Canarywary

The thing is, if you look at all of our defenders since post COVID, who HAS been any good? How can Godfrey be predicted to be 20mill+ target for top Prem teams and Klose not even be good enough for us in the Champ? The whole team has been useless apart from Krul so how certain players can be singled out for particularly harsh criticism is beyond me. Plus Klose at least has the excuse of coming back early from injury.

1992-94 egg & cress home and the away from the same season - partly for personal reasons, partly for rarity (that away kit was possibly never worn, maybe once?) and partly just because the purple and white looks great. Also love the 96-97 green-sleeved one. However, the holy grail for my collection is the UEFA cup special shirt from our stint in Europe. Rare, classy and unusual for us (even if it is just a re-badged Wimbledon kit).

I'm surprised by this thread. I always thought the BBC pundits, including Wright and Shearer were pretty positive towards us. Our style of football and the way the club is run is constantly getting praised. Danny Murphy coined the now famous 'best team to be bottom' line on BBC. Jonathan Pearce (a commentator rather than a pundit I suppose) spent a good few minutes praising us and was practically getting emotional about the prospect of us going down when he was introducing the Everton match! I live with a Villa fan and was thinking the other day how he must feel pretty sore about how much Norwich get bigged up compared to them. And we're bottom of the league! To be honest I'm not sure what the critics on here are hearing.

This is all I’ll say on this topic as ideally I only really want to discuss NCFC on here, but I feel I have to say that equating violence last weekend with violence this weekend, and to imply that they are as bad as each other, is to massively (and I suspect intentionally) ignore scale and proportion. Last weekend saw tens of thousands of protestors marching against racism across the UK. Just in Bristol alone, where I live, there were maybe 10-20,000. The violence that then happened in one location near Downing Street, was as far as I know the only notable example of violence, and involved a hundred or so people. That would constitute far far less than 1% of protestors who were causing trouble that weekend. The ‘protests’ this weekend looked to have consisted almost entirely of people intent on violence, or at least physical confrontation. Closer to 75%+. The BLM protest even switched to Friday in order to avoid trouble. Compare the proportions and you see that the violence this weekend was a completely different kettle of fish. They didn’t have any meaningful aims or any injustice to protest, they just wanted a confrontation, and we all know it. And as a Bristolian I know how long people have peacefully tried to get that statue down, only to be thwarted by shady unelected powers like the Merchant Venturers. Pulling it down was not an act of thuggery or violence towards fellow human beings, it was an act of desperation which was subsequently celebrated by the majority. The only shame was that it was still standing in 2020.

If Rupp starts, someone needs to make it clear to him that it's ok to have a shot when you're in a good position. I think this lineup works. If we're not in the lead already I'd like to see Drmic coming off the bench earlier than previous matches, and not necessarily in place of Pukki, but as well as.

It is hard to judge Mario vs Kenny fairly at the moment because one of them has played consistently and one has barely played. Wed night was a prime example of how hard it is to judge them - Mario gets his first start in quite a while, then Kenny, with lots of recent game time, comes on late when he has fresh legs compared to others, so natually looked really proactive. I think as others have said, Mario's got an incredible pass on him, better than Kenny, plus set pieces, but Kenny is better all round. It depends at this stage of the season if we want to be more solid in midfield, or create more goal scoring ops? Personally I'd solve this by playing Mario instead of Rupp who just doesn't seem to add anything much.

Warnock always seems to be very complimentary about Norwich. I think he likes us too much to go to Ipswich.

I think we've missed Klose so, so much this season. I think he was up there with Krul and Pukki as most important player for the jump to the Prem. At least one experienced CB is a must, plus the goals he provides from corners would have been invaluable, that is if we actually had anyone on the pitch capable of taking a good set-piece, which is rarely the case without Vrancic playing (another reason why he must start).

Ideal scenario: all other matches postponed, it's blowing a gale, pitch is like an 1980s FA cup replay at Accrington and Liverpool can't play their usual game, get totally out of sorts and we win 1-0 and Liverpool lose their unbeaten run in absolute controversy. I can see the Wikipedia entry now...

One of the things that keeps me optimistic despite our likely relegation is that a lot of our first team is so young, and therefore still has a lot of potential, so selling all our best youngsters would be a real downer for me, even if it's for good cash. If we want to become an established Prem team we need to keep hold of a set of players for a few seasons and really develop as a whole squad (the Liverpool squad has been largely the same for a few seasons and it's now paying off), not sell players just as they reach their full potential. I know that's easier said than done... Anyway, there's no way they'd pay that much for these 2, especially Spurs, so the story can probably be disregarded.

Managers who spit. It's bad enough the players doing it. Plus the ball-boy for the opposition in one of our recent matches (I forget which) who stood there smirking and shrugging whilst refusing to throw the ball back and made McLean run over and get it off him.

Even if Byram is playing better at the moment, our young players such as Lewis are only going to get better, we really need to keep hold of him. And as Nuff Said says, if Max goes then him and Byram can both play.

I think it would need to be Srbeny. It would boost his confidence, give him the proper chance he's waited a long time for, and why have him on the books if we would rather play midfielders as CF rather than him? His goal against Everton showed he's got something to give. It's a shame Drmic is out.

No cutting edge in final 3rd AT ALL. Vrancic added some incision to our play in the first half and looked more keen to get it forward than our usual sideways style, but then 2nd half everyone, including him just looked aimless. Cantwell looked good when coming on and I think looks more hungry than Buendia at the moment.

Cheers. Yeah, it feels like Vrancic is our last established* player to be given his chance this season. All the other midfielders have been given shots and many have not really stepped up to the plate, so let's see what Mario can do. (I'm discounting that woeful League Cup match!). *I say established because Roberts hasn't really been given a decent chance either for whatever reason.

I don't really know why the OP is positing this as a Farke v Emi thing? This isn't the first time Farke has switched the team around based on performances. Stieps? Leitner? Todd? All dropped out to try a different approach at various times this season. It's not like he's dropped him from the match day squad.