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What if we get promoted?

He’ll be gone this summer. And frankly who could blame him.

This is why I get frustrated at the current situation. I fear we will let this season drift under Wagner, finish a bit outside the play-offs and then start to think about the future. Meanwhile the parachute payments have dried up, key players like Sara , Rowe, possibly Sargent and Gunn, realise the lack of ambition from the club and seek moves elsewhere. Right now we have the likes of those players and there's absolutely guarantee we'll get anywhere near that sort of quality to replace them. Just feels we're faffing around waiting on Knapper to decide one way or other on Wagner. Wouldn't it be great to develop the squad we have with a better Head Coach?

Problem is he’s only got 18 months left on his contract and if premier league teams come sniffing he’s less likely to want a new contract here! So a move becomes priority for the club to optimise the money! So the questions are does Rowe want to stay and if not how much do we need the money?

There is a lot going on in this thread, with a lot of threads at cross purposes. So few thoughts, which you may or may not agree to depending on your perspective. 1) Ben's analysis is an excellent academic attempt to be objective about what is happening in games; 2) @hogesar's use of stats is another useful data point 3) Some posters don't like either, preferring a highly subjective opinion based on little evidence at all e.g. what they see. 4) Both pro and anti posters contain a large group of the results are king types. Winning and losing alone makes their point, or so they think. 5) The PinkUn journos are highly subjective, there is little in the way of objective analysis from any of them. Although Connor does occasionally try. 6) The journos have to reflect their market or readers go else where. They are very negative, but that is a reflection of a significant section of the fanbase.

Don't ever go to Newcastle then as a away fan!

It feels like everyone on this thread has zeroed in on the last game and chosen to ignore the sentence in the original post. Lee's analysis charts the course from the start of the season - where we had clear processes in how we played - up to now, where I'm not sure there's any area of our play that shows a repeatable pattern. It's the failure to develop those early processes which have led us to this point. This was most obvious in our possession play this year. At the start of the season we had our 2 strikers dropping deep to form a box in midfield, and it was working very well. That was until teams started to push up a CB to follow one to ensure we didn't have the numerical superiority. From that point onwards we have essentially devolved into a much worse possession side, shedding the principle at the first sign of failure. It may be the case that Lee is putting too much emphasis on possession, but in general I think his point is not that we simply don't have enough of the ball, it's that when we do have the ball we are ineffective with it. Of course that does lead to us having less of the ball in the game so it's a bit of a vicious circle. Overall, the way we've played in the last 2 games is not a way that tends to achieve results in this division. In the short term it might get you a result but the end product is often not a side which can win over half its games in this league. I'm not sure you can point to a side that has got promoted playing this way. It's also not like it's only the last 2 games, they're just more extreme variations on a theme we've seen going back 2/3 months. When was the last time we went away from home and looked like we were trying to win the game?

Thanks TGS - as @Petriix responded that is excellent company to be in and I'd agree that would also rate all three of you as posters that I would always look out for - we seem to share a similar footballing world view which probably helps. I'd obviously also add in @ricardo not just for the excellent match reports but also for his occasional interjections as the forum's voice of reason who reminds us all when necessary as to the reasons why we all support this little club of ours (often despite everything.) I also like posters who are able to add to my own meagre sum of knowledge - @shefcanary and @PurpleCanary in particular on the finance threads - and @Parma Ham's gone mouldy who often makes me see things a little differently in terms of the footballing side of things. His Masterclass and State of the Nation Threads have consistently been the most thought-provoking things on this forum and seem to attract more reasonable and reasoned discussion and less shouting into the void and feuding than some of the threads on here. True Grit will always remain the pinnacle of Forum posting for me though Clive, albeit run close by whoever it was that used to claim that they had a greater insight into the game because their bigger screen TV would show more of the action ...

You mean it will be peanuts?

I think he is just taking some time away LYB. I'm sure he will be back. It is always a nice thing to take a break from social media and once you spend even a week away then you start to feel the benefits. The first few days are the hardest because you realise that subtly, you've become addicted...addicted to responding to almost everything. I speak for myself but I am sure it applies to many. Anyway, on behalf of all of us, it is nice for you to show curiosity. It shows a certain humanity.

Here's one for @littleyellowbirdie If I'm going down I may as well take him with me.

What a ridiculous state of affairs (as if we didn't already know it) that Trump and Biden are the best that the US can put up as candidates.

This is my point though. You don't like the tone of the pinkun's current reporting so it must all be rubbish. In the last few weeks you've criticised the quality of three separate pinkun journalists, never with anything substantive just basically 'I don't like it so it must be ****.' To be blunt it is the height of 'pot calling the kettle black'' to have you throwing around accusations of bias when your own might as well be tattooed on your forehead it is so obvious.

Well played, Hamilton, well played.

When did football start becoming so soulless? The point of the game is a bit of glory here and there, days you remember for the rest of your days. Leeds fans won’t remember much of that 3rd division season, but the ones at Old Trafford will remember that day out until the day they die. Likewise with Wigan, how many matches from those mid table top flight finishes stuck in their fans memories compared to their cup win? If Middlesbrough win their semi final they’ll be talking about it for decades. Stick out a full strength side and aim for a trip to Anfield in the hope of an upset. Chances are we’ll get tonked but at least let the fans dream for a week or so

Hi, can you help me out here, why is the analysis "largely garbage", I put quite a bit of store by it. Honestly, looking for a reasoned argument here? The frustration Lee has with the current situation is building week by week.

He hasn't posted since November although occasionally logs in. Is there anyone who knows him who can say whether he's alright?

You've never sat behind a post at Goodison Park then 😁

Hence my username

The sensible thing to do is to give him the pay rise that he is so clearly overdue but with a realistic release clause for summer 2025, in return for sticking an extra year on his contract. He gets suitably rewarded for his breakthrough, the fans get to enjoy him for the next 18 months, and then we can bid him farewell and good luck if he's still in demand in the summer of 2025. I agree with your stance on this, we had 2 full season of football out of Bellamy and his second season was better than the first. Rowe can benefit from continuing to develop here for at least one more season and the incoming regime can distinguish themselves from the last one by not cashing in at the first sign of any 8 figure offer for any player.

Only in 21 of the 25 league games he’s played in this season.

Has he managed to last longer than 60mins in a game yet?

Some people probably think Al-Gebra is an Islamic terrorist group of maths instruction. 😉

I do miss Chops.

Yes it is a lack of governance. For the sake of £10m they risked the entire future of a football club. I think the Premier League should take a very dim view indeed. Otherwise everyone will start appealing on the basis that it was just a timing matter. They were lucky that Johnson didn't suffer a training injury in the interim period.

The real conclusion of Lee's analysis is that the current tactical set-up is not sustainable. I was there and our players had to work so hard, they were out on their feet long before the end of the match; to back this up it was the most recent subs on who created and scored what turned out to be the winner, from technically a tired lob up the pitch - classic lower league stuff. Three minutes later and none of our players had the energy to track the Hull player for his consolation goal - if there had been only a couple more minutes of injury time I'm sure Hull would have equalised, so knackered and brain dead were our players. Playing the way we are we are open to players running out of energy and risk burn-out and mental switch off's in game. Sure Lee would prefer more possession and control of the ball in our tactics, but not necessarily for aesthetic reasons but just that it means our players are more likely to last 90 (or 110) minutes more easily. They will also be able to play more games at a consistently higher level of fitness and mental awareness. I agree we out worked Hull, who in the end were either lazy, complacent or just poor quality players. And it is just like Norwich to be hanging on in injury time to hold out for a win when it could be so much easier if tactically we set up better.

And there it is.

I’m stumped. This must be a criticism of our club in some way, but I’m really struggling to see how.

OK, since the answer has been requested so frantically via DM (ho, ho), the answer if you didn't know is our captain, Mr McClean in the main Sky interview. He wasn't particularly being pushed for criticism by the interviewer. I hate to put words in people's mouths or read non-existent agendas into statements, but this sounds very much like a straightforward plea for a different, better approach at least to games like this one.

He is going to be the Republican candidate in November whatever anyone thinks.

Howe won't be going anywhere, has done a good job and is currently being shafted by a huge injury list. In any case Jose is a dinosaur who plays turgid football, just doesn't fit with the Newcastle mould IMO.

Liverpool could sell 52,000 seats to tourists for the match against us. 52k x £25 × 45% = £585k plus TV revenue. That's a serious wedge to help with the running of the club.

One of my friends was a guest at a wedding on The Wirral a couple of years ago, John Barnes was also a guest. The DJ played World in Motion, Barnes took the mic and did indeed do the rap.

Anything @True Grit posted was total gold

Rowe-Gunn Josh Sargent, currently the most capable curry

Yep, if you can't control possession, then at least control where the opposition play. That's basically what Wagner's got the team to do. The net result from both the Hull and Southampton matches was that we didn't keep the ball very well and we were vulnerable if losing the ball in our half, but on the other hand, both teams very rarely turned us around and were mainly pot-shotting from distance. So it looked like we conceded a lot of shots, but in reality they weren''t particularly good chances as far as xG or the eye test would have it. The one that beat Gunn against Hull was a cracking strike from distance, and the one Southampton scored came from at least two defensive errors, if not three. Obviously, the standard is nowhere near as high, but think of it as an early Simeone Athletico Madrid. They often didn't keep the ball much either, but they did control where the opposition played. Namely dead in front of them.

I bet if you told him there was a penalty for that he would take it.

I saw Robert Snodgrass trying to force an empty paint tin into the clothing bank at Sainsburys Longwater. I pointed out to him that the clothing bank was just for clothing and he had to take empty paint tins to the council waste depot. He seemed surprised 🙄

Is there a link for that? I thought he was on about discussing it in the summer. Although he's only got 18 months left on his contract we have a one year option to extend so he's effectively got 2 and a half years left This was DW just before Xmas https://www.pinkun.com/sport/norwich-city/24006032.norwich-city-david-wagner-jon-rowe-contract-status/

He perched him up without hands.

The money he goes for is going to shock people

50m starting bid. Like everyone was saying for aarons, omo, buendia, madders... cmon buddy this is norwich city. We will let him go for 25m and impossible add ons, like a 100m bonus if England win the world cup and he scores a hattrick in the final

I have a strong feeling that the Supreme Court is going to rule him ineligible. Even though he stacked the Supreme Court heavily for the Republicans, they've been quite unsympathetic to his appeals, and to force him on states where the courts have ruled him ineligible borders on a constitutional crisis. It'll probably play quite well for whoever the Republicans choose instead, as I've no doubt the Republicans will point the finger at the Democrats, even if many will likely be pleased to see the back of him.

Ah I see that makes sense. To be honest their argument regarding waiting for a best price is pretty weak that is not how account filings work. You set a reporting period and stick to it you can’t pick and choose when to report your figures to benefit your business. They are behaving like most large corporations do which is simply working along the lines of it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission!!

According to the ticket page it’s actually £36

Yes, thats it. You could get a transfer from the ground into the enlosure for a few pence.

Those on the left side had to wear blue on the left side of the shirt, & vice versa! 😉

I think Hernandez will start, because Wagner... was seen in Argos?

You knew that was a bad idea the moment you wrote that comment!