Bogbrush

I understand what you say. However, firstly, I have not given up on the idea of getting into the play-off places. PG has clearly stated that he has been given the funds to bring in new players and if he succeeds it is still possible that we can put together a good run. We already have some excellent players in key positions but we need a big, mobile striker to partner Earnie and decent quality alternatives to Shackell and Drury. With 3 points for a win the gulf between us and the play-off zone is bridgeable. On the other side of the coin, if we sell Earnie we lose the only player that we have who can score goals regularly and, frankly, that will mean that relegation becomes IMO a really probability not least because of the mood of depression and negativity that we will shroud Carrow Road.

[quote user="alex_ncfc"]Green is no longer a Norwich player, therefore I couldn''t give a sh*t if he plays brilliantly or has a stinker. He clearly didn''t want to be here in his final season so it was good riddance in my view.[/quote]   Well said Alex, my sentiments exactly !

Good call Dexx, we have heard this sort of vacuous comment from management and players alike many times over the last few months. Completely pointless and meaningless.

Chris Martin''s 18. IMO he should be on the sub''s bench for tomorrow and be ready to come on for the last 20 mins. He''s bang on form young, energetic and motivated. He should be given his chance. There''s the old saying "If it works don''t fix it" . It patently isn''t working so introduce new faces.

Over the years we seem to have let go or missed out on some excellent players. Danny Haynes is perhaps the most topical. Although I was never aware of him being at Norwich he does look a great prospsect in the Defoe style and I can''t see him being at Ipswich too much longer. However, for me the player that I really regret missing out on is Dean Windass.   A tenacious, goal scoring midfielder, I see that he is still scoring goals now but the main reason I was sorry that we didn''t buy him is that , as I remember it, he was the player our then manager,  Martin O''Neill, wanted to bring in but Robert Chase refused on the grounds that we didn''t have the money. The rest is history, the miffed O''Neill then met with the Chairman of Leicester (as rumour has it) during the match when we drew 2-2 and shortly after joined them as their manager. How different things might have been if Chase had found the money, brought Windass in and O''Neill stayed on as manager !!  

What a good post, probably because I agree with most of the points you make ! There is no doubt that the finger of blame points clearly at the Board or, more specifically at Delia because she controls the Board appointments. The root of the problem is that whilst Delia is a Norwich supporter through and through and, undoubtedly, she saved the club from bankruptcy she is no businesswoman and so entrusted the management of the club to businessmen who, in my opinion, have no real identification with the football club. Worthington achieved so much by gaining promotion to the Premiership but was badly betrayed by a Board which was not only frightened of failure but accepted relegation before the Premiership season had even started. There was no way that NW would be able to repeat the achievement and he seemed to accept this lack ambition and, perhaps, after a while actively support the "Ambition with prudence" claptrap crap. After promotion to the Premiership and two seasons of parachute payments plus the income from tranfers (although we have only received a down payment for Ashton apparently !), not to mention full capacity home attendances, it is surprising that we are constantly being told of the dire financial problems that the Cub apparently has - unless the reference is to long term debt. I have a massive mortgage but I don''t regard myself as having serious financial problems ! And, whilst I am at it, what other club which has the chance to expand the capacity of its stadium decides to fill the space with a hotel when the option was available to have both ? The hard truth is that the loyal fans have been consistently let down by the Club, its owners, Board and Manager (NW) and the condescension that we have had to endure has been, farnkly, sickening.

[quote user="Yellow fever"] With MCLeash/ Curbisley, etc out, Hunter now the most popular choice in fans poll - see in polls cheep cheep [/quote]     More like CHEAP CHEAP which, after all, is what the Board want. Nothing would suit them better than 4 points from the next two games to enable them to confirm Hunter as the next manager.

Why does anybody think that Alan Curbishley would consider becoming Norwich manager ? Having previously spent years crafting/grafting a similar sized club such as Charlton into an established Premiership club (for how long now though ?) why on earth would he wish to try and repeat the exercise with Norwich ? For that matter, why would any other manager or aspiring manager come to Norwich to take over from Worthington in the knowledge that they wouldn''t have any cash to spend on players or, if cash was made available, it would be strictly limited. Therefore, any new manager would effectively have to work with the "squad" that Worthy has put together and what incentive does that represent ? Therefore, my belief is that, if Worthy is sacked, the plan is to promote from within another person who will be prepared to "stay on message" ......... and no prizes for guessing who that might be.

Why does anybody think that Alan Curbishley would consider becoming Norwich manager ? Having previously spent years crafting/grafting a similar sized club such as Charlton into an established Premiership club (for how long now though ?) why on earth would he wish to try and repeat the exercise with Norwich ? For that matter, why would any other manager or aspiring manager come to Norwich to take over from Worthington in the knowledge that they wouldn''t have any cash to spend on players or, if cash was made available, it would be strictly limited. Therefore, any new manager would effectively have to work with the "squad" that Worthy has put together and what incentive does that represent ? Therefore, my belief is that, if Worthy is sacked, the plan is to promote from within another person who will be prepared to "stay on message" ......... and no prizes for guessing who that might be. Ou club is suffering from a chronic illness called complacency and in my opinion it permeates down  from the directors, one of whom seemed to think he was making a supreme sacrifice by driving to Wales via his parent''s house in Crodon in a forlorn attempt at signing Cotterill on deadline day. This illness started when we knew we had won promotion and automatic relegation was IMO immediately accepted as inevitability and our club has degenerated ever since to the pitiful squad of players and regime that we now have. Our club is cosy, comfortable and complacent and, to continue with words beginning with "C", Contemptuous of its supporters. The parachute payment, income from McK and Green and the  season ticket money (how much £5M, £6M ?) for this season are banked and our directors are already resigned and content to contemplate another season of mediochrity in the Championship. They would refute that of course but, from where I sit, a distinct lack of ambition and even negativity has been emanating from the club for several years now.

[quote user="Two Tails"]Someone explain to me why we let Iwan go again? [/quote]   Excellent point. It is remarkable that we let Malky and Iwan go just at a time when we needed the benefit of their experience and physical and mental toughness. Look at Malky now !    

Nothing to fear over bung probe for City Re the Panorama programme last night and the investigation into corruption in football, Norwich City chief executive Neil Doncaster says his conscience is clear as far as events at Carrow Road are concerned. Phew, what a relief ! I had been suffering sleepless nights until I received our Neil''s reassurance.

I don''t believe for one moment that a third party put up some of the cash to buy Ashton and, in any case, this would have to be revealed in the accounts which it wasn''t. The figures are rounded but more or less accurate based upon all I read. In fact, transfer money or the "transfer kitty" should be isolated. This is what happens in any business, budgets are prepared for each financial year for each part of a business i.e. salaries, advertising and promotion, etc. The sum of £3m was made available to buy Ashton and when he was sold that capital was recovered plus a profit of £3M. After buying Earnshaw, the club could (IMO should) then have reinvested the original capital sum of £3m by buying Cameron. I use the term "invest" advisedly because Cameron would not have been a cost but, instead, an investment upon whom we would have conceivably doubled our money, just like Earnshaw, when inevitably like Ashton he was sold. But no, our watchphrase is "ambition with prudence" which sadly is just a euphemism for "resignation with negativity".

1. For Earnshaw to leave for a Premiership team, we would sell him for close to double what we paid. 2. We would then use that money to strengthen the team, probably with 2 or 3 signings in his place.   Hey BlahEtc, if what you say is true, what happened to the revenue from the sale of Ashton ? In round figures, we paid 3M for him and we sold him for 7M. So the club made 3M profit (i.e. after paying Crewe their sell-on fee) and recouped the original sum of 3M. We paid 3M for Earnie. So, what happened to the other 3M ? Whuch players did we sign with the 3M to strengthen the team ?

"Trial and tribulations of parenthood" !!!!!!!! What poppycock. What is it now then ? One year on full pay for a father after the birth of his baby or is it longer ? Mein Gott when my children were born I was up the next day at 4.00 A..M for the morning shift and my wife went back down the coal mine for the night shift the following evening and the baby got a job filling shelves at Tesco.. On a serious note, I agree with the reference to our youth policy. Apparently, England youth internationals like Hendo and Jarvis who are now, what, in their early twenties are still not deemed mature/strong enough/ready for 1st team full selection but, on the other hand, we are happy to bring in 19 year olds from other clubs. Barmy if you ask me. By the way, having seen Hendo last Saturday at Coventry it confirmed to me that, sadly, he is not good enough. If the club is of the same opinion they really should let him get on with his career elsewhere but I suppose that our squad is now so pitifully thin that the view is that we just need "bodies". I can''t believe how things have declined so dramatically since we won the Championship only 2 seasons ago. The Directors go on about running the club more efficiently as any business should be run but in any other commercial sector the same directors would be held to account for the terrible failures of the last two seasons and be sacked. I wonder how much money these same directors take out of the club in remuneration.

To be honest, I don''t think that Worthy did want to keep McKenzie. IMO the die was cast when McK handed in a transfer request. Worthy may have stated that "McKenzie is going nowhere blah blah" but my belief is that the club had EVERY intention of shipping him out the moment an acceptable offer was received. The problem is that they failed to bring in a replacement and now we have an even weaker squad. If the club had wanted to keep McK all they had to do was to say some nice words, reassure him he was wanted and give him a contract extension.

Yep, you''re completely right of course .................. but loan deals are the only options left to us now !!

I can''t believe the maudlin support for Doncaster. Of course he put a few extra hours in as the deadline loomed, what Company Director doesn''t burn the midnight oil from time to time ? It goes with the territory ....... and the high financial rewards. However, what most professional Company Directors don''t do is leave critical projects until the last minute or wait until the night before a vital meeting that shapes a company''s future  before doing any preparation. It''s clear that Cotterill has been a target for some time. Equally, McKenzie made it clear he wanted out some time ago. The deal should have been completed well before the deadline and before Wigan poked their nose in after seeing Cotterill''s impressive display midweek. Negotiating at a deadline always means negotiating from a position of weakness. All we can hope for now is some tasty loan deals a la 2003 ? We live in hope.

 I can''t believe the maudlin support for Doncaster. Of course he put a few extra hours in as the deadline loomed, what Company Director doesn''t burn the midnight oil from time to time ? It goes with the territory ....... and the high financial rewards. However, what most professional Company Directors don''t do is leave critical projects until the last minute or wait until the night before a vital meeting that shapes a company''s future  before doing any preparation. It''s clear that Cotterill has been a target for some time. Equally, McKenzie made it clear he wanted out some time ago. The deal should have been completed well before the deadline and before Wigan poked their nose in after seeing Cotterill''s impressive display midweek. Negotiating at a deadline always means negotiating from a position of weakness. All we can hope for now is some tasty loan deals a la 2003 ? We live in hope.

I''m in total agreement with you. I can''t believe the maudlin support for Doncaster. Of course he put a few extra hours in as the deadline loomed, what Company Director doesn''t burn the midnight oil from time to time ? It goes with the territory ....... and the high financial rewards. However, what most professional Company Directors don''t do is leave critical projects until the last minute or wait until the night before a vital meeting that shapes a company''s future  before doing any preparation. It''s clear that Cotterill has been a target for some time. Equally, McKenzie made it clear he wanted out some time ago. The deal should have been completed well before the deadline and before Wigan poked their nose in after seeing Cotterill''s impressive display midweek. Negotiating at a deadline always means negotiating from a position of weakness. All we can hope for now is some tasty loan deals a la 2003 ? We live in hope.

The point that I was trying to communicate by my original post was the revelation that, whilst watching the Portsmouth/Midds match, I concluded I would prefer to have Hucks in my team than Downing. I wasn''t trying to suggest that Hucks was worth more than Downing because that''s a different point and of course Downing''s much younger age, his long term potential and his unjustified (IMO) inclusion in the England team would greatly enhance his value over Hucks. As far as Earnie is concerned, I think he''s a great signing for us, he will continue scoring plenty of goals and his transfer value will soar. Johnson went for £8/9M and apparently Defoe is worth a similar amount so I don''t see why Earnie should be valued at £5/6M less. Time will tell !!

[quote user="Northern Canary"]I think Defoe is definately better than Earnshaw, that is why his value is about 5-8 milion higher. I dont know about Huckerby and Downing. It would be interesting to see how good huckerby would be in a team such as Liverpool.[/quote] I understand the point about the difference in transfer values but how many goals did Defoe score in the Premiership last season compared to Earnshaw , and with Earnie playing for a poor team ? Look at the price that another goal scorer from the Championship went for, Andy Johnson - was it £8 or £9M ? If Earnie continues scoring goals at the rate he has been his transfer value will soar.  

I''ve watched England international Downing play quite a few times and watching him playing for Middlesborough last night I realised that I much prefer Huckerby. They''ve both got pace, both can make "killer" crosses into the box but, of the two, only  Huckerby can take on and beat defenders. In the same vein, I concluded that, given the choice, I would opt for Earnshaw over Defoe.Anybody agree ? I then wondered about another one of our international players, Doherty, but there my imagination dried up !