cornish sam

[quote user="morty"][quote user="cornish sam"]On a slight tangent (i.e. not making fun of our hard up neighbours) does anyone know if there is a limit on the number of cat 1 academies there can be, so should they somehow make the grade next time round would a current cat 1 lose that status?[/quote]Well if you don''t maintain the standards set then its only right really that you lose your status. I should imagine club facilities will be inspected periodically, to make sure the standards are being maintained. [/quote] Yes, I would assume that, but is it a bell curve that says that only the best 20 (say) academies are cat 1 or is it all academies that meet a minimum level of cat 1? So could we end up with 50 cat 1 academies, and the rest cat 3 and 4?

Obviously not otherwise he would have signed!

On a slight tangent (i.e. not making fun of our hard up neighbours) does anyone know if there is a limit on the number of cat 1 academies there can be, so should they somehow make the grade next time round would a current cat 1 lose that status?

Bloody auto correct, "x amount" not Xmas... And what kind of filter replaces cr@p with ****, this ******* antiquated forum software...

[quote user="Newton"]No u right signing fulham chief scout who was responsible for there recent crap signings costing £25M does not mean he will sign crap players for us Of course not silly me[/quote] Will you please stop with this scout being responsible for Xmas amount spent on crap signings codswallop! The chief scout leads a team of scouts and goes with recommendations to the manager (or director of football or whatever). He doesn''t personally scout every player that is signed and he sure as hell doesn''t decide which recommendations to Persie and how much to pay for them. Shock horror, so metes managers and owners sign players regardless of whether or not the scouts have looked at them and what they think of them, for all we know the new owner fancied mitroglou, the chief scout said he''s pap but he signed him anyway as a signal of intent...

I have to side with Herman on this one Reggie. The football side of the organisation has grown too big for one person to effectively manage it without losing focus, it''s too many balls to keep in the air. Departmentalising it in this way allows the manager and coaches to focus more on what they need to, performances on the pitch, whilst someone else can after the sports science and physio etc. reporting back to the manager just what he needs to know to allow him to apply that to the greatest effect. How often do players get rushed back too early or managers get accused of being too interested in the pro zone stats? This should hopefully help to stop that happening.

I think that some are also reading a bit too much into the chairman''s comments as well. He was trying to justify to his fans why they weren''t taking the whole of his ownership off FC Sion and there had also been a clash between LAffertey and the manager that no one seems to have mentioned in this thread at all. Last night someone posted a link to an Italian Journalist''s twitter feed, in that there was an epsiode recounted which to paraphrase said that at the promotion party Laffertey stole the managers beloved hat and threw it across the room (the cad) and the manager was a bit miffed at this and said "You''ll never play for me again", everyone thought he was joking, lo and behold, he didn''t play in the last 4 games of the season and gets sold to us....

[quote user="Hannibal II"]i feel so deflated at this signing its untrue. No only is he no better as a target man than Becchio who in his last half season in the Champ scored 20 goals before Jan it probably means one or more of our other strikers will leave. Who would actually do a much better job in the Champ than this beanpole. Anymore like this and the season ticket will be returned faster than those two who threw them at Gunn![/quote]   Now that either shows a real lack of confidence in the ability of Laffertey or a lack of appreciation as to Becchio''s talents. It''s true that he scored 20 goals in his last half season at Leeds but to describe him as a target man is well wide of the mark.   This could be an inspired signing or it could be a dire one, I remain unconvinced, but that''s due to not having seen anything of him. From all accounts however, he IS a target man and that is something we have been sorely missing.

[quote user="GrantsMoustache"]It was always going to be likely that one of Olsson or Garrido would move on, both are likely on big wages. I''d rather Garrido moved on than Olsson, but then again he would probably be a tremendous player in the Championship so not too worried.[/quote]   It could just be that as Olsson is left footed and we have (near as damnit) lost our usual right winger this means that Redmond will be played on the right and Olsson moved up to play left wing with Kingsley and Garrido vying for the lef back slot. From a personal perspective I do like Olsson as a winger, he has pace to spare, can whip in a decent ball and protects his fullback well. If we throw in overlapping fullbacks, which Garrido apparently used to excel at (before Hughton) and we have a very fluid looking left side with those two swapping at will.

[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"][quote user="Kangaroo Court"][quote user="Michael Bates"]To make 1.7million from him in 1 season would be crazy. Of course we would sell..[/quote] Sell and buy who to replace him? Blackburn want £14 million for Rhodes. No sense for us to sell a proven Championship striker. [/quote]   They can want £50m for him, they aren''t going to get it. Blackburn need to sell and get players off their wage bill or they will fall foul of the Financial Fair Play rules and face a hefty fine. Rhodes will end up leaving for a fraction of £14m, but it all depends on which Prem club blink first and make a move for him - Blackburn pretty much have to sell by the end of the summer window. [/quote] Bethnal, I would be interested in your view of how the various FFPs are working so far. My superficial impression, which may be wrong, is that two out of the three are taking it seriously. Picking a heavy-hitter in Dehaene always looked as if Uefa''s version was going to be applied with some force, and that seems to have been the case. Coming down hard on two very high-profile clubs in Man City and PSG sends a message to the rest. Platini''s choice of replacement for Dehaene will be interesting. And the Football League version also seems to be having an effect, as you indicate with Blackburn, and with the QPR fine, although I see the latest Deloitte''s report says too many clubs have still been paying too much in wages, in an effort to reach the Premier League. Too early to say with the Premier League version? [/quote]   I would agree with most of that - very early days but the effects are being seen. Chelsea couldn''t bring in a striker last season for fear of breaching to the European rules - which also stopped Man City spending big on a new defender. Also, Chelsea selling Luiz is with one eye firmly on the rules and allows them a bit of flexibility in the market. Reducing the maximum squad size is a very clever punishment and is something that no amount of money will get clubs around.   The Premier League one is a the most watered down of all the rules and so its affects are harder to notice. The most obvious results so far are as a result of the limiting how much clubs can increase their wage budgets per season - this really hampered West Ham last season after they blew their budget on Carroll.   The Football League is something I know less about, how much QPR are fined will be interesting to see, but there are certainly many clubs mentioning how they are limited in their dealings by the rules (how much of this is chairmen finding a good excuse to not spend their own money is hard to know. The Football League certainly seem to be taking it more seriously than the Premier League and it is certainly something that every club has to take into consideration. It might still be a couple of seasons before its affects are really seen, but the dramatic thining of the Blackburn squad - 16 released and 6 on the transfer list - shows that it''s doing something. [/quote]   I think that even though the football league are trying to do a good job with their FFP rules there is one glaring problem with it and one (enforced) missed opportunity. The big flaw is the inability to pass the proposed transfer embargo on to a team should it get promoted into the premiership, this means that some teams will quite happily throw their owners vast resources at a shot to get promotion happy that no matter how large the fine, billy big pockets owner can afford it and anyway, they''re getting ten times more for their one year in the premiership. The only teams that it punishes are those that are actually struggling to make ends meet due to other situations and historical debt. In much the same way as the premiership FFP is going to cement the rich clubs getting richer and the smaller ones (at the time of FFP adoption) not being able to catch them, the same will be true in the football league, if you are only getting 5k fans through the gate due to your current position then you have a glass ceiling that you will never be able to break despite the fact that that would entice more fans and so enable you to increase your spending.... Which brings me on to the missed opportunity. I was originally phrasing this as another glaring problem, but it is definitely more of a missed opportunity, in that it doesn''t matter how much the promoted teams get fined (should they break FFP) it will be of no benefit to the teams that they have effectively cheated against as that money is going to be going to charities. Originally it was to be divided evenly between the cheated teams, but I believe this was (or was going to be) legally challenged and the only acceptable solution was the charity one. Had the money been split between the cheated opponents then it would have allowed debts to be cleared and nvestments to be made to allow the clubs grow a little bit more and also spread the love in a way that the premiership is severly opposed to.

[quote user="City1st"][quote user="splutcho"]Oh come on, plenty of our best players over the years have been free or dirt cheap. One man''s rubbish is another man''s treasure.[/quote]much of that was through financial necessity - whoich ignores the point that we will have around FOUR times the money of most other clubsthose that deliberately ''go out of contract'' tend to do so with a club and lucrative contract already lined upthe point of the OP was not so much the quality not those players, but that they are ''free'' [/quote] Some aren''t cast off because they''re not good enough. Sidwell for example wasn''t offered a new contract by Gilgamesh (or fulham without autocorrect) despite saying he would be willing to stay and help them get back up, yet the pretty much unanimous opinion on here is that he will still be a premiership player next season... Just because we''ve got money doesn''t mean we have to spend it, we still need to get value for money, just look at Blackburn for how not to do it.

What about Steve Sidwell? Probably still got a couple of good seasons left in him and being dumped by Fulham despite being their most dangerous midfielder...

[quote user="Mello Yello"][quote user="cornish sam"]Mello yello, be careful what you wish for, just one name, Michael knighton. Look him up...[/quote] I remember Knighton the Charlatan very well..... [/quote] Are you familiar with the spiral he entered into with Carlisle? He basically installed puppet managers and when they failed he made himself manager, at one point he even went to the local paper claiming he''d been abducted by aliens (it was that sort of thing that I was suggesting you might need to look up)

Mello yello, be careful what you wish for, just one name, Michael knighton. Look him up...

Bowlers didn''t say they''d scoured Europe, he said they''d reviewed the markets in Europe, which is totally different, that wouldn''t just involve looking at available candidates but also the available opportunities within those markets and historical performance of people transferring their skills from those markets into the English second tier, which in style and substance is a world away from ligue 1 or the bundesliga. So yes, there maybe managers with better CV''s in those markets but that doesn''t mean that their experience will make them a success in the championship (not that I''m saying NA has that tick either but at least he''s been exposed to it and had visibility of the league and teams therein for a while).

[quote user="Bor Bor Bor"]We could play Four-Four-Jew. [/quote] Oy vay have you done this bor, you should have quit whilst you were ahead...

[quote user="Newton"]Cornish Sam u r entitled to your views but r u a regulator to Carrow Road or just a regular to these boards ?[/quote] What''s that got to do with the price of fish? I was appreciating the wit and puntastic qualities of another poster, it really is of no concern of yours and the only reason I''m replying at all is because it''s rude to ignore someone who addresses you directly.

[quote user="Bor Bor Bor"]Shalom the ball, City never mind the torah steady on, now''s your chance hurrah, we''ve occupied some land[/quote] Bor, you might as well retire from the board now, you''ll never top this post!

[quote user="TCCANARY"]   Why are you asking him what it takes to get promoted from the Championship, they''ve been there longer than anyone else.       [/quote]   Surely that puts him in the best position to say what it takes to get promoted, they''ve seen so many other teams do it whilst marching past them!

Holtcantshoot said: "The current board have had a much higher miss than hit ratio with managers over the years " Is this actually true? A few people keep spouting this of late and whilst it may be true that the current owners don''t have a very good track record of managerial appointments surely the current board have a 50:50 strike rate (Adams is a caretaker really so not counted in this) which is probably one of the best success rates of any board in the football league...

Wha about Sam Byram or Ross McCormack? Proven at this level and with the added bonus of p*ssing off our northern friends by still being able to poach their best players when we''re in the same league...

[quote user="Tumbleweed"]Reggie- I think there is a little divide but if you look at the Champ, which is now our focus, all the Top 16 (except Bournemouth) are credibly all peers of ours and all jostling with little differential. Birmingham are a bit of an outlier, being below where they should probably be. A few (Huddersfield, Charlton, Millwall) probably about right and then you have a few who are Lge1/bottom Champ. We know from when we went down in ''95 after many years of Division 1/Prem when we hoped to come back early, that it took 9 years! In 2005, 5 years. Re players, I have no confidence that the likes of RVW, Bassong, Fer will look any more motivated at Portman Road on a cold Tuesday in a rumbustious derby game if they can''t be bothered in one of the world''s best leagues.[/quote]   Sorry for picking on your post Tumbleweed, but I''m getting a bit sick of this defeatist, little Ol'' Norwich attitude carrying over into the Championship. We are debt free, our average attendance (even in our last season in the champs) can only be matched by one team in that division (Brighton) and only 8 others have within 10,000 of ours (with two of these being promoted), not to mention we will have the bumper parachute payments and this years prize money for the premiership will give us more money than Man Utd got for winning it last year! We are an attractive prospect for players and management, we should not conisder 16 other teams to be our peers, we ARE a big club in the championship with lots and lots of disposable income compared to other teams, especially with the FFP rules being enforced. We need to flex that muscle and bully our way to the promotion. Don''t get me wrong, I know it is a difficult ask and we can''t expect to just win by turning up, but FFS people, show some positivity people and recognise us for what we are.

I think the problem with snoddy is that he is, if not our outright best at least one of them and certainly the most consistent of them. However, this means he has to be played when in actual fact it''s in detriment to the team as a whole. By this I mean that he can only be really effective playing as an inverted winger whereas the rest of the players don''t work in that kind of formation, hence our problems this year. The reason I say he can only play as an inverted winger is that he doesn''t have the pace to skin a man on the outside so is ineffective on the left and he doesn''t have the nouse to beat a (premiership level) central defender, he is only really able to beat a man when he''s turning them onto their wrong side, if we saw an inverted fullback against him then he would be totally bu99ered! Having said all of that, he is technically a very good player who we should do as much as possible to keep as against championsip defences he will be very effective (and that way we could sell him for a premium when we get promoted again)

Thanks Purple, I thought for a second it might not be! The fact that this was concerning just the first team was what made me think that it was relevant and in many ways would provide a better tool for analysis of the League position to Spending realtionship than the report by Deloite''s. I''d also agree with your conclusions about us most likely still being above the promoted teams and Swansea so would expect us to be at least 16th if not higher come this report next year (for example taking into account corresponding signings I could see us being above WBA now who were only paying an average of £1500 more than us last season).     For those that haven''t bothered looking at the underlying figures here''s my summary: Rank (Last year) Team, league Avg annual pay $ % change avg annual from 2013 survey Total wage bill $ Total rank Avg player 5-yr earnings % diff in 5-yr annual pay, Y1-Y5 Avg Weekly wage £ Final Position 1 -1 Manchester City, EPL 8,109,912 0.6 202,747,812 3 31,660,772 265 92852.25 2 8 -12 Manchester United, EPL 6,566,775 8.9 164,169,367 8 27,985,256 38 75184.52 1 10 -8 Chelsea, EPL 6,053,686 -3 151,342,140 12 30,990,544 3 69310.05 3 11 -15 Arsenal, EPL 5,928,172 5.1 148,204,312 15 25,892,620 38 67873.01 4 20 -21 Liverpool, EPL 5,171,351 0.2 129,283,779 20 24,648,884 25 59207.99 7 54 -51 Tottenham, EPL 4,037,692 -0.1 100,942,292 53 16,327,740 95 46228.47 5 70 -91 Queens Park Rangers, EPL 3,255,259 25 81,381,487 75 n/a n/a 37270.21 20 75 -64 Aston Villa, EPL 3,044,799 -8.8 76,119,969 81 17,219,644 4 34860.61 15 86 -104 Fulham, EPL 2,678,222 10.3 66,955,551 99 10,967,944 91 30663.58 12 88 -75 Newcastle, EPL 2,664,731 -4.3 66,618,266 100 14,557,140 -24 30509.12 16 93 -98 Everton, EPL 2,622,287 5.1 65,557,187 104 11,953,188 17 30023.17 6 109 -73 Sunderland, EPL 2,431,002 -15.4 60,775,039 127 11,160,968 74 27833.1 17 112 -118 Stoke, EPL 2,360,048 4.5 59,001,195 135 n/a n/a 27020.73 13 117 -127 West Bromwich Albion, EPL 2,301,740 5.7 57,543,488 138 n/a n/a 26353.15 8 131 (-) West Ham, EPL 2,186,148 n/a 54,653,688 145 9,759,464 -20 25029.71 10 141 -175 Norwich, EPL 2,063,147 32.7 51,578,685 151 n/a n/a 23621.45 11 147 (-) Reading, EPL 2,021,930 n/a 50,548,252 152 n/a n/a 23149.54 19 153 -174 Swansea, EPL 1,930,169 22.8 48,254,220 155 n/a n/a 22098.95 9 155 (-) Southampton, EPL 1,893,656 n/a 47,341,388 158 n/a n/a 21680.9 14 166 -168 Wigan, EPL 1,754,850 2.8 43,871,260 164 8,810,204 6 20091.68 18

If you read my whole arguement then you''ll see that subconsciously hiding from chances isn''t mutually exclusive from trying to project oneself presence on a match. He''s low on confidence and doesn''t back himself to score so he ''hides'' from chances, stands in the shadow of defenders, doesn''t offer runs into the box, etc. However, he knows that he has to work hard and is trying to contribute so he drops deep, ''looking for the ball'' in non-threatening areas of the pitch, he''s trying to force the issue but trying to force it in the wrong places. He is in effect trying too hard, he''s trying to impose himself on games but the way that he needs to be behaving isn''t something that can be forced, it''s lower level than that, hence the ''it can''t be fixed in training''. Look at the body language of Torres in his first season at Liverpool versus the first season at Chelsea and you''ll see what I mean, head up looknig for the ball playing with instinct for L''pool, shoulders slumped avoiding eye contact, making runs too late and throwing hands up in the air in the first season at Chelsea. We unfortunately know have an RVW more like Chelsea Torres than L''pool Torres. (Not that I''m saying RVW is anywhere near the quality of Torres or will be a £50m striker when we sell him, just that Torres is a far more extreme example of what I''m trying to describe).