Peanuts

[quote user="Jim Moriarty"]This season he''s had about 40 minutes on the pitch for Norwich, and scored 1 goal - against West Brom. The defence he was up against that day was James Chester, Craig Dawson, Jonas Olsson and Sebastian Pocognoil - all decent Premier League players. Was his goal that day a fluke? I''m not saying Lafferty is a better overall striker than Jerome/Mbokani/Bamford - but the simple fact is that options A,B and C aren''t working and sometimes it might be worth trying option D. He is surely worth consideration from the bench, yet he''s being overlooked even when no other strikers are available - that''s the point.[/quote]Bamford has barely had a kick either and I''d rate him over Lafferty any day of the week, so why not start him from now on instead?Barring his international goals Lafferty has hardly been a prolific striker at any club and he has a poor reputation off the pitch. Nobody here knows what goes on at Colney, maybe Neil just doesn''t rate him or maybe he demands a certain attitude from his players and Lafferty isn''t showing it. My guess is Neil doesn''t think he''s good enough and he isn''t showing enough desire to prove the manager wrong.

[quote user="93vintage"]Stuff[/quote]I think that''s an interesting and fair assessment of the situation. My own view is that barring a money bags investor if we want to continue to punch above our weight we need to re-focus on developing talent and extracting the most value from our transfer activity.Despite the criticism of Alex Neil on this board, ironically as a manager he represents the type of player we should be targeting - young, ambitious and talented but unproven.

[quote user="morty"][quote user="Peanuts"]I don''t know about every other club in our situation, but don''t these investors usually like to swoop in when a club is in difficulty so they can buy it for pennies and hope to add value later on?[/quote]Similar to what Mucus Evans did for the blue scum? Effectively buying their debt, and charging them interest on it?[/quote]I expect that''s worked out much better for him than it has for them. Shame.

I don''t know about every other club in our situation, but don''t these investors usually like to swoop in when a club is in difficulty so they can buy it for pennies and hope to add value later on?

[quote user="nutty nigel"]No, I don''t think we will become a PL team year in year out? I also don''t think we will if we get a new owner and board. There are at least 40 clubs with wealthier owners than us whose fans see their rightful place in the PL. 40 into 20 doesn''t work. What question have I not answered? It''s you refusing to answer. Our board is more successful than many bigger wealthier clubs.[/quote]That there are wealthier clubs who are performing worse than us isn''t evidence against the assertion that we are not wealthy enough to compete in the PL.I think it''s a fair question to ask though - why have we done so well if we''re relatively so poor - but it''s not easy to answer and you''d probably have to break it down season by season.I don''t think anyone is saying spending big is a guarantee of success, or that it''s impossible to punch above your weight, however it seems like it gets harder each year and my feeling is that for whatever reason we didn''t start the season with a strong enough squad to really compete properly.

I don''t think it''s so much the reputation of the manager, more the perceived ambition of the club. Of course if Bournemouth were offering Afobe more money that''s got to be a huge factor, but if they are generally seen to be spending more money and paying higher wages players are going to see that as a sign of ambition and might prefer that club over another, even if the actual deal was similar.

[quote user="HertsCanary93"]I strongly disagree that you need wealthy owners to stay up and play at this level. Not only have we done it before comfortably but look at the bottom three at the moment. Two of the clubs coming down with us are both owned by very wealthy owners who have spent this season, and they are both awful. Bournemouth who have admittedly spent a fair bit this season will actually comfortably stay up using the core of their championship team like we did under Lambert. Leicester are looking like they''re going to win the league and a year or two ago over 3/4s of their squad wouldn''t have looked out of place in ours. They haven''t even spent much more than us this season. Swansea, West Brom and Palace will again all stay up without someone pumping silly money in. We''re probably going down not because of our lack of wealthy owners but because in my opinion, the following reasons. We failed to address key areas of the squad over Summer and instead splashed most of our cash in the inflated jan market, asking the new players to come into a team already on the ropes rather than into a fresh season. I also regrettably feel that poor/inexperienced management is partly to blame, there have been far too many complete no shows in the 2nd half of this season in key matches where the manager clearly hasn''t been able to galvanise the squad. The squad fought reasonably well at times earlier in the season and picked up some good wins because of it, but AN hasn''t shown that he is able to lift the squad when the going has got tough. It''s a cliché but the occasional lack of a Plan B has meant we struggle to fight back in games where the opposition have set up well, we also have completely bottled too many leads due to failure to set the team up to kill the game. That said, I doubt a new manager would have enough time to turn us around and give us a much better shot at staying up. It will certainly be interesting the see how AN handles another window and a full season in the championship should we go down with him.[/quote]Nobody is saying that spending big money guarantees survival, but without spending money you are more likely to struggle. Leicester spent what £30m in the summer? How do you think their wage bill compares to ours? They also appointed a big name manager, do you think he''d have come here if we''d approached him in preference to Leicester? It''s not just about transfer fees, it''s wages too, and the perceived ambition of the club. You mentioned Palace, well they appointed Pardew and signed Cabaye - do you think either of them would have come to Norwich? We could have afforded the £12m or whatever it was Cabaye cost, but could we have paid his wages?You say we failed to address key areas of the squad and I agree, but how is that not linked to the financial status of the club? We kept hearing how deal after deal had fallen through, surely that''s a sign we''re not paying enough and/or we''re not perceived by players and agents as a club that is serious about staying up?

[quote user="hogesar"]My problem is AN has been criticised for fiddling with the team but whenever he keeps pretty much the same team twice in a row we get completely different performances. In fact most things AN gets criticised for I actually think a lot of it comes down to our players themselves.[/quote]I think it''s definitely a case of damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don''t a lot of the time. After every game on here you''ve got people calling for changes while others criticise the manager for tinkering too much. For example, five at the back worked well against Leicester but looked ineffective against Chelsea and people ask why did the manager play that way when Chelsea only play one up front? Yet if he''d reverted to a back four and we''d lost, those same posters would complain why change a system that worked well the previous game?

[quote user="can u sit down please"]Without doubt. Nobody is screaming for rash spending. Just spending what we need in order to stay in this division. The books have been pretty well balanced again, but Klose and Brady aside we''ve not added anything better than what we have. Again, not solely at the boards door with this, but we put together a football board, that doesn''t really seem to be delivering. Our scouting seems atrocious buddy.[/quote]I agree transfers have been disappointing and somebody needs to take some responsibility for that and look at what went wrong and how it can be better next time. Whether the blame lies with the manager, the football board, McNally, the scouts or whoever, only those behind the scenes will know.Signing players is always a gamble, but if you''re not a money bags club you don''t have any margin for error. Jarvis and Dorrans are squad players at best, Mulumbu seems to have sunk without trace and Mbokani hasn''t exactly been the answer to our goalscoring problems. Naismith looked good against Liverpool but pretty ordinary since then and his fitness issues are worrying.

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]I am not clear from your post whether you agree with that as a plan or are saying there is a different and better strategy we should be following.[/quote]I think it''s a realistic plan given our circumstances. Promoted clubs either spend big and roll the dice on establishing themselves in the PL, or they take their chances and hope to ''out value'' at least 3 other teams. Barring a big injection of cash, we''re obviously in the latter camp.

No chance he''ll be sacked as expectations are a lot lower this time around. It''s interesting to compare the noises McNally has been making this season with all the "worse than death" stuff last time.The football is better than it was under Hughton and the players look like they are still fighting. My gut feeling is Newcastle are down with Villa and it''ll be us or Sunderland in 18th. We just might scrape it.

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]Assuming, for the sake of argument, that is true, what is your solution to this problem? What different kind of ownership structure should we have? I have seen posters - who almost certainly don''t take such gambles with their own finances - advocate spending pots of money we don''t have. Plainly that cannot be what you mean. [/quote]We spend what we can, cross our fingers, and hope we get lucky but accept that we will be favourites for relegation. Then next year we can spend a bit more, cross our fingers again and hope for a bit more luck. And the year after that, etc.I expect McNally would make it sound more sophisticated than that, but that appears to have been the plan.

[quote user="norfolkbroadslim"]Well the board clearly aren''t going anywhere, and results don''t matter, so yeah let''s keep the manager too! Are the board laughing at how dense some of the Norwich fans are? Are they sitting in Carrow Towers saying "christ, 1 point from 27 and so many want to keep the manager". "We could oversee the worst run of results in the history of this club, not only are they not calling for our heads, but quite a few still want to keep the manager" "We''ve hoodwinked them into believing al this stuff about nobody interested in investing, scared them into thinking that most external and all foreign investment ends in tears." Fooled them into being so sentimental towards the manager that even if we didn''t win again this season that they still wouldn''t call for his head and despite not having won for 20 games, to still have some convinced that Alex will miraculoisly turn it around and we''ll be winning every week in the Championship". "When things started going wrong, we sewed little seeds, planted litted tidbits about how poor we are, that by just being in the Premier League we are massively overachieving and not only can we not compete with the likes of Bournemouth and Watford financially, we''d struggle to do much better than Lowestoft Town" "We''ve got these foolish fans into such a state that we''ve even come out and blatantly told them that the reason we can''t compete is because our owners are some of the poorest in the whole football league, so they accept failure and defeats, they don''t call for a change of ownership because we have them scared about the perils of external investment and foreign ownership, they therefore accept poor results and failure on the footballing side". "We''ve even got some fans into such a state that they don''t question or blame either the manager or us". ????? Of course not![/quote]Taking away the hyperbole that''s not a completely unreasonable view. If you listen to that recent podcast interview with McNally he was clearly trying to lower expectations - talk of us not being a benefactor club, we can only spend what we earn, owners can''t just find extra money etc.It''s fair to compare us to the teams we came up with and I think both have spent more than us on transfers and likely wages, with predictable results. If we''re not going to spend the money to attract quality players then we''re going to need a lot of luck to continue in the premier league, whether this season or next.

[quote user="Jeremy Borbyn"]Am I happy that we are in the bottom 3? No.Do I think it is all Alex Neil''s fault?  No.Do I think we have a squad which is underperforming?  No.Do I think we could have bought better in the summer?  Yes.Do I think we will come back up from the Championship?  Yes.Do I think we could find a better manager at this stage of the season?  No.[/quote]This.

We fans pay our money and are entitled to complain, absolutely. I didn''t go but I did watch the game and I didn''t think the second half was abject, although when Swansea lifted their game we struggled to match them until the last 10 mins by which time it was too late. We had chances to score and I thought we looked decent at the back, even with the forced change after Brady went off. The difference was Swansea took their chance when they were on top and we didn''t.The positive for me was that we looked better at the back than we have in a lot of other games this season, but in some ways it''s worse when you can''t point to a specific defensive error or refereeing decision to explain the loss - we were just not good enough when it mattered. Story of our season perhaps.

[quote user="Jimmy Bone - Superstar"]Who do you think you are? idiot[/quote]No need to sign your posts, your username is displayed to the left.

I really hope those suggesting Moyes or Rodgers are trolling and don''t actually believe they would come here - if so it''s worrying they have access to the internet at whatever facility they are confined in.We''re little old Norwich and scrapping at the bottom of the PL is where we should expect to be, regardless of who the manager is. If you try to measure squad values, wages, transfer fees etc. we are always going to be at or near the bottom in this league so the position we find ourselves in shouldn''t come as a surprise to anyone.Neil gets a lot of criticism on here for tinkering, but I genuinely think he''s trying to squeeze the most out of the limited resources he has to work with. If you start from the position that on paper we''re weaker than probably every other team, it''s Neil''s job to try and find us an edge in each game and his changes of system, formation and tactics are an attempt to do that.I believe Neil''s instincts are to play attacking possession based football and we started the season that way with full backs flying forward, centre backs pushed wide and Tettey dropping back to cover, but it quickly became clear we just weren''t good enough to maintain that kind of system.Certainly some of the signings have been a disappointment but that''s a failing of the club''s recruitment strategy as a whole and not solely Neil''s fault, not to mention that every club makes signings that turn out to be poor with hindsight.What I''d love to see is a new money bags owner so we can compete with Bournemouth or Watford, but failing that I''d like to see Neil given long term backing (whatever league we are in) to build and develop a young squad that can play entertaining football and keep knocking on the door of the prem.

[quote user="CanaryOne"]Read last night that Afobe already has more premiership goals than Jerome this season , we missed the boat big time by not following up our summer interest , £10 million Afobe or £8.5 million on Naismith , young and upcoming or a aging premiership reserve , somebody got that call badly wrong .[/quote]I don''t think it''s necessarily as simple as us choosing Naismith over Afobe though. We can''t know what went on behind the scenes, but I doubt we''d have been able to match Bournemouth''s offer and we don''t know what other interest there was in the summer. If he had the choice of us or Bournemouth, even given similar wages I doubt he''d have chosen to come here when Bournemouth are the club showing more ambition to stay in the PL.

Not seen anyone with more desire to get the ball into the net than him. A proper centre forward and a sublime finisher.

Although the gap between the top and bottom of the PL is getting bigger, it''s still a very fine line between staying up and going down. We play some really good football at times and apart from a couple of collapses we''ve been in with a chance in most games. It''s just lapses of concentration at the back and not taking chances up front that make the difference and that''s down to the quality of player and not the way the manager has set up the team.Obviously those calling for AN to go believe that we could get a replacement who would have a better chance of keeping us up, but I don''t see any evidence for that. We should only sack the manager if the players aren''t performing for him, but the last 2 defeats the performances have been good relatively speaking, so I don''t see how a new manager could improve things. David Moyes or whoever else isn''t going to magically make Jerome a better finisher or Russ less error prone.The root of the problem is the financial position of the club and anyone who listened to the recent McNally interview should know that. The reality is we don''t have the money to compete with even Bournemouth or Watford, let alone the more established PL sides, so we shouldn''t expect to be anything more than a yo-yo club. It''s not only about money for fees or wages - players and agents know we don''t have the ability to stay in this league long term and that limits who we can attract even further.We need to punch above our weight to even stay in the PL and if AN manages that then he deserves huge praise, but if he doesn''t it shouldn''t come as a shock and doesn''t mean he''s not still a good manager.

I''d have gone for Nathan myself, but Wes had a really good game too.

While I''m not writing this season off just yet, I think the OP has it pretty much spot on. Delia and Michael have been fantastic owners, but it''s obvious that we can''t compete financially in the PL and that''s going to mean relegation sooner rather than later. Even comparing us against the teams we came up with, both have more financial pull than us. It''s not just about fees and wages either, you can bet that players and agents see Norwich as a club that lacks the ambition to establish itself in the PL.

[quote user="juicy plams"]We should have sacked him upon promotion and got in a proper manager.[/quote]Who do you think we could have gotten instead though? Ranieri was available, but do you seriously think he''d have chosen us over Leicester if we''d approached him?

I dunno why you''re complaining about Brady at left back, Olsson hardly looked convincing when he came on and was shoved off the ball more often than not.West Ham today looked bigger, stronger, quicker and more skillful than us for much of the game, yet we matched them the first half and took a 2 goal lead in the second. Yes it''s gutting that we bottled it in the end, but the performance up to that point was down to the way the manager set up the team.Neil is doing the best he can with the squad he''s got and I don''t see how sacking him now is going to make things better.

[quote user="ron obvious"]"...we are bottom 3 ... FAIL!! "[/quote]Yeah the doom and gloom merchants are probably sad we''re out of the bottom 3.Glass half full, it''s a point more than we''ve managed in the last few games and we scored a couple of goals and always looked to carry a threat. Just the same old concentration/bottle going when we had it in our grasp.We''re not down yet, but it''s going to be close!