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Putney Canary

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Posts posted by Putney Canary

  1. Posted

    I agree with Branston, has our form been any different without Earnie? What could the team look like with Earnie cash plowed back into it? I would say we are doing ok without him (or we were doing poorly with him) so it IS an option. We know that the wage bill must come down as we lose parachute payments, so I would expect him, to go, but then we have kept Hucks and he is on high wages... maybe the books can be balanced.

    The thing that would worry me, is that IF we sell Earnie it might be a contract for payment over an extended period of time, so we wouldn''t get the money immediately (as has happened with the Ashton and Green money).

  2. Posted

    [quote user="Sons of Boadicea"]

    Putney Canary - Fair point re the wage bill. Are you happy with the fact that we have one of the smallest squads, and one of the highest wage bills in the league, given our league position/some of the dross that has been dished up?

    [/quote]

    Of course not! But if Worthy''s gamble had paid off, and we had been top of the league, I wouldn''t be complaining! It was Worthy who was given budgets with which to manage the club, Worthy who decided who to bring in and on what salary, and Worthy who has lost his job as a result of the poor results. Thats the managers job.

    Grant has a HUGE job on his hands, he will have to reduce the wage bill whilst increasing the squad size whilst also moving on some unsuccesful players. He has made a small start to this job, and improved things, given time I am quietly confident he can get things back on track. But measuring our clubs turnaround by inacurately stating transfer figures only whilst railing against other income generating lines of business gets us nowhere.

    Meanwhile I''m delighted with the win over Brum, my girlfriend and her family are bluenoses, and the inlaws arrive tomorrow fora couple of weeks ;-) OTBC!

  3. Posted

    You mention a figure of 60k for transfers, but we spent more than that, and the figure doesn''t include wages. You do know we have one of the highest wage bills in the league? Sometimes I think some people don''t count the wage bill as an expense! In the modern game, it is very common for much more money to be spent on wages than on transfer fees. And also common for agent''s fees to equal or be bigger than transfer fees. If you look at ALL the expenses, it might answer your question about the ''missing money''.

    As for Grant being cheap and inexperienced, certainly yes to the inexperienced and probably to the cheap (but remember everything is relative). But don''t you think the team is looking better since the transfer window? I think Grant needs more time before we can judge him, at least 10 games into next season when he has had a chance to bring in more players of his choice.

    As for the restaurant, why is this such an issue? Most clubs run restaurants and corporate hospitality, especially in the Championship and above. Don''t you think that having a nationally recognised Chef on the board can only help Norwich run one better? It makes a good profit doesn''t it?

    I HATE the fact that such things as restaurants and hotels are becoming part of the modern game, but they are at most clubs around the country because to play at the top level takes more money than you can earn from gate receipts and the tv money given to Championship clubs. For this I blame the way the game is run, and therefore believe the fault is 100% with the FA.

  4. Posted

    I remember Delia being interviewed more than any other board member, but wouldn''t you expect the media to single her out? I certainly don''t see her courting publicity in the same way say Ken Bates has over the years. Delia Smith is a household name in this country, she has been for years and years, of course she became the face of the club. If she was in the paper every week I would understand your point of view, but she isn''t and I don''t.

    As for point two, if you pay a toilet cleaner £500 per week then that is £500 of financial investment. I am under the impression our squad wage bill is about £9m per year. Now you might think this is under funding, you are entitled to that opinion, but I don''t.

    You might argue that that is too much to be paying our squad based on size and performance, and that this is bad management. On this I would agree. Didn''t we already sack the manager for this bad management?

    And another thing that confuses me, why do you pick on Delia when she isn''t chairman or CEO? She is just one board member, why do you seem so fixated on her?

  5. Posted

    Sory 1st Wiz but what is the original point of this thread? It starts with a diatribe against the board and Delia in particular, and makes a point about selling off our best players, but no clue as to who. Is it Martin, based on a rumour in the Sunday Tabloids? Is it Earnshaw, who you said would get sold in January?

    You then talk about the decision to build a hotel instead of an extra 3,000 seats, but this has been debated before so many times. Doesn''t the club need the extra income, and won''t it get more from the hotel than it would the seats, and for less of an initial outlay? Yes its sad that the club think along these ways, but isn''t this because of the rediculous wages and transfer fees that you have to pay these days to try and compete? Don''t all clubs think like this now days?

    You say the debt has gone up again, I missed that story, can you provide a link?

    Was it because we lost away to Cardiff, a team in the top 6? A team which is enjoying massive investment recently?

    I''m not trying to be rude here, but what point are you trying to get a debate going with?

  7. Posted

    [quote user="Cluck "]

    If a bit of harmless "time wasting" gets Derby up...good luck to them and I''m sure they will spend the multi million pound windfall in a far wiser way than NCFC. I can''t see restaurant facilities being top of their list of priorities somehow....nor prudence seen as the way to progress.

    Any team who can build a squad on peanuts and make the big time in 2007 deserves credit....and to hear this whinging makes me understand why we have the public image we have these days.

     

    [/quote]

    Cluck,

    Whilst I agree with your sentiments about carping on about the Derby game (although I will admit to not seeing it first hand, they do seem to have really wound people up) I think you should have a bit of a closer look at Derby and how they run their club. They have spent quite big over the last year (David Jones, Steve Howard, Stephen Pearson, Jay McEveley, Gary Teale, plus wages on the likes of Bywater) so you definately can''t say they are on a shoestring budget. They are also obviously proud of their restaurant (they describe it as "the most prestigious conference and banqueting facility in the midlands") on their main club website) and seeing as they have their own website for it (www.prideparkstadium.com) I would suggest it is a priority for them.

  8. Posted

    I have been a sad statto and looked up the stats, Smudger, as I really do think that many fans should be venting their frustrations at the FA rather than our current board. I don''t think the current board are entirely blameless for our current predicament, but the modern game IS uncompetitive compared to previous decades and it IS all about the money.

    Below are the figures that show how many teams managed to attain a top 4 place by decade, and how many different champions there were by decade.

    1960s   - 15 teams attain top 4 finish, 7 different champions
    1970s   - 14 teams attain top 4 finish, 5 different champions
    1980s   - 13 teams attain top 4 finish, 4 different champions
    1990s   - 12 teams attain top 4 finish, 4 different champions
    2000s   -  7 teams attain top 4 finish, 3 different champions
    last 10 years  -  7 teams attain top 4 finish, 3 different champions

    Recently, the league has been dominated by Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool. Out of the teams to also get up there, Leeds have been financially crippled by the effort and Newcastle have had to seriously haul in the spending.

    Also, whilst Notts Forest did have good money to spend I don''t think they had anything like the funds that say Liverpool enjoyed in that era. Going back through the stats you see that Derby was right up there just before Forest were, come on it was Clough who achieved it and not on the back of a huge bankroll such as Chelsea are enjoying. Man U have had to up their spending considerably to compete with the Chelsea billions, and Liverpool have had to sell out to the USA to get funds to enable them to compete for the champions spot. Arsenal have spent nothing like the other clubs, but still have buying power well above what we can afford.

    Its not ''media crap'' that the Sky money has changed the game, its fact. Whilst some teams have always dominated (they were richer because of larger grounds therefore larger gate receipts) the gap is many times bigger these days since the sky money has been in. And as of next season the gap just gets bigger...

  9. Posted

    Unbelievable! People are obviously bored about arguing Worthy In / Out, so are now arguing about who''s poll about Worthy In / Out is stupidest.

    I''m now off on a months holiday, hopefully by the time I get back we have a few wins under the belt and everyone has calmed down and grown up a bit. It really is beyond belief that adults are squabbling in the way they are on this board - some of you lot need your heads banging together.

    We are all NCFC fans, we all want the best for the club. What a shame some can''t debate the finer points of football without recourse to petty name calling and futile squabbling.

    On The Ball City

  10. Posted

    Unbelievable! People are obviously bored about arguing Worthy In / Out, so are now arguing about who''s poll about Worthy In / Out is stupidest.

    I''m now off on a months holiday, hopefully by the time I get back we have a few wins under the belt and everyone has calmed down and grown up a bit. It really is beyond belief that adults are squabbling in the way they are on this board - some of you lot need your heads banging together.

    We are all NCFC fans, we all want the best for the club. What a shame some can''t debate the finer points of football without recourse to petty name calling and futile squabbling.

    On The Ball City

  12. Posted

    AJ - I don''t think its childish at all for Worthy to punish a player by dropping him. Discipline IS important, and we all know that financial penalties don''t work so well with people earning so much money, don''t we?

    Shacks needs a rest, and is getting one. I agree with ZLF when he says Flem is a better option for the bench, as he can cover CB and RB. No mystery at all! Hopefully a rested and fit Shacks can give Dav a run for his position, all players need competition for their place, and when Dav goes back Shacks will be needed... hopefully!

  14. Posted

    Its not just food, its probably water as well (devout Muslims won''t drink water, they just wash their mouths out which is allowed, some less devout ones will). I don''t think Saf will be taking on any liquids, and that is bound to affect him.

    I haven''t heard of any let-off''s for travelling, and I have travelled with Muslims before and seen them refuse an airplane meal (I used to travel a lot to the Middle East for work).

    So there will be a problem, but if he is used to it and thinks he can cope, its his body and he should know best!

  15. Posted

    I''m a ''Worthy In'' man myself, but that really means ''in for now'' not ''in for ever'' (I doubt anyone would argue the later!).

    Most of the fans have been expecting too much this season (all that talk of running away with the league were way over the top), it was always going to be tough coming down, but I see improvements in the team and as long as these continue I am confident of a play-off place. We have to put a run together now, beating Brighton is a must, to prove we have ''turned the corner''. We have to be up there in January if we are to safely keep Deano. If we are in the bottom third at Christmas, I will have another look at my ''Worthy In'' stance. I very much doubt that the board would look at replacing him before then anyway.

    We do have to get the good bit of our performance to last longer than 45 minutes. We matched Reading for a lot of the game, but because we aren''t consistent we conceded. The same would have happened last night against a better team. Other teams will also have passages when they look in control, but if we play like we can for 75 minutes instead of 45 minutes, we will get the wins against any team! Either that, or we need to score more when we are on top and kill the games off earlier. Who, at the start of the season, would have predicted we would have problems scoring?

  17. Posted

    Yes our first choice defence looks great. If Dav goes back, hopefully Shacks will be able to step in without disruption too. What will be interesting will be if Doc gets an injury, whether its Flem or Shacks who steps in to the right hand CB position, and how they cope... I think it will be OK, if Fleming doesn''t try and lead the line. Charlton is an able replacement for Drury, but I''m still not sure about MLJ for right back.

    I feel I should apologise to the Doc, I haven''t always been complimentary about him, and was obviously wrong. He has been superb!

    And credit to Worthy for sorting it out.

  18. Posted

    From listening to the radio, it sounded like the team were getting more nervous the longer the game went on. Bearing in mind the terrible start to the season, and the resulting pressure from the fans, this is entirely understandable. As confidence grows, hopefully they can turn a 45 minute excellent performance into a 75 minute excellent performance which will be enough to win most of our games. Neil Adams was right last night; at the start of the season we could only put a decent 10 minute spell in, now its 45 minutes, we need to extend that further.

    Worthy IS turning it around. The defence is looking much more solid, and more chances ARE being created than at the beginning of the season. Our goals came from midfielders and defenders, for the first time this season. We had good set pieces, obviously something from the training ground IS working. We aren''t there yet, we need to improve again against Brighton, but its one step at a time.

    I''m still worried about our midfield when Safri is out (Ramadan and the African Nations Cup) and I''m still worried that we lack penetration against a team that puts 10 men behind the ball (like last night 2nd half). But we are seeing an improvement and Worthy has deservedly bought himself more time.

  19. Posted

    IN but;

    I hate being put into a camp like this. I would much rather debate the issues which DO exist in a sensible way, unfortunately there is so much hysteria and idiocy on these boards right now it is becoming more and more difficult.

    Its IN for now. If we are still bottom third at Christmas, I think a change is required. However, I think since we have put Dav and Doc in defence and given Hughes the captains armband we HAVE seen an improvement already. Now we need Deano and Lisbie on target and start winning games.

  22. Posted

    I am sure Colin will start. This is what Worthy said about Colin;

    "Jurgen has been playing a lot of football in recent weeks and that is not something they are used to in Holland, so we decided to give him a little breather," he said.

    "I thought last Sunday was his best game for us so far. It takes to time to acclimatise and settle in a new environment but he showed against Ipswich that there is a quality player in there. And there''s more to come."

    Still its good news that Fleming can cover RB, but how he will look there playing against opposition with a pacey attack... still it should be enough to see Fleming on the bench.

  24. Posted

    I would say that there have been lots of other reasons for our various up/down turns in fortunes other than WLY, Hucks kick-started our promotion season, and this season has improved with a change of personnel in defence (and getting Hughes back in...). I''m not saying it ISN''T McVeigh, he certainly has made a difference, but its not just down to him.

    If Worthy is going to carry on the 4-3-1-2 formation, then McVeigh has staked a strong claim for the role playing behind the front two. Most would expect Hucks to play there, me included, but all players need competition for their places and now Hucks certainly has that competition. This is a huge benefit to the team, it should keep Hucks sharp.

    As a striker, I would carry on with Lisbie for now partnering Ashton (well they are both scoring!). Longer term, I would rather see WLY than Leon, he offers more options and has much better control. Else use him as a ''super sub'', he could come on to devastating effect for the last part of a game, and can play in various roles.

     

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