Big O

I’m not surprised with what you have posted @hogesar i think Kenny is a good player and comes in for way too much stick on here. Most clubs in the championship would want him (as per Leeds at the beginning of the season). what also is undeniable and I think gets to the point that @Petriix is getting at is that him and Sara as a 2 just doesn’t work at all. Kenny’s best season for us (in my eyes) was when he had skipp alongside him (or occasionally Rupp) and we therefore had a better structure. I think the vast majority of Norwich fans could see that we need a defensive minded midfielder with legs to play with Kenny and get Sara further forward. It isn’t rocket science but seems to have been beyond our recruitment team for about 3 seasons!

I think Delia and Michael have done a lot for the club down the years but there does come a point where they have to realise they aren’t fixing problems for us anymore, rather they are the problem. It is time for a complete reset under new ownership, new sporting director, new philosophy and a new manager. We are going to have to accept that we are going to have some tough years whilst we turn this around. Hoping another genius manager turns up shortly but I’d be happy to go for someone who is young, hungry and ambitious. For example look at Gary o’Neil, he is bright and articulate (well beyond our reach now) but there must be other competent young managers ready. How about Ryan Mason?

I’m not certain any serious up and coming manager would come here until knapper is in place and can sell a vision. I don’t see anyone wanting to jump Into this mess

There was a photo of him. Be an interesting appointment for them, maybe he could loan us a few of their players to rebuild their form and confidence. We would probably take Casemiro, Rashford, Martial, Mctominay and McGuire . lol 😂

Oddly, the points you make here are one of the reasons I retain a level of optimism. famous last words maybe but I don’t think it would take all that much to turn us into a decent side and if we get the right manager it could change. The other reason to be positive is that I don’t think we have one loan player in either. Of course these can be short term but would undoubtedly be an avenue to shore up our weaknesses - centre half, defensive midfield, striker if need be and I’d expect Knapper to have a few contacts to bring these in.

I get the sense that he is exactly the type of data driven, connected individual that our potential new owner wants in place for this role. I would not be surprised at all if a couple of additional roles came in too.

Crikey, I didn’t realise you couldn’t actually write someone’s name without the profanity thing changing it. Pretty certain it is the actual spelling!

I thought I would listen tonight to see what Nick Ma****er had to say? Was it just me or was it basically not much?

I agree with this, you need some level of stability in the club but the Delia handover has to be accelerated to the end of the season. Knapper needs to come in now and work with Attansio on the vision, strategy and approach and we likely do need a short-term appointment that can keep us in the division whilst they look to put it in place in the summer.

ABI is currently Hwang! Be careful what you wish for. oddly this spell of starts is actually doing Idah good (albeit I understand he’s not been great). He has clearly needed a run of games for about 4 seasons but we have managed a player that looked a talent really badly. ever the optimist, he is clearly about to click in and do a David Nielsen.

Think I might have said this earlier in the thread. Have to tighten up and let Sara/Rowe win us a game

Sunderland will come at us so I’m going for a 5-2-3 long Stacey Duffy. Baath. Gibson Gianoulis McClean. Forshaw Sara. Rowe Idah

I think you make some salient points @lake district canary in that we need to be careful right now not to over react and end up in a right muddle. The truth is of course that the fans are in full revolt mode right now because of the shambles of the last 2 and half years and the frustration it brings. For me this only ends when we hit the bottom and the aspirations for the team reset (I.e. not a promotion team). We are not far from being there now and I think the start of the new sporting Director gives us a natural break point and potentially 6 months in front of us where we can’t go up and should have too much to go down. This actually gives Knapper a 6 month window to face into the likely realities of us having to sell Sara and Rowe to balance the books due to the loss of the parachute payments as well as gutting the wage bill. This will enable us to work through how we move forward as a club, which manager needs to come in to take us forward and how we refresh the squad to support that individual. Sacking Wagner tomorrow won’t allow this time and could place a lot of pressure on a manager who won’t have the right players to support them. I do understand the counter argument is that someone could come in now and change out fortune and drive us into the top 6, although personally I think that is unlikely. my view is that Wagner will continue for a bit longer, maybe till March when a new manager will come into take stock and plan for 24/25 season.

I thought Gary O’Neil covered this articulately on Monday night football. Everyone would love a single pivot like Rodri but they are rare, so most have to think about getting the balance right in a double pivot of one player to get on the ball and instigate the play (I.e. Kenny) and one more robust athletic sort who denies the opposition space, keeps shape effectively but uses the ball simply. Unfortunately we don’t have this individual outside of an ageing Forshaw or a still to prove it Sorensen. Kenny and Sara there together is a mismatch. for us the problem is amplified as we choose to play our full backs really high which means we are a sitting duck in transition. I really don’t think it’s that hard to make us tighter and more competitive but we seriously do lack goal threat at the moment.

Let’s face it we need Knapper to come in and achieve the following: 1. Establish a whole new playing philosophy again based on technical players. Buying athletes like placheta has got us nowhere. 2. Pull another brilliant unheard of manager from somewhere who hits the ground running and stabilises results immediately 3. Brings a raft of contacts of quality young players who passed or are passing through the Arsenal academy that we can pick up for peanuts 4. he can shift loads of deadwood out of the squad and massive wages off the wage bill 5. Convince the Smiths to step aside sooner 6. rebuild relationships with the fan base and local media. #simples

When we won this league last time our front 4 was pukki, Emi, a good cantwell and one of Vrancic/Dowell and a manger who coached technical football. tonight it was Idah, Hernandez, Rowe and Nunez!

I can’t think of any successful business in any industry that has long periods without clear and committed leadership. Delia and Michael need to go at the end of the season and the new sporting Director needs proper support as we’re in trouble at the moment.

It’s clear to see boro want to play on the break. Men behind ball and they know we will make a mistake

We’ve started pretty well, high energy without really creating much. Boro now seem to have worked out how to play around our press and we look vulnerable especially in transition.

4-0 to us. Idah hattrick and Springett

Farke was great manager for us, one who I personally thought we shafted on each occasion when we were promoted with awful recruitment. However, that’s done now and we move on, I expect both him and our fans will be respectful but at the end of the day it is a massive game for us and we really need three points. Sentimentality can wait till after.

I felt Idah for Hwang and one of placheta/hernandez for Springett would have been the right subs. Forshaw was dictating the game at that point and Sara was linking up with Rowe. Just odd

It’s a bit of an odd one, we were winning tonight away from having 19 points from 10 games. That is bordering on promotion form in usual seasons but the team just seems there for the taking again. I do fully understand that pukki and Buendia were excellent players that were better than the division but we still had a focus on technical football with quality technicians like Leitner, Vrancic, Stiepermann etc and we have moved away from that to be a huff and puff championship team based on a British core. It’s odd, it’s like we just moved away from our point of difference.

We will probably find a way to bring Ricky Martin back🤔

See Liverpool are showing their class as ever. It’s effectively no different in my eyes to the non goal that effectively kept villa up when the ball had clearly gone over the line. VAR made a major balls up - simples and this was a howler because it was a factual decision rather than a subjective / opinion one. They have to find out what went wrong but every club has hd bad decisions- just get on with it