal amount of "love" (if you want to call it that) for the football of the late 80's and early 90's, with Stringer, Williams and Walker. That football was beautiful and instinctive and at least as good as what Farke did at his best, if not better. So it is less about the personality than the football those people brought with them. Farke had a style, it worked up to the limits of what we could afford in players - and the stupidity of throwing that away, with no sense of continuity of footballing style in the football that followed was unbelievable, against what Webber said he would do. When Stringer stepped down, we had a ready made replacement in Walker and he took us on to a higher level still. How Webber expected Smith to do that after Farke, is unfathomable. Martin is trying something at Swansea that many of their supporters will empathize with - under Rogers, they became known as Swansalona - and they went away from that, but under Martin are getting back to that style. He could do that at Norwich, but I fear it would turn sour before it got anywhere, as our supporters seem to want instant gratrification - as seen under Farke, who was clearly trying to create something similar at Norwich and took a season and a half for it to start to flourish. If Martin returned to us as manager, there would imo be too many dissenters who didn't rate him when he was here last time and would start noising off if it didn't work straight away - it would split the fanbase. Yes, I still hanker after the Farke era, I can't help it, he should have been allowed to create a dynasty over ten years or more, whatever the ups and downs. Those fans that were calling for Farke's sacking got what they wanted - and all that has happened is that we got worse. Great.

I actually have Jools down as a victim of the Brexit mythology. He's just a typical evangelical 'made' again' believer that has suspended all higher intellectual functions to question the nonsense that he religiously feeds upon, and re-posts. It's for him simply a cult.

Can we smash the £4,000 barrier this weekend?? Inverness v DUNDEE - AWAY WIN in the Scottish Championship For the City game, Joel Piroe to score anytime Good luck Parma and Wacky Leedscanary

There was a hell of a lot of propaganda (that's what it was) on the Pinkun Brexit thread. It was appalling (recall Bill used to take on a role of championing the other side). I largely stayed out of it because it was manic. Paul Moy and Jools were two protagonists. The former especially. After Brexit was successful for him he disappeared. He had achieved his purpose. Jools the same and he was mostly a Luton fan. These folk possibly were on loads of forums (fora?) spending time messaging. Getting in amongst a community and agitating. The same folk were talking of Trump in glowing terms. There a few themes that indicate propaganda: * Simplifying something between good and bad. Friend and foe. It brings up a position of confrontation. The fact is that nothing in life is SO polar. * The opposing side gets discredited and smeared. It is parodied beyond measure. So we get silly words used for remain voters. Rejoiniac etc. Anything to rubbish. You see it still in threads calling people lefties and so on. * People get manipulated - through an appeal to common consensus values - things most of us would agree with. I used to get that playing golf with a Brexiter "ah but, if I was to say this then what would you think S?" Of course, you would have to agree. But that wasn't the important point. It was a side tactic. * The use of star performers to champion a point of view (Farage was seen as one of those) - presenting a particular viewpoint so that it must represent the natural thing to think. A degree of social pressure is applied. Any normal thinking person should therefore have to believe it. It is a form of contagion. * And the same messages are relentlessly made, time and again...the same points made in different combinations. There was a similar version of the above used when Dean Smith was a manager. You get one or strong minded folk making constant criticism. Whatever the wrongs and rights it is posted as an absolute. Sometimes humour is used as a side tactic (humour is often a defence, a great one too). It affects the opinions of some others and after a while you get a form of contagion. Bingo, the psychological change has been made. An influence has been made. I believe, though cannot say for certain, that's what happened for some in their support for Brexit. The remain side was weak in comparison to the sheer 'us and them' narrative. Nothing changes does it? People dislike other people, especially when they are different to them.

What you both actually show is the general level of intelligence and/or gullibility of the general population at large. Many of us, let us say in more professional or educated roles, assume wrongly that people can easily see through such scams or have basic numeracy skills but of course history and lived reality proves otherwise. Frankly, many of the Brexiteers false promises were successful because they recognized this very fact and simply then preyed upon their victims naivety in much the same way any internet fraudster does. Misleading, mal-information as technical jargon then simply reinforces peoples misplaced beliefs. Sell them what they want to hear is the mantra of any snake-oil salesman. Lastly, of course such victims can then be very reluctant to admit they've been taken in and 'done' over. Sadly, some are still trying to peddle the myths.

Odd that it may seem, I have a life outside football and could not follow the match apart from checking the final score and focus on it until this morning. For what it's worth, yes, I think that was our final chance of getting into the play offs blown. Simply failed to win too many matches we really should have done given the quality of the players we have. Wagner has failed where Alex Neil succeeded by coming into the season part the way through and not kicking us on enough. I don't fully blame Wagner, I think the problems are varied, but he has not looked to know how to get the best out of the players, apart from that initial golden two or three weeks when he first arrived. Alex Neil took the squad by the scruff of the neck and got them performing no nonsense football when he came in that season and we probably needed someone like him rather than Wagner. Even someone like Warnock would have got a tune out of the players imo. Wagner, as said elsewhere, probably needs a whole season with some new players and a good pre-season to instill his principles. So yes, that looks it to me for this season, still technically possible, but three wins to give us 71 points will not be enough and even if it was, we don't deserve it......and we won't look as if we can win one game, let alone 3 games in a row now.

This is a great post, Deano, and I agree with everything other than the last paragraph. We'll never know what (if any) opportunities were on the table before Mark Attanasio came on the scene. While we could clearly have used that investment a few years ago, I've actually really enjoyed the 'self-funding' model, and those two Championship titles. That model has clearly run its course now, and it's time for a new direction. But overall this is an excellent analysis of where we find ourselves as a club. It does feel as if it's been a really poor Championship this season, Burnley aside, and the standard of football we've seen has been generally very poor. Although maybe the Championship was equally crap when we won our two titles, and it was just our quality that enabled us to rise to the top playing Farkeball...

Not saying I would necessarily support R Martin returning as manager but I suspect you will see the reason why he might be on Saturday when comparing the respective merits of both teams.

I am a righty Jools, even if I will be casting a vote to the left or centre to help get rid of my current MP. The replacement nurses and doctors are coming over from India, Africa and the America’s, whilst British nurses and doctors are leaving the NHS to work in Australia, New Zealand and Dubai. Those that aren’t are moving to agency, where they can work a 37.5 hour week instead of 80 hours and earn more. Anyway I thought there wasn’t anyone coming over on boats anymore, and those that were, were well under lock and key awaiting their free ride to Rwanda.

Complete silence in the away end at the final whistle tonight. We are done. This side doesn’t have the heart. This manager doesn’t have the nous (taking off Onel and leaving on Sarg was riduculous). That was a game we needed to win against a crap side but after dominating the early stages of the second half we retreated into our shells after yet another idiotic playing out from the back error that did not cost us a goal but killed all momentum. Webber is a complete fraud and must go.

Who gives a shîte about Luton?

That's not fair. Hoggy's MO is to deify anyone at the club until such point the club decides they are no longer needed. Then all of a sudden it's the replacement who is deified and 100% the right person for the job.

He’ll have Hoggy hanging on to his waist as he leaves Carrow Road for the last time crying.

Heard that he's off in the summer. Handing over to Adams, with an assistant joining. All part of the American takeover.

On what evidence? Wagner has a record of Championship promotion and Premier League survival just like Smith. Both can be considered to have superior track records as managers in English football than Farke. Smith outperformed Farke with the same squad last season and Smith has outperformed Wagner this season with the same squad, minus Ramsey, who was here because of Smith. Be refreshing to hear some fans show a bit of humility and admit they derailed us this season if promotion was more important than 'getting are club back' after all.

I suppose this does at least make a change from the shop-soiled accusation that Delia was somehow - unbeknownst to the expert outside accountants - stealing money from the club.

Michael Bailey is surely our most respected local football journalist and i have no reason to doubt what he has said. Webber needs to be gone from this club ASAP !