Jim Smith

Agreed. Despite the fact I have lost a lot of respect for him over this whole episode I would be happy to see him back in the team IF he were to come out publically himself and say that he has made an error of judgment, that his head has been turned and that he was now going to concentrate on playing for NCFC and trying to get us promoted again.   Its clear he does not want to go to Wigan and nobody else is in for him so its time for him to take a reality check and get on with things!

The only halfwits in that ground were the idiotic people who cheered Francis. Fair enough if you don''t agree with booing then don''t do it but how can people actually cheer him after what has gone on this summer. I vannot believe our fans sometimes. All I can say is that once the deal finally happens and the truth comes out about how our Damien and his agent have conducted themselves at the end of last season and this summer then a lot of the people out there cheering him are going to feel very stupid. It gives me no pleasure to say this as I think on his day he is a great player on his day however we are better off without him (particularly having seen JJ play on Friday). Good riddance!

No he must either be left to rot in the reserves or got out of the club asap.   The guy is refusing to play for us in friendlies and has made it obvious through his behavior and performances last season that he does not want ot play for us. Good riddance to bad rubbish so far as I am concerned!

Nothing confusing here. I have accounts from too many people about his behaviour at the end of last season for there to be no truth in them. This is a player who does not want to play for us and a manager who has lost patience. Unfortunately however from what i have seen when he has been interviewed on TV I don''t think Francis has the brains to do all this himself and is being heavily influenced by his agent. Cut our losses and get rid is my view. Don''t think we''ll get the 2 million some people are expecting though now his attitude has been shown for what it is.

[quote]Im happy enough to tell you Jim, although im not entirely sure how revealing the name of someone i know in Liverpool will make much difference, but as you asked it came from Matthew Russell, a friend ...[/quote] Ok thanks. I wasn''t actually after the name of the individual person but was more questioning whether he was actually seen by someone you know or it was something that had been picked up from one of these football rumours sites. Interesting info. Lets hope there is nothing in it as I have kind of convinced myself that he will stay now. Having said that if he does go I think Ward is good enough and we will have loads of money to spend!

Spotted in Liverpool by whom? Care to reveal where this latest gossip comes from?

The defence is not ordinary at this level. Assuming Helveg goes a defence of Louis-Jean, Shackell, Doherty and Drury would do the business and both Flem and Charlton could step in if need be. I agree that we could do with another central midfielder, a right midfielder and another right back and I think that is what we will get once we have got some money in for Francis.

Personally I cannot believe the negativity on the messageboards today. We have brought in 3 players for next to nothing all of whom are provn to be capable at this level and they will add depth to our squad. Thorne is about as good as you are going to get in terms of a reserve striker and the Cardiff fans are all gutted we have knicked him for free. We still have pretty much the same team as we had last season in the premier and if that is the case at the start of the season we will do very well. If any of our big name players do leave then they will be replaced. The key sigings this summer will be any replacement for Helveg or Francis (if needed) and I don''t think those signings have happened yet!

Don''t tell us, tell Nigel. Why don''t you email the club?

Maybe but if he''d read the fans minds a bit earlier and replaced Holt, Fleming and Edworthy 3 months before he did we probably would not have got relegated in the first place. Perhaps he is realising that the fans who watch the team week in week out do actually know what they are talking about!

Tallish, athletic central midfielder who has big workrate and gets around the park well but whose passing is a bit iffy and who gives the ball away on occasions seems to be the Wigan fans verdict. Sounds like a cross between Gary Holt and Damo if you ask me

I may be confusing this joker with another Olsen but is this not the guy who used to manage Wimbledon? If so he''s a fine one to talk about "kick and rush" football! He''s clearly got it in for us as he''s been slagging norwich off ever since Helveg joined. Have to say if they do look like qualifying and Olsen stays in charge you couldn''t blame Helveg for moving on in order to ensure he gets one last crack at the World Cup!

We are also doing the train/ferry deal going out on the Friday. Should be nine of us heading out on the Friday and returning Monday. Also a bit concerned about the train strike but hopefully they will have sorted a deal by then. If not then I don''t think a lot of services are effected as they seemed to run most of them last week! One to keep an eye on but should be a good trip.  

In my opinion Francis has lst himself the Player of the Season title with his lacklustre performances of late. He was particularly poor against Charlton where he just strolled around in midfield and wasn''t a lot better on saturday or against Newcastle. The cynical amongst us might think that his mind was elsewhere having lined himself up a nice move back to London in the close season.

Not suggesting you shouldn''t have celebrated simply pointing out that the celebrations were such that you would have thought you''d stayed up or won something when in reality you had scraped a draw. Singing Easy, Easy! in response to getting a 3-3 draw makes you look no less stupid than us singing it when we haven''t yet managed to kill the game off!

[quote]Lazy and very poor journalism, thats all it is. These guys don''t like a bottom side like palace having an England international its as simple as that. Its typical of the way the press are, constantly ...[/quote] Not lazy journalism. When 3 or 4 national media reports all come out with the same sort of stuff it tends to suggest there is a degree of truth in what they are saying. Ashton will never get the same sort of treatment as Johnson is getting because he is as honest as the day is long and doesn''t fling himself on the floor every time anyone gets anywhere near him. As for the Easy chants - started by your lot when you went 1-0 up. All we were doing was flinging it back in your face in the same way you did to us later. Have to say however i think the way your fans celebrated a 3-3 draw at home in what was probably your most winnable fixture was a bit misguided. That was not a good result for Palace.

Luke Young You bet your life I am for real. Ok the Safri one was a penalty which you were unlucky was not given however in my opinion none of the Johnson ones were penalties. Yes there was some contact but that does not make it a penalty. The problem is that Johnsons entire game revolves around getting the ball in the box, drawing a bit of contact with the defenders and then flinging himself on the floor looking for a penalty. His actions turn the whole game into a farce and are symbolic of the kind of behaviour that is ruining football. You guys may well be bleating about the ref on saturday but if he had done his job and booked Johnson for his blatant dive early on then he would either not have continued with his antics or he would have been sent off by the time he dived for the penalty he was awarded. In my opinion as an all round player he is not remotely in the same class as the proper striker who banged in two goals for us at the other end. To put Johnson in the England squad and have him up for player of the season sends out totally the wrong message. The FA should be clamping down on these sort of antics and looking to boot them out of the game rather than encouraging it.    

My expectations at the start of the season were that we would be embroiled in a relegation battle but my gut feeling was that we would enough to stand a pretty decent chance of staying up. Staying up would have represented a success. Narrow relegation would not have been a success (I don''t see how anyone could say relegation could be any kind of success and anyone who regards it as such is part of the problem with whats gone on at the club this season) but if achieved with us having given our all and played to the best of our abilities would have been acceptable. Our current position in my eyes represents a resounding failure this season and is not acceptable due the the way it has come about. Next season anything other than promotion will be a failure as as someone has pointed out above it will send us back to square one again.      

Whilst I hope you are right and Worthy has finally learnt his lesson you still have to question why it has taken him so long to sort out flaws that just about every supporter has been able to see for 3 months now. The quotes and attitude we are seeing off Worthy this week should have been what we were seeing right from the start of the season. I have no doubt we will probably pick up 2 or 3 wins over the next few weeks with the right players playing and some lesser opposition but i''m afraid he has left it too late!  

[quote]Yes it''s been a disappointing season but nothing more was expected. For all those who want Worthy out and blah blah blah... You''re sounding like West Ham supporters[/quote] That quote sums up the problem for me with too many people involved in NCFC. Yes I expected it to be a hard battle and that we would be fighting relegation. If we were genuinely giving it a real go but that was still not good enough then i would not fell particularly disappointed at how the season has gone. The problem is that the season has not been disappointing because we may go down, it has been disappointing because of the clueless manner in which we have played for most of it and thats why people are moaning. I don''t want Worthy out but he needs to buck his ideas up big time.  

Probably not as he has left it two months too late to change things as always. We probably need 5 wins from our last 7 games to have a chance of staying up and that is extremely unlikely. However we might be able to play with a bit of fire and regain some semblance of pride out of this wretched season.   If things do improve however it will also be immensely frustrating as it will simply confirm what a lot of fans have been saying for many weeks now about his team selections and leave us wondering what might have been.

Whilst I agree that Worthy is a manager still learning his trade I think that the serious concern so far as I am concerned is how long it seems to take him to learn. Often the fans are aware of the problems with the side long before Worthy seems to be. I keep jearing him go on about how we wre learning all the time and the premiership is a learning curve but frankly I dodn''t buy it. All I have learnt is that if you make mistakes you get punished and that you need to keep the ball at this level. That much was apparent after 2 or 3 games and to be honest is common sense. It doesn''t take you a whole season to learn that if you give the ball away and don''t mark players then they will score against you. Or to learn that certain players clearly aren''t up to the job! 

Beds I suspect the truth is actually the opposite of what you say and in reality those currently criticising the manager (and not the word criticising not calling for him to go) are those that have been following Norwich for long enough and know enough about the game to see that some of our team selections and tactics have been seriously flawed this season. I don''t think many are seriously calling for Worthy to be sacked but I for one get annoyed by the attitude taken by many fans this season that Worthy is beyond criticism because we won the league last season which gave us our best season for years. Yes that was fantastic and yes in genaral Worthy has done a good job. I can handle being relegated and I can handle losing when I feel we''ve given it a go. The problem this season is that we have not done ourselves justice and many of Worthy''s decisions have contributed to that. That is what is so frustrating for many of us. I have been going to Carrow Road for 20 years and had a season ticket now for at least 15 of them. I will be there again next season whatever division we are in and whateever happens in the summenr but I reserve the right to express my opinion when I see such obvious problems not being addressed!  

I totally agree with the sentiments in this thread. Worthy has enjoyed the rather privileged position of not being under pressure for too much of this season and needs to be held accountable for the continued poor team selections and iffy tactics that we are seeing week in week out. I think if you asked the 24,000 people within Carrow Road which 2 or 3 payers are currently not up to the job then without fail they would say Holt, Flem and Edworthy. We can all see it and have done for most of the season - why can''t the management team!! This season is rather rapidly becoming and depressing embarassment. We all laughed when West Brom brought in Robson but they have improved significantly. So have Southampton and Palace (who finished 21 point below us last season) have been above us for most of the season. We on the other hand are going backwards due to our inability to do the basics at the back and in central midfield. Safri must be given a run in the middle. Play the Doc or Charlton alongside Shackell and bring in Helveg at right back and I am certain there would be a major improvement. Unfortunately however i fear we will still see the same names on the teamsheet because nobody seems to be brave enough to question worthy publicly over his team selections.

I have to say that I agree with much of what is said in the original thread here. The number of senior people within the club who seemed to accept that we were likely to go down and that it would all be ok as we will go straight back up again has concerned me from day one. This sort of attitude was evident in our summer transfer activity and has also been evident in the attitude of the manager and the players to defeats all season.   I do not hwoever accept that the gulf in class is as large as people choose to make out. Yes at the top of the table it is but in terms of the sorts of teams floatsing around the 8th to 16th place mark my own view is that we were quite capable of taking points off all of them but due to a combination of shambolic defending and simply not turning up for periods of matches we have not done ourselves justice.