Cornwall Canaryfan

I hope Wagner is thinking because, after our disastrous form for the second half of last season, I have tried not to think about us at all so far in this closed season. I agree with most of the OPs thoughts but, with the resources currently available, I am struggling to think beyond another 13th place finish, if we are lucky. If only one of our players discovers his inner 'superstar' in the coming season it will be a real bonus. Unfortunately, if we are to make any positive mark in the Championship, I feel we need three or four to do so, which is of course, extremely unlikely. Fingers that Wagner can do a 'Farke' in his second season!

I enjoyed the first three paragraphs Ricardo........

A company promotion meant I moved from Norwich to Manchester in 1983. Hence I went to Wembley, with a Norwich supporting colleague also from Norwich who was promoted to Kendal, with tickets obtained from the match referee, who was based in Manchester & couldn't give his ticket allocation away! Due to this, our tickets were in the Sunderland end. I have several particular memories of that day. My friend & I had made our support for City clear throughout the match & at the final whistle suddenly feared for our safety. We needn't have worried. Several Sunderland fans came up to us, congratulated us & gave us their scarfs! On leaving the ground I bumped into the person who had taken over my job in Norwich two years earlier. What are the chances of that happening in a 100,000 crowd? On the M1 going home to Manchester the motorway was choked with traffic, cars & coach after coach of Sunderland supporters, to the extent that we travelled all the way to Birmingham in one continuous traffic jam. Didn't go above 25 mph or get out of 2nd & 3rd gear. The look of complete misery on the Sunderland faces made us extremely grateful that we had won & did not have to make the excruciatingly slow journey home knowing we had lost. A never to be forgotten day. Would have been nice to have won an FA cup or two since then but I console myself with the knowledge that, for arguably, our biggest ever win, I was there!

During the Paul Lambert era I had a lot of business dealings (nothing to do with football) with the father of a regular City first teamer. He told me that Lambert was a ruthless disciplinarian with whom there were no second chances & that several players found this to their costs. The players initially loathed, & feared, him. Then they began to realise that he was not asking them to do anything that he hadn't done (i.e. wasn't demanding the impossible) & that his methods were producing results on the pitch. Respect for him grew as he was getting the best from the players available & they all found a winning, & never say die, mentality far more preferable to a losing one. Perhaps this is the type of manager we should be looking for? Whether Parker fits this model, I do not know. He was certainly a capable player but I have no idea whether his management style generated confidence in his players in the same way as Lambert's apparently did. Smith does not appear to instill either a winning mentality or improve the players confidence. Their on pitch body language much of the time looks as if they expect to lose &, possibly even worse, don't seem to care.

Guardiola won't feel so bad at missing out on Pukki now.......

0 - 0 is correct. VAR disallowed our 'goal' about 6.30pm.

Living over 400 miles from Carrow Road I obviously don't see them live very often &, particularly in the Championship, TV exposure is extremely limited. Therefore I am not prepared to say my views on Max are worth as much as those of you that see live games regularly but here is my opinion anyway. If you are looking for a top quality full back, one look at our goals against column for the past four years or so would probably make you dismiss any Norwich City player. This may be very unfair on Max. Those of you watching him week in, week out, are far better than me to judge. During our two recent Premiership seasons, match photos of Norwich defenders featured as prominently as almost any other players from the rest of the Premiership teams. Unfortunately, very often a yard or so behind the opposition player scoring against us. Not a good look for anyone hoping to catch the eye of a top team. Again this may be unfair to Max but I do feel there is an element of truth in what I am saying here. He may deserve a place in a better team but, as others have already stated, he doesn't seem to have developed as well as it initially appeared he would.

I haven't read every post in this thread so please forgive me if my points have already been raised. I want to see us promoted to the top division & to establish ourselves as worthy, regular members. It is what a city like Norwich deserves & the club ground & facilities strongly suggest that playing at the highest level is both attainable & desirable. The whole point of playing football with the kind of material &, yes, financial setup we have is to try & rise to the top levels of the game. What is the point otherwise for a club of our size? I think it will be a long time until we see another Leicester seriously challenge for the title, baring a financial calamity so great that even top football clubs are affected. So to progress much the same as we are & challenge for the title is totally unrealistic. But I do think that it is not out of the question to expect the club to work towards promotion for more than a season at a time & to aim for serious runs in the cup competitions. Even without major new investment I think this is aiming high but is a reasonable expectation.

The only way of strengthening our defense, cheaper even than a loan fee, is to invest in a hundred quids worth of timber from Jewsons & board our goal up. Nothing else seems able to keep any opposition out for 90 minutes.

Please fly here quickly then.....

Yes, we seem to be in the minority. I am not writing off what the club achieved the following season, I'm just saying we were more attractive to watch in the first Championship season &, purely from recollection, winning with less nail biting moments & goals coming from all over the pitch. This eased any pressure on our expected goal scorers who were aware that if they had an off day other could step up to the plate. This didn't disappear in the second Championship season, it just wasn't as prevalent. Still doesn't explain why we didn't seem to try in the final 9 games of the 19/20 season & all of last season. The defeats hurt but the manor of them hurt more.

A major contributory factor, but I think the seeds of the 'rot' were sown, for whatever reason, April to June 2020.

Amazing is not the word I would use & I stand by my 'solid' description. I believe the side two seasons before would have beaten the last Championship side more often than not & been more attractive to watch as a bonus.

Just before the first lockdown in March 2020 we were bottom of the Premiership , 9 games to go & just the faintest chance of avoiding relegation. By fairly common consent we looked the best footballing side to ever be bottom of that league, attractive to watch & only just second best in most matches. We came out of lockdown a different side, losing all 9 games & never looking like competing in any of the games. Next season we won the Championship, largely by solid, flareless football, often beating the opposition by a single goal & not doing particularly well most of the time against the sided around us in the table. In my opinion, nothing like the dominant, attractive footballing side we had been two seasons before. Last season all flair had gone along with any belief that we could possibly win any game we contested. This season is too new to abandon all hope just yet but as I type this we are losing 2 - 1 at Hull & it is getting increasingly difficult to imagine any improvement in the near future. So, just what went wrong April to June 2020 that has had such major, longstanding ramifications?

We did have Kane. Fantastic for us as far as I remember.........

When Farke left he, rather oddly I thought, said 'Goodbye Canaries', hope to see you again sometime in the future' (or words very similar). I am surprised I have never heard anyone on this forum mention this & can't help wondering if he really meant it or knew something we don't?

The DCboots post is depressing. Doubly so because I can't find major fault with the comments.

Webber had second thoughts when he found that Kone was fighting fit & ready for immediate action. Not his kind of player at all.........

I was surprised to read of his move to Oxford Utd today &, reading the report, assume he has had severe injury problems for the past couple of years. This would explain why I have wondered why I had heard so little of him. Living 400+ miles from CR, the last time I saw him play for us was in August 2017 when I visited Norwich as we had 3 home games in 8 days. Josh played in all 3 & I remember he was fast & had the very useful knack of finding a lot of space whenever receiving the ball. Unfortunately his delivery was awful & he wasted both the space & time he had created. When he left I felt that like so many of our possible future 'stars', ( Lewis, Godfrey & brother Jacob spring to mind to a greater or lessor degree) he left us a season or two too early. Whether the players wanted to leave or the board were over keen to cash in on them, I haven't a clue. Had they stayed with us a little longer they may have developed into fully rounded players, benefiting themselves, us on the pitch & then the club when the time to came sell by generating a higher fee than they did when sold before becoming the finished article. Either way, I hope Josh has beaten his injury jinx & is a success in the rest of his career.

I believe Sir Jim Ratcliffe has £4.5 billion burning a hole in his back pocket at the moment. Hope the board have his number.....

What a small world! My regular seat from my time in Norwich (79 to 83) was in the South Stand, on the halfway line, four rows from the front. Agree that Deehan & Bertschin were all hard work & graft but must add that John was also extremely skilful. Could gather & control the ball cleanly & quickly, hold it if necessary & distribute it on accurately as well as put it in the opposition net quite often! Much like another City player of the time, Martin O'Neill. What we would give to have a couple of players like that in todays team.......

I was an insurance rep covering half of Norfolk, including Great Yarmouth in those days. I was in Yarmouth, driving past a local park when I noticed two teams playing in Norwich & Ipswich strips one weekday morning early in 1981. I stopped to take a look & realised it was Norwich & Ipswich. The weather across the whole country had been so bad that winter that hardly any professional football had been played anywhere for 6 weeks or so. The Norfolk coast was one of the first areas to thaw & a friendly was quickly arranged to get both sets of players in shape. As raunds canary said, Deehan had his first game for us & scored 4. I believe the final score was 5 - 0. Sounds familiar? It was very surreal watching two top teams playing each other on a local park! John turned out to be one of the finest players I can recall in 43 years as a supporter. My best memory of him was scoring the winner in a 1-0 win over European Champions Liverpool, at Carrow Road. I had got tickets for a non-football fan employee from our office who wanted to treat his 8 or 9 year old football mad Liverpool supporting son to his first live match. The little lad was in tears at the end & to try & cheer him up I suggested we stay behind at the end as the TV MOTD interviews were done just in front of where we were sitting in the old South Stand. I had guessed correctly that Deehan would be interviewed. At the end of his interview I suggested that we got his autograph & explained to John how his goal had ruined the little boys day. He then spent a couple of minutes talking to him & turned his day into one to remember & into an instant Norwich fan! I kept in touch with his father for the next 20 years or so who confirmed that his son was City through & through! So I would like to sent my very best wishes to John & his family in what is obviously a very difficult time for all of them.

That seems pretty much what I was trying to say. We played OK against a top team that only needed to field half their regular team & stay in second gear for 90 minutes to beat us 3 - 0 (I am discounting a quite ridiculous penalty!). There appeared a lot more commitment than we showed at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season but we still fell far short of giving them a scare. If they had fielded their strongest team & played in top gear then, well........... We will need to show a lot more if we are to survive in this league &, as I said, I don't think we currently have enough to finish in the top six in the Championship. Living over 400 miles from Carrow Road I can only base my comments on MOTD highlights & the odd radio & BT Sport live games. Clearly my view may not be as valid as those who actually attend the games & obviously, I hope I am being over pessimistic.

Much as my heart wants to agree with this, my head thinks otherwise. Yesterday we lost to a top team that only fielded half their first choice side & (from the highlights I saw on MOTD) played the entire game in second gear. As has been obvious (to me at least) for the past 5 years or so, we have always had the disadvantage of defending a half that appears about 20% larger than the one we are attacking. Whoever the opposition are, they are nearly always able to find loads of space that or attack rarely finds at the opposite end of the pitch. It often appears that we are playing with a man short compared to the opposition. This has happened in the Championship as well as the PL. but of course, we have managed to comfortably managed to score our way out of the former league. Unless we can rejuvenate our forward line between now & the start of next season, I fear we will find life very difficult, no matter what league we are in.

During my brief spell living in the fine City, 1979 to 83, my next-door neighbour but one was a City first team regular with whom I became quite friendly. As was the case at the time, every top club was looking for the next George Best & each season several clubs believed they had found him. Norwich were convinced they had unearthed him according to my neighbour. A business acquaintance closely associated with the club confirmed that many within the club felt the same about this player. However, it all went wrong, the players career dived & he ended up at Cambridge. I was told that on a plane to a match against Liverpool, John Bond went up to him & said ‘Well done (name), you’re starting against the European Champions tonight’. It was his first start for the first team. My business friend was sitting behind him & tapped him on the shoulder & said ‘congratulations (name), you must be thrilled!’. He replied, ‘Not really, not that bothered, get paid a lot, got a nice motor & all the girls I want whether I play or not’. Unless Todd is really struggling with mental issues &/or injury (in which case he would have my every sympathy) could he have the same attitude problem as the 1970’s Best MK 2 & is this why Chris Sutton sounded so frustrated with him?