Big O

Sell him with a clever sell on percentage for when they mould him into a super star and sell him for mega millions. focus on what we have here, use the £8m to fill some of the obvious financial hole and move on. Shame it didn’t work but too much of a risk to bring him back and for him to sink again. Bring Kamara through now Placheta has gone.

I’d go for: 1. teams having to make a decision on whether to keep a youth player by 21 in a first team squad of 30 or have to enable them to go to a different club on free 2. Youth players remain on youth contracts until they either get into first team squad or released and picked up. Stop silly salaries pricing lower pyramid clubs out and keeping talent in the game 3. Max 5 loans out of a club a season, stop them stock piling talent and stealing smaller clubs talents when they have no intention of ever actually playing them. 4. salary budgets capped at a flat rate plus a small percentage of turnover. Think it’s fair that bigger richer clubs should get an advantage but not such a massive one 5. Not allowed to poach a manger mid season, you would have to appoint someone out of work when the season started or within if you wanted to get rid of your manager. Stop some of the short-termism. 6. Roll it back to 3 subs, More than ample. Happy with a concussion sub if needed. 7. technology rolled back to goal line tech and offsides. 8. Red cards only for serious serious foul play and should be used in extremis not the norm. 9. weekly review of this people diving. Week ban for every instance until players get the message, upto 3 weeks to get a penalty if player sent off. For example the grant Hanley special… that’s a week 10. Simon Hooper to allow all overhead kicks

You might be much better informed than me but how do you even know if he had any resources to make any changes. id agree the radio silence hasn’t helped but it does bring it back to reality that he has only been here two months. What type of miracles were you expecting?

I personally thought he came across well and outlined what you would expect from a sporting Director of NCFC under current circumstances. It must be hard for a new sporting Director to come into that environment, which was turning toxic, and retain an ability to make logical decisions. we won’t all agree with keeping David Wagner on (I’m not a fan) but keeping his focus on building pathways, trimming the age etc and making use of the assets we have (I.e. getting talent out on loan, academy focus) has to be his start point. you get the sense that he is gearing himself up for a challenging summer as (assuming we’re not promoted - which we might be!) he will have to resolve the following: 1. Is Wagner the man to take us forward? 2. Do we keep any of the out of contract players? 3. Do we need to sell a key asset to create the ability to invest across the team? 4. Are any of the young players out on loan ready to be part of a championship squad? 5. where are we going to get value in the transfer market? Are we back to cheaper markets or players who burnt out from promising starts? sounds like quite a list to get through as next year the finances will be tight.

Goes to show why our transfer strategy has to be spot on. Find one youngster who shows promise and the fee is £20m.

I agree, if we can get some comfort that his injury worries are behind him then he seems sensible to renew a contract. He’s a good age, could be coming into his prime and is a nice footballler. We will have to have a full of players so a utility one could be a god send

100% agree with this. Baring a disaster we aren’t going down this year so make sure Gibbs and maybe Lima have a path into the squad/team. I know Knapper has been v quiet on the transfer front (prob driven by ffp/debts) but the exits and loans appear to be sensible decisions

Let’s hope you’re right LDC and this is the turning point. I’d love to see us go on a run but our style of football looks so turgid to me. We got our noses in front last night against the run of play through a beautiful goal and then Hull penned us in for large periods. Fortunately we have plenty of experience in how to get through games but I can’t see us really coming back in games where we go behind too regularly. but… as you say if we can string some consistency together over the next 19 games then we have a sniff, there is certainly good players in that squad.

A slightly better side???? that team was a much much better side, 3 quality forwards in hooper, Jerome and Grabban… supported by Wes, Howson, Redmond!

I think also reserve team football was much more competitive than the U23’s level

I think some of that is down to the muddled thinking of the club in the last few years on progression. its clear to me that fisher and springett have good potential but both need regular games to acclimatise to senior football. Fisher in particular we have taken from non league football and asked him to make a massive step up, he should be out on loan getting 15-20 games in the second half of the season (as should springett). Idah should be a warning to them all, huge potential at 18 and only now at 23 - 5 full years later has he got anything like a string of consecutive appearances. He already is starting to look a better player for it. I do agree slating the players is wrong, I hope they all grow and become great Norwich players but our pathways have to be cleared back up and these players sheep dipped and developed with some thought!

The young fella playing for Wigan tonight looks tidy. Type of player we should look to bring in. He’s mobile with good feet, good age and will get better

Gibbs is a bright young player with good characteristics and the talent to really progress. the problem is the tactics and approach of Wagner don’t suit him at all. He is a central midfielder with an eye for a pass and a good engine, where as the current demands for our midfielders appear to be drop in between our centre half’s and hit a hopeful ball over the opposition full back. The movement ahead of him is non-existent and the pace we play at utterly turgid. Gazza would struggle to look good in this team! I watched with bemusement on Saturday about how over complicated Wagner is making it. We set up in a 4-4-2 (or maybe 4-4-1-1 dependant on what you see as Barnes role) but during the game in I guess what can only be described as an attempt to be fluid our players had all moved position but were still in a 4-4-2! our centre half’s had split and effectively become full backs, our centre midfielders had dropped deep and effectively become centre half’s, our full backs had become wingers and our wide men had become central midfielders and Barnes and Idah carried on standing still up top! Complication for complications sake! What Gibbs would give to play centre midfield and get the ball, look up and have the runs of Buendia, Cantwell, Vrancic, Stipermann or Pukki to aim for!

Notice the noisy neighbours have been fairly decisive in bringing in a couple of players on loan. I get the sense that we will be very quiet in this window other than bosmans or younger players for the U23’s from lower leagues who have potential. Would like to see us do something for the first team but get the sense we need all the out of contract players off the books to thin out the wage bill.

I think a right back is important to source in this window, Stacey has done Ok but fisher is miles off it at this stage, bright future for sure but nowhere near this level yet (which is understandable).

Think that’s a bit harsh Hoggy, I think he is a pretty blunt journalist who clearly does verge on the purposefully provocative but I think he says a lot in this article that absolutely resonates with our fan base. Without doubt a large proportion of us continue to have confirmation bias that is driving our frustration (I.e. we are still getting over how far we have fallen, the change of style, the reduction in quality of player) rather than being objective about our current position but even then there are some clear fundamentals lacking. Sutton is right, the ethos of our club is to give it a go, play front foot passing football and history shows that managers that don’t adhere to this lose the fan base quickly. Wagner does not appear to be driving that approach, he’s had 50 games and there is very little sign of progression, even Russel Martin talked to the quality of some of our players but we’re clearly not better than the sum of our parts. We’re crying out for some leadership be that from Attansio, Knapper or Wagner to set out some ambition and vision on how we are going to take the club forward, something that can make us start to believe again. The absence of this is leaving apathy and discontent. I personally think we’re wasting time but remain hopeful that Wagner will prove me wrong and knapper will in earth some brilliant young talent in January but I’ll have a £20 charity bet that with Wagner in charge for the season we will finish lower than 10th.

Luke Williams at Notts County?

The only reason I can see this is that with the squad we have and the mass turnover of players likely in the summer (out of contract etc) it would be a bad place for a new manager to land well in. It therefore is perhaps sensible to let him keep going and give the new broom the chance to weigh up the squad and direction of travel without all the pressure and public glare. I have no doubt Knapper has a view who he wants in the role.

I agree, roughly what I outlined above. The three behind Sarge can be fluid as they want too, Sara can drop back in, drift as Sainz and Rowe both look like they could play in any of the three positions

I think everyone knows it’s all wrong and we leave ourselves wide open. I do think though there is some material there for a new manager to work with. if we went back to to a more 4-2-3-1 formation then you could move back to one of Hanley/Duffy partnering Gibson, giannoulis and Stacey as full backs. A choice of 2 from Gibbs/McClean/Nunez to play in front of them (could still do with a DM on loan too). Rowe, Sara and Sainz in front of them behind Sargent. you’ve then got Hwang/Idah to bring legs/Power of the bench, possibly Fasnacht to play in 10 off the bench or a 30 min Barnes cameo and worst case Onel to go play right on a left back if we want to hit teams on the break. id personally get another right back in and another wide player for competition but that team playing on the front foot with quick passing technical football would be miles better than what we are trying now.

He wasn’t popular as people identified we’ve been down the ‘club connection’ path before and it’s turned out hideously. He has now outgrown us and fair play, looks a progressive young coach, we could probably do with one of those.

I just genuinely don’t see what we think we are getting by persevering with it. He’s been here for 50 games, and can anyone point out how we have moved forward?

Don’t think he is inept, I just don’t think he plays a style of football that Norwich fans will accept for a sustained period. It’s difficult to say he is getting the best out of what he has or not but I don’t seriously expect this team to mount a challenge for 6th. So the key question for me (and more importantly Knapper) is whether he will be the coach we need to see through the transition, playing front foot attacking football, bringing through and trusting young players etc. Next year, we will be just be another championship club with a massive cash deficit to the 3 teams that come down and any that might stay down. This will require a rebuild of significant proportions, trimming the wage bill, releasing out of contract players and working out how to be competitive. I just don’t see DW doing that role so for me surely you pull the plug when you feel it is right to start that process. He will rightly be given the chance to throw the Hail Mary and see if he can get this team Into the playoffs but when that moves to a no chance position then we will make the change. Of course hope he does get us up but just being a realist rather than an optimist for once.

Newcastle owners have looked sensible so far, although I think most believe Eddie Howe over achieved last season, the result of which has been managing champions league football as well as the league This has been a steep learning curve for him and them about managing your playing resources. My personal view is that they have signed some exciting young talent In Livramento, Hall, Gordon, Isak, Tonali(before the betting problem) and have the boy Miles coming through their ranks. I would expect a couple of relatively big name signings to freshen them up (Kalvin Phillips?) and then they will come on a surge second half of the season. Their challenge will be catching Spurs for 4th or Villa/Man U for 5th to get back into the champions league

I think he is just now at that inconsistent stage youngsters hit early in their career. Unfortunately rather than this being when he should have been on loan 3 years ago, it’s happening now. He clearly is going to be a late bloomer and he needs to continue to get starts and play big parts in games for us as there is a player in there for sure.