Tim Allman

A couple more thoughts on this if anyone is remotely interested.   1/ Seen a few comparisons mentioned on the www comparing the payoff that Swansea received for Rogers vs the one we have received for Lambert. Having a big £££ release clause in a contract in case of poaching by another club would potentially be in our interests but I’m assuming that Lambert would have had to have agreed this when his new contract was re-negotiated back in May 2011. And this time was just after one of his wobbles. (I know Alan Bowkett referred to only one, but I’m assuming Burnley was another). It may of course be possible that Lambert was already getting itchy feet and seeing greener grass so it may not have been in his interests for this clause to be in his contract. Especially if a potential suitor, such as Aston Villa could not afford to pay it.   2/ At the time of posting, still no official announcement on the AVFC site about the settlement between Lambert, Villa and City, although there are a couple of references to this on AVFC forums. I thought the timing of our press release seemed a little strange at 8.00pm on a Sunday evening with David McNally out of the office according to posts from his twitter feed. So why that time? Mischievously thinking, it could be that it was released at a time of maximum embarrassment to Villa as they’d had just taken a real shoeing at Chelsea. Or maybe there’s no good time over the Christmas period and it had to be announced sometime. Who knows?   The EDP link below speculated on the amount that Lambert was claiming.   http://www.edp24.co.uk/sport/norwich-city-fc/employment_lawyer_questions_former_norwich_city_boss_paul_lambert_s_compensation_claim_1_1573619    

Interesting tweet from @jamesnursey copied below @SbridgeVillain yeah, told potential Morison to #AVFC deal could get messy. He''d provide cover for Benteke & be useful in new formation

"If Villa will pay Norwich City the original amount as agreed in the contract between Paul Lambert and Norwich City, and Norwich City will pay Paul Lambert the bonus he was entitled to after completion of the 2011/12 season"   So if Spartacus is correct (and for the record I do believe him) I suspect that there was a £££ release clause that Villa had to pay for Lambert in addition to the notice period of one year on his one year rolling contract.   Maybe the compo/bonus is based on 50% of salary to Lambert and what we get back is 1 year''s salary x 2. Just guesses.   I’m sure Purple Canary will make sense of it all.  

Rodgers reminds me of a smooth talking smarmy boss who I might have known years ago. He was great at persuading people above him that all was well whilst the troops on the ground were getting more and more disillusioned with how things were managed. It took quite some time for the big cheeses to work out what was really going on and by that time the damage had really been done.

And Fellaini misses the final three games of 2012 which conveniently takes him up to the start of the transfer window start in January. What a happy coincidence for him……

On the more realistic end of the scale a fit Michael Dawson would be a good acquisition; and if we have a money no object budget Gareth Bale.  

http://twitter.com/EMTrains/status/277101425849413632   I did see this conversation on twitter so EMT will have been aware of this for quite some time.

@cambridgecanary The Derby keeper that evening was Stephen Bywater not Lee Camp, and it was another shocking performance by Probert. The player who scored both Derby goals in their win was David Jones who came on as a second half sub for Wigan yesterday.

Just read though this thread; can’t really disagree with any of the comments about the layout, set up and navigation of the NCFC official site. Personally speaking I only use it for the Canary Player which I think is pretty decent.

There would have been real postal problem with a ballot; having to wait for results and then sending 5000+ tickets out over the festive period where the post is notoriously slow. I expect that this was the reason that the game went to general sale. I can’t get to the game myself and I do feel sympathy for the supporters who didn’t get in quick enough. Let’s hope another batch of tickets are released.

Maybe I shouldn''t believe all I read on twitter then.

Long term injured according to what I have heard.

I thought Rick Wakeman was a Brentford fan so I''d be doubtful it would be him

West Ham

Since McNally has been CEO I don’t think we’ve been a seller of a player we wanted to keep and I don’t see that starting now.   Given that this season we clear the club debt and next season there’s the start of the huge new Prem TV deal it would be madness to sell him.  

According to a post on twitter I saw, it stated on the ticket that, “....the use of social media will not be permitted during the evening....”    

When Parkin scored against us in the 1-1 home draw against Cardiff in early 2011, I did a couple of small claps, said great goal and was immediately reprimanded by my daughter, then twelve years old for being nice about the opposition. She wasn’t impressed at all with me.  

Good to see that Cole and Chamakh’s agents are doing their jobs and getting the clients'' names in the paper. As a (hopefully) mid-table team we''re going to get linked in the press with all sorts of expensive rubbish that want a final pay day at our or another club’s expense.  As regards these two, I’d be amazed if either joined City.

Thanks T, I agree with that; was going to post the same thing!   

PC - On the assumption that match day catering gives us the biggest income, we do have 4 less of these per season in the prem. And quite a few kick offs last season were at times more suitable for TV than dining, so it may be the dip in revenue may not all be attributable to Delia stepping down from her catering role.  

Best to have a few beers in the Three Guineas in the station, I don’t think that the pubs in town like away fans. The TG is not that bad a place when I was there last. And I’d leave 45 minutes minimum for the bus to get to the ground.    

Can’t go, we have friends visiting and kids to be ferried around for Saturday sports. Didn’t have a problem finding a volunteer to borrow our season tickets!    

When Palace beat Sunderland 3-0, a result which secured our promotion to the Prem in 2004 a few pals were at the game cheering on Palace. One of them said they were outed a City fans during the game but everyone was pleased for them at the end. I think one or two might still post on here so I won’t embarrass them by mentioning the names.    

Wes is under contract until the end of next season.

The crowd was swelled by a huge Spurs away following, 3,000 plus no doubt quite a few in the home areas.  So City will have had around 13,000+ home fans in attendance.   Some perspective on this; the home crowd last night was roughly 500 more than were at the Cup  games at home to Brentford in the 2009/10 season and the disaster at home to MK Dons last season.   And as for trotting out the “...every spare penny line.....”, I think at £20 at ticket for adults + concessions we may well have sold another few thousand tickets and made at least same gate money.   But from a PR point of view NCFC have got away with it. There are some new storylines to be told; we won and we have a new hero to cheer in Mark Bunn, City are on a cup run and it had to be Villa at home in the quarter final.   I’ll remember the evening we beat Spurs for all these things but also for when a large number of Norwich fans said enough is enough as regards ticket prices.