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I knew some of our fans were pathetic. I knew some of them were weak and spent the past 6 months idolising Ipswich and predicting a thrashing. I didnt know they were that low, despicable specimens of human beings that rather than agree that the behaviour of rival football fans towards an elderly couple was wrong, they'd rather try and blame the elderly couple for "going against police instruction" with absolute zero evidence. Very little surprises me with some of the characters on this forum but this is a new low from some. I've seen much stronger condemnation of what happened from Ipswich fans themselves than some of the made up rhetoric on here from people claiming they're Norwich fans.

I’m sorry but I’m with Delia on this, just because Ed Sheeran put something out on his socials doesn’t make it ok. Ipswich should have already done something and let’s be honest it doesn’t have to be much just a canned statement about a few idiots would have sufficed

There is no need for revisionism or hindsightism to answer this for you @Morph…. 1. I never thought we would stay up 2. I did not want us to spend hard-earned and rarely-obtained funds on such an objective 3. I do not believe it should have been the Board’s overriding objective (behind closed doors, agree @Don J Demorr ?) 4. We had a historically successful period under Farke 5. We were entertained and understood the philosophy and were proud of it and associated it with our inherent-instinctive culture under Farke 6. We adopted positional play methodology throughout the club under Farke. This is a huge time and ‘philosophical’ teaching investment 7. We sacked Farke after 10 games and 3 months at the top level. 8. We did not replace like with like and brought in a different playing philosophy and coaching approach. 9. We sold out the stadium in the third division 10. We didn’t have any investor money. Our self-sustaining model was just a corporate definition of a financial reality 11. Almost no clubs survive perennially in the top tier 12. Average wages and running costs are astronomical at the top level, which is virtually the ‘world league’. 13. The disparity between the top tier and second tier in both a sporting competitive sense and average player standards is orders of magnitude different In my view Farke did not fail at the top level. The club (and its financial constraints) failed at the top level. We were forced into contorted artificial compromises as a result of essentially non-sporting factors. Given all of the above - which is consistently referred to, acknowledged, accepted on this thread and the previous Tactics Masterclasses going back years - it makes zero sense to me to plan (at senior board level) for survival. At no point will my players or managers have any actual or tacit sense of this, nor does it mean that we actively endeavor not to get promoted or stay there, though we must act according to the odds as are available to us. a. Increasing the size of the squad - almost trying to run-fund-curate two similar level teams - was a very, very odd decision. It is far more that that we are paying for now, than even paying Gibson too much. ‘Do the math’ b. Selling any weapons you might have lucked out on is an absolute last resort at any time. Lie, cheat, borrow, cajole, bribe, influence whatever you can, however you can, to avoid this. c. Selling goalscorers (or negating their particular catalyst) is a second last resort d. Footballers always moan. They always want to move to Real Madrid. They have a very strong street sense for which way the wind is blowing. Learn from Alex Ferguson: have myriads of whisperers, spotters, influencers, spies and perfume sellers to keep things smelling good or talking about jam tomorrow. Selling your only weapon and negating your goal scorer at the point of promotion after promising to come back stronger is psychological football suicide. e. We can’t buy or attract players good enough for the top level and we never could. Even if we could afford it they wouldn’t come. It is so easy to swallow football stories about a player ‘who Man Utd looked at’. They just confirmed they looked at 800 right backs before buying Wan-Bissaka (yes I know..insert joke here). Anyway the point stands. These are the horrible realpolitik look-it-in-the-eye calculations and decisions that @Don J Demorr consistently implores all to make. And that football fans - and it seems even coaches and sporting directors - just can’t emotionally separate themselves from. As he wisely said, far too much of ‘something must be done…and this is something!’ No, no, no. I liked our first Premier season ‘do nothing’ approach. I liked the idea of trying to get high quality loans. Temporary high cost. Low back end risk. It didn’t work, but absolutely fine. Logical. Based on the calculated odds. Though again this comes back to mis-identification of ‘good players’ when only awkward weapons are worth anything for us at the top level. In the second tier we can be better. We can set up to be better. At the top level you can’t. You aren’t better. Almost ever. But…and this is the big but…it doesn’t mean throw your style and philosophy away. It doesn’t have to mean a prosaic, negating style completely anathema to everything you have done and taught and learned for years. Just try to get a weapon. Anyhow. Anyway. A Defoe, a Crouch, a Buendia-plus-Pukki….……then simply accept it often won’t work anyway. Because it often won’t. It can’t. Whatever you do. They are better than you. The odds are more in their favor than yours. Trying to smooth out the peaks and being a-big-squad-of-less-bad achieves nothing. This is what we did second time around. Spent a fortune on a massive squad that was less bad and trotsdem never hurt anybody. Of course it didn’t. No weapons. Where the top level is different to the second tier - and where we have a willo-the-wisp of a chance - is that nobody wins many games. You need to win 9 or 10. So just think about these. Have a weaponised system that might win some games. It won’t be regularly competitive. It will be flawed. It will take some heavy beatings. But it will occasionally hurt someone with what it can do. Throw everything at this. Risk injuries, dissatisfaction, frustrations on canary call on a Saturday evening, criticism…just keep a threat. Always keep a threat. Even brilliant boxers don’t like getting punched in the face, even occasionally. Re-arrange your all your financial, sporting, strategic, operational deck chairs in advance with only this in mind. Only this. At all costs. And if you can’t, don’t. I hate a passive do nothing. But an active do nothing can be a brilliant decision. Parma

Evolution not revolution. Tweaking was certainly called for after two failures, but ditching Farke for Smith was revolution. It meant going from a coach who minutely coached all activity, including all tactical in-game decisions on the pitch, to one who admitted in interview he just coached players to make their own decisions and had no say in what happened once they crossed the white line! Too much change in too short a time.

I think that would be a big part of it but there would other admissions necessary as well, such as that the PO's investigations into the discrepancies which they used to destroy the postmasters' livelihoods and in many cases gain criminal convictions and imprison them were totally bogus - that was the the PO's responsibility not Fujitsu's. What I don't understand is why the police are, as usual when establishment figures are involved, still twiddling their thumbs when it was made clear by the High Court years ago that multiple senior Post Office managers should be prosecuted for criminal offences.

Mmmmm, well @Don J Demorr I am not so sure. It depends what you mean by "football person". Traditionally this was an ex-pro who had been in the business from a playing perspective. Increasingly our Universities are churning out hundreds of bright new sports scientists. Not "football people", but academically trained. Webber's failure is rooted in the fact he was too much in the former camp and not enough in the latter. He paniced off the back of Covid and faced with another car crash EPL season. In part he became a lightening rod for fan discontent, tore up what had been a successful model and we saw the result. The club needs continuity if it is to be successful. The alternative is to keep churning through head coaches, managers, sporting directors, playing styles, identities, models and projects in the hope of another Lambert, or another Farke. To do this we need a separation of accountabilities. We need proper business management, but proper football management as well. Business can set the financial envelope. football can spend it. That needs someone from the latter camp, but a proper Director of Football capable of operating at board level. They should set the ideology while delegating to others to deliver. They should here for the long run and near invisible (which is why I am encouraged by Knapper's low profile) rather than stroking the bellys of needy fans calling for better coms. It should be possible to change players, coaches, managers, sporting directors, back room staff etc without changing the ideology so to maintain a performance culture. It needs to be able to cope with relegations and losing streaks without needing to rip it up and start again.

Thanks for all the suggestions! Best just to put £1 on each of them, so, Nutty, I will send you an extra £10. 2-0. 3-1. 3-0. Idah two or more goals. Idah first goalscorer. Idah anytime goalscorer. Idah hat-trick. Gibbs two or more goals. Hwang anytime goalscorer. Hernandez anytime goalscorer. Gibbs and Placheta both anytime goalscorers. Sargent to score with a header. NCFC win and BTTS Yes. NCFC win and BTTS No. BTTS Yes. HT/FT Draw/NCFC win. NCFC + 2.5 goals. NCFC win both halves, +7 corners, and NCFC +2 goals. BTTS Yes, NCFC win, +2.5 goals, and +7 corners. Red card in the game.

Easy questions @Don J Demorr, the clubs fans 1) want to win football matches and trophies and the more they win the more they will want to win. The club fans 2) need the club to be there, to provide a sense of identity, belonging, emotional connection and meaning to their proverbial Saturday afternoons e.g. the very tip of Maslow's hierarchy

I thought this would be a wives and girlfriends related story. A bit disappointed really.

Martin would be a good signing and a great mentor for young Duffy and Barnes.

The reaction to this is a sad reflection of the whole narrative around this fixture. First we had the constant pantwetting about how we were going to get hammered and the binners would have their day. And now somehow a supporter of over 70 years standing is at fault for the binners disgraceful behaviour. I wouldn't have wanted to go behind enemy lines with any of you back in the day...

Indeed they (reportedly) were - but let’s not let that get in the way of a good stick to beat them with.

Ok , here we go. Thanks for all your picks Pups. You should have another tenner for a second set Nutty. WEST BROM v Aldershot INTER MILAN v Verona NORTH BANGKOK UNI v Samat Prakan CESENA v Olbia GALTASARAY v Konyaspor STENHOUSEMUIR v Forfar And Salernitana v JUVENTUS SLIEMA WANDERERS v Gudjo Arounca v BENFICA CHESTER v Rushall WEST HAM v Bristol City CHELSEA v Preston Fingers crossed !!

Ipswich should've distanced themselves from the fans at the time Even Liverpool do that when their fans repeatedly behave like twats. Now she's just bought it all up again. Hopefully it will have been forgotten about by the return fixture and we don't see our fans out for revenge. I'm saddened I saw the clubs major shareholder wasted at the AGM describing people with a difference of opinion to her as whiney and then weeks later half cut again drapped off Ed sheeran but I don't expect an apology.

Agree with Delia. Any self respecting club would have apologised even if privately But watching the CEO feller kissing the person in the wheelchair on the head like a lunatic priest anointing the infirm , class is not top of their agenda.

Never had the proverbial yard of pace to lose so can probably keep going indefinitely ... I was a big fan of his back in the day though - and actually thought he was a bit underused towards the end of his time here. We seemed to ditch him for - presumably the greater mobility and workrate of - Steve Morison pretty unceremoniously when I thought he might actually be quite a useful player that first Premier season under Lambert. Whenever I've seen him in recent seasons he still has the touch but has definitely descended into one of those Sharp-elbowed Grumpy Senior pros. Whoever is marking him won't have to run far, but they'll definitely know they've been in a game.

Absolutely this. By all means tweak tactics to reflect the realities of the division that we are in, but those tweaks have to accommodate the various (and likely) outcomes involved. What we don't do - unless perhaps we are attempting to secure our short term legacy ...😉- is gamble the farm on players to fit a new system (especially if they don't actually fit that system - and / or the system doesn't work anyway) and in particular if those players have no intention of staying beyond a likely relegation which will adversely affect their resale value, either through underperformance or the discount that seems to be applied for wantaway players. We certainly don't flip flop between systems for which different types of players are required because if the system "required" to stay in the Premier League is then incompatible with or negates the system on which our strengths at the level below is based, then basic maths will highlight the double whammy as we have to move on players who will in all likelihood have depreciated in value and replace them. Or - as we've seen - end up less likely to bounce back. And even relegation clauses won't mask the fact that you end up overpaying in the Championship for players that have had Premiership wages and can't move them on as a result. As has been highlighted, there is a difference between what gets you up and what (may) keep you up. But even throwing five times the budget that we have historically been able to afford at the issue offers no guarantees, so there has to be some notion of what comes after. Which is why I'm not an advocate of tearing up the possession blueprint and throwing all our eggs in the low block gegenpressing basket to stay in a division that we aren't even in, given that it makes it more difficult to get there in the first place and more difficult to get back once the reality of financial gravity takes hold. Plus it makes the whole experience just that little bit less fun.

Personally I'm not convinced about the idea of gradually getting better relegation after relegation. Footballers careers are short. Convincing talented players that we might be able to stay up in 4 years isn't going to keep anyone here and then you end up hoping you can beat the odds and keep signing players for £5m who are actually worth £35m.

Well up to £40k a week and Saturdays off for a 34 Yr old I don't think I'd be too bothered either.

I agree, but that wasn’t the point I was making (albeit clumsily). I think Webber was right to try and change the style of play, I just don’t think he did it very well. However many on here criticise him for not having continuity and continuing the Farke style of football even though it had been an abject failure in the top flight. They were criticising the club for a lack of ambition, and also criticising the club for not being happy with the status quo. In my opinion you’re better off trying to get promoted with a style of football that has more chance of surviving in the top flight then just improving the quality of players once you’re there, rather than playing pretty football to get promoted then having to completely alter your tactics and personnel over the close season

Worth all remembering that - like it or not - the football is the business. We are buying and selling expensive human widgets. The rest is fluff and small beans in context. Indeed the small beans are trotsdem affected by the feel and emotionally-invested success of the widgets - and might well barely exist or be profitable without the widgets. These widgets can be acquired for next-to-nothing and sold for £35m. Or lots of pointless, poorly-judged widgets can be bought for £10m, cost millions more in running costs, then ushered away for free. Director of Football and Director of Business therefore cannot and should not be completely separated. If they are, one is running the canteen and the other has his or her hands on everything. Parma

It was one of the most moving yet horrendous factual pieces of TV production I've seen. Riveting from the first minute to the last just a few moments ago. Scandalous how the wheels of 'justice' (that's a joke!) have grinded forward so slowly over the years yet seemingly not a single person responsible for this outrage within The Post Office has (so far) been punished. Jo Hamilton in particular was (and is) absolutely outstanding in her campaign to prove her innocence and the innocence of hundreds of others.

The issue and catch-22 of the situation you are right, you probably can’t be successful playing that way on promotion because the required level to reach is just to far. We played like Farkes team in that first championship season at times, like a team still working out the basics. The PL is far too ruthless to let you do that and avoid relegation. However I would suggest an alternative, you might not be successful first time, but maybe second or third if you can maintain the yo-yo while continuing to progress the same setup. I thought that’s what we were doing. Then Webber sold Buendia and tore it all up in a fools gamble.

No, not specifically aimed at you. My issue is with some desperate to somehow try and make it Delias fault as if she wanted to drive through all the Ipswich fans drunk with flares and cans of beer in her 80s. That is far more ridiculous than the suggestion that the police messed up, which they do regularly. If the police didn't want them down there couldn't they have easily stopped them 100m away? Looks like an obvious police-being-thick situation which would hardly be unique!

You wouldn’t be in the trenches, that’s for sure. You’d be chief boot licker in the executive vehicle.

When we were direct but good with the ball too. Love these matches from the archives.

According to Mick Dennis so i wonder what his source for that was ? Glad you said reportedly because do you seriously believe that they would be told to follow the Scum team bus as opposed to the City team coach that somehow managed to get to the ground without incident ?

Oh the irony!

I dunno think it's fair enough, binners need to take responsibility for the yokels and should have apologised from the get go

Bit concerning seeing Andy Hughes doing coaching sessions, wasn't exactly a magical footballer was he.

This is such a challenging and fascinating thread; so many well thought out, heartfelt and convincingly expressed opinions and insights. If you will allow me, I’d like to join in again with what I hope will be useful input from a different perspective (which is knowing little or nothing about football except what you all have allowed me to know). Firstly @Parma Ham's gone mouldy - Much as I love Delia, the proudly worn self-pinned badge of ‘We let the Managers manage’ was always a flawed, ill-conceived concept …. Oh my goodness, this is so right. Let’s look at some basic legal and logical requirements of the organisation and management of a corporate entity. 1. In any such enterprise the legal responsibility for all outcomes lies with the Board Of Directors. 2. If the enterprise has shareholders the Board has operating responsibility to the shareholders for profits losses and dividends. The understanding of these basics depends on some definitions. 1. The Board has legal Responsibility 2. The Board has the Power to carry out these responsibilities The axiom is that you can always assign Power but you cannot ever assign Responsibility. If the Board gives people power the responsibility for their action goes with it, but the the responsibility goes straight back to the Board – it does not transfer independently. If indeed the Majority Shareholder has said ‘We let the Managers manage ’ that person is not acting properly as a member of a Board of Directors. It would be interesting to know whether that was ever formally agreed by the Board. If not, it cannot be a proper Company Policy. If the company is being operated outside an agreed policy it is not only the major shareholder who is in dereliction of duty. If it is true as alleged that the major shareholder has advised an employee that his position is in her hands then the power to make this decision is taken from not only (maybe) the Director of Football, but also from the Board. This is not really ‘We let the Managers manage’ is it? @PurpleCanary- Unlike many clubs who use the title but don't allow the person to have the full responsibilities we have had such, in Webber, and by all accounts Knapper is too, with his hands on all the appropriate levers. But I agree that it should be a board position. I find it utterly astonishing that it ever was otherwise - Don . @BigFish It depends what you mean by "football person". Traditionally this was an ex-pro who had been in the business from a playing perspective. Increasingly our Universities are churning out hundreds of bright new sports scientists. Not "football people", but academically trained. Webber's failure is rooted in the fact he was too much in the former camp and not enough in the latter. That needs someone from the latter camp, but a proper Director of Football capable of operating at board level. They should set the ideology while delegating to others to deliver. Amen to that, @BF except that, as above, I am not at all convinced that Stuart Webber the one to fail. He was given power to act by the Board. If he acted ultra vires he should have been disciplined or dismissed. If he was acting with the knowledge and agreement of the Board of Directors then he was in no way at fault. I should imagine he was very fed up, though. Best to all, as ever Don

Gonna stick up for Hwang here also. I think that he's been getting better and better of late. Unfortunately he's reduced to feeding off scraps

It's such a farce, they may as well just have 3 judges sat by the pitch like X Factor and push their buttons in response to the replay on big screen. Someone to play the Simon Cowell villain, of course. Then, add in WWE style entrances for the match officials pre-match so they still get the attention they crave. It'd probably still be quicker and as (in)consistent as the current system, but at least we'd get a good laugh out of it.

The English language obviously isn't one of sarahjbakes9's strong points. How does “We don’t want a rematch." become 'Happy to take a draw". You know what Delia said about our supporters? Maybe she has a point.

I love this post for many reasons, but these two lines in particular - to choose two random values just plucked out of thin air and absolutely not referencing any transfer activity of the relatively recent past ... In my line of work, when we are resourcing a contract we have to consider various potentialities across the duration of that contract - what happens if things don't go entirely according to plan, either positively or negatively - and so plan various entry and exit strategies to minimise risk and maximise the value that can be derived from the deployment of these resources. Given the money spent on the likes of Rashica and Tzolis - and indeed latterly Forshaw, Batth and Duffy - I'm really not sure that is the case with some of our recruitment decisions, even accounting for relegation release clauses. Which given the likelihood - despite even our best efforts in terms of planning - of the negative outcome, seems somewhat negligent. Three teams get relegated very year after all, even if all 20 plan flawlessly. Perhaps, if a former Sporting Director is reading this, particularly one who has previously acquired a widget for next to nothing and sold it for say £35m, one might append a small disclaimer to any subsequent transfer decisions along the lines of "past performance does not guarantee future results." What is the plan if the plan doesn't go according to plan ... ?

Indeed and those club’s similar to us who have become successful at buying low and selling big like Leicester, Brighton & Brentford have all built from very basic starts with good investment initially. Moved to new facilities and now reap the reward of buying at decent prices but sell for good profit. You can add Southampton to that list! Burnley & Stoke survived for a period at top level, but not really with that big transfers. Note that all have or will have some success and all will come down, only clubs with mega money are safe and they are the ones generating the massive fees! Not all clubs can become successful by just buying cheap and selling on as the market isn’t there! There must be investment behind it and the structure constantly moved forwards, Leicester expansion coming up! We have tried to be a self sustaining club but it’s not really viable, like I said those clubs I link all still have poor seasons! Just the nature of the game! As Nutty says we can’t all be a top 6 club, there’s a level we should be happy to be at and sustain, ambition is an evil expense which can bankrupt many a club!

Well yes. @fen canary, I am suggesting that Webber should have maintained the the same approach during the window ahead of our last EPL season on the basis that it was already too late to change, one window is not enough to turn round something like this. Which is why your last paragraph is bang on the money, we need to go up playing the type of football that enables us to stay up. As for the criticism, lets face it many fans, but not on this thread of course 🙂 are idiots. Ambition is largely spending money we don't have on players we can't afford. We need a system where someone is planning 4 windows ahead, that survives relegation and that focuses on performance improvement that is achievable not magical thinking. That includes succession planning. Smith was a mistake, we should have been able to replace Farke with a head coach to deliver within ideology, not a new ideology. It is probably not a coincidence that our most successful period coincided with a series of internal management appointments. If all this means we yo-yo, so be it. That might be the best we can expect. As we see from last season and this one there are worse positions to be in.

I'm still trying to get my head around this double-negative. One time I see it as "We could do worse", which reverses both negatives, and then I re-read it and see it as "He is the worst." I should have taken that offer to go to a Grammar School when I passed my 11+.

There were a lot of Luton fans in the River End that day. I was 11 and it was my first experience of visiting fans at Carrow Road. PS where do Canaries take their birds? Times have changed

You don’t get to see much Cup football then ?

Just heard on the radio that Oscar Pestorious is going to have to wear a tag on his ankle. Not being rude, but how is that going to work?

Delia gets her wish, 20% stay at home and the 80% sit there in silence

I have to confess that I'm only going to see Josh Sargent and Chris Martin. Hope Martin gets a decent reception, he's one of the few players from the Lambert era still playing professional football which makes me feel really old.

Feral children is the worst bit about cup games.

"Oh no he wasn't"

I want the police to make a statement, Dennis and club insiders have said the police told them to follow the Ipswich bus in , which is incredible and personally I would still not have done it.

20% of the fan base wants an apology.

Feels like ages since we've not been in a promotion or relegation battle in January. It's the perfect year to have a good go at the Cup. Hope we put out a strong team tomorrow.

This was always the root of Webbers failure and his legacy, we (and him) are lucky we have Attanasio cushioning the worst of it. The failure on the pitch is almost nothing compared to what’s happened off it. Very, very little went right since we won that second title and as you say we can’t afford that, it’s been a disaster.