writeronthestorm

No This is going to take some time to bed in and become successful and I am willing to be patient

[quote user="GJP"]Or they sign someone who is going to be higher than 3rd choice. Because at the moment we''ve got a striker who can''t get fit and a striker who can''t score goals. So if at least one of those situations hasn''t significantly improved by January then they need to do something. Unless of course we''re nowhere near the top 6.[/quote] Correct :)

I know RVW gets dragged up a lot when we talk about wasted money on a player who didn''t fit in to our system, but Naismith deserves equal billing IMHO. He''s a mercurial talent that doesn''t show the consistency to be involved in the first team regularly. He''s neither creative enough or enough of a goal threat to warrant inclusion. He does get stuck in, but I only see that as a harbinger of his eventual move into central midfield...a move I expect will coincide with his move into lower league football.

[quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="Lessingham Canary"]@LDCWolves made 9 changes against Man City.That was an option open to booth managers, ours chose to play his strongest side, wont berate him for that as it is good to see he takes the cups seriously, but he was fully aware of what fixtures were coming up and the likely toll.[/quote]Indeed. Given his career to date in lower German leagues, I think the buzz for him of coming up against a club like Arsenal was just too good an opportunity for him to pit his wits against a top PL club and play the strongest team he could. I don''t blame him for that either - and he has said all along he wants to win every game, league and cup. Whatever, we lost to the top side last night and they were better than us. [/quote] Although, I was surprised we didn''t make wholesale changes for Arsenal, I could see the logic behind his selection: We were on a good run, so keep momentum going. Also, I think it may have been a reward for those players that have been integral to the turnaround since Millwall. I just hope we have enough in attack to defeat Bolton and then have a well deserved international break.

[quote user="TIL 1010"]A sad state of affairs when you start a home game without a recognised striker in the line up. Watkins completely out of his depth and Murphy a big disappointment throughout made us look toothless to say the least.[/quote] This is where Farke and Webber find themselves in a tricky situation: an injured striker and another running on empty means you need another striker on the books to come in - they need to be good enough to play in the first team, but also patient enough to know they''re 3rd in the pecking order. Carlton Morris might fit the bill, but he''s getting valuable regular game time at Shrewsbury which is probably more important for his development. So, I guess that leaves Fonkou and Abrahams who presumably Farke does not feel are ready. We also need to remember this Wolves side are no mugs and are leading the division for good reason, so would throwing in Abrahams (my preferred option) even have made a difference. Likewise, not helped by others having a bad game too.

Agreed - I hope the squad and staff take a lot of heart from that into the rest of the season.

Thanks for the report Ricardo - I always seek them out following a game

Any thoughts on what the line-up will be? I expect Farke to bring in Maddison for Wes, but doubt if we see many more changes. I''m usually very optimistic, but I think we might get thrashed on Saturday because a) I am going b) we don''t end winning runs, we usually only end losing runs

blimey.... ...for me it all went wrong when Mike Walker left and we sold Sutton, Fox, etc. That was our chance to regularly be a top 6-10 side in the Premiership

[quote user="Mike"]Most City fans I know don''t enjoy the decline of their football club... I guess we are just weird...[/quote] I enjoy supporting Norwich through thick and thin - if I didn''t then I''d go and find something else to do - doesn''t mean it''s not tough to do sometimes, but if you get nothing positive out of it, why bother? IMHO we are transitioning at the moment: things will settle down and we will come good - I have faith in Farke and what he is trying to do here.

Football Clubs generally go through cycles over the seasons - how much money they have has a contributory impact on how wide that cycle will be and how long it will last, e.g. a Man Utd cycle will peak at winning the premier league/champions league and plunge to the depths of a 6 placed finish. Norwich have shown that our peak can be mid-table in the premiership, but also go as low as league one. I''m not going to overly concern myself with where we are in the cycle, I''m just going to enjoy the ride

[quote user="Darth Vadis"]Gunn Pinto - Zimmermann - Franke - Husband Reed Watkins - Vrancic - Naismith - Murphy Oliveira[/quote] 100% agree

[quote user="TIL 1010"]Pure speculation as the squad is not finalised as far as signings are concerned.[/quote] It would still be pure speculation even if we had a fully finalised squad - we''re still guessing :) FWIW I agree with many on here, I''m expecting a slow start, so I think we could have 10-15

[quote user="Indy_Bones"][quote user="Hoola Han Solo"]For all his weaknesses, Snodgrass contributed a hell of a lot more to Norwich City than van Wolfswinkel ever did, yet you bend over backwards to defend him. Is it maybe because however you try and paint it, RvW was a complete failure and you just don''t want to admit it, whereas Snodgrass was obviously not? Maybe a case of bruised ego.[/quote]I can''t speak for LDC, but certainly in my case it''s nothing to do with ego, and simply that I don''t see it the same way as some other fans do.You say Snoddy contributed more, but in truth what was RvW meant to do with the shockingly poor supply we gave him whilst being asked to perform a role that pretty much any of the posters on here would know was never going to suit the player? You wouldn''t have asked Bellamy to be a target man, or Eadie, or Robins etc, etc, yet when RvW is asked to do it, all we got were snide comments about how he should adapt to the requirements, rather than admitting that it was ridiculous signing a goal poacher and expecting an Andy Carroll type performance from them!Also, the vast majority of our play was through Snodgrass, yet compared to other players given that much of the ball, his return was pretty weak. Remember the side that came up under Lambert? Remember Pilks playing on the opposing wing and seeing a lot less of the ball than Snoddy did (and having just signed from a League 1 club and having been injured previously to boot), yet he scored more, was more accurate with his passing (81% vs 76%) and in particular his crossing was far more composed and where it needed to be than Snoddy ever was, yet Pilks is often met with apathy on the forums whilst Snoddy who was given more to work with yet did less with it is somehow lauded despite his failings???I honestly don''t care how often, or how long I belabour the point, but RvW was setup to fail by Hughton, the problem was compounded by Snoddy (and some of the other midfielders to be fair), and RvW was made a scapegoat in the process. Ask a fishmonger to fillet a fish and they''ll do it no problem, ask them to lay a brick wall and chances are that it isn''t staying up for long (if at all), yet when we told a goal poacher to not poach goals, but to be a strong, hold-up style target man, the blame was placed on the player for failing to do a great job (despite it not being, and never will be their role), rather than the clown who caused the issue in the first place!If you had a goalkeeper conceding 10 goals a match you''d argue that he''s not a good player, but what if we then pointed out that he was in a team playing a 0-0-10 formation and he had absolutely no cover or support whatsoever, is it then the fault of the keeper, or in fact the fault of the team/manager for letting that situation occur constantly?RvW was making some great runs in the early games before his injury - they were ignored, he still kept trying to make them on his return - they were ignored again, eventually he lost confidence, which combined with the pi$$ poor supply and being told to play a stupid role, meant he was next to useless in many games - but not because he was a bad player, but rather because the circumstances surrounding him, made it almost impossible to succeed. Hell, even Grant Holt who was great at holding up the ball and using his strength, found his goal tally halved under Hughton - and that''s a player that actually COULD play the target man role ffs, never mind a lightweight striker more suited to putting a final touch on a ball than he is jostling with some of the massively built CB''s in the prem!The stats around RvW don''t lie, his goal return was terrible for us, and in relation to his transfer fee was even worse, yet I don''t (and never will) blame the player for this, I squarely blame Hughton, and also feel that other players in the team let the guy down by giving him nothing he could work with (although if they were following Hughton''s guidelines, can we fault them too much in the process?), and that if instead we''d have played a more dynamic game - which didn''t involve giving the ball to Snoddy so he could slow the game down to a snail''s pace every chance we got, and instead worked on letting players like Wes pick RvW''s runs out, we''d have seen a VERY different player, and a VERY different goal return.It''s just so wrong to put all the blame on RvW, when he was in fact a victim of bad management and shocking tactics, rather than a bad player, it really is that simple for me.[/quote] Excellent stuff - sums up my thoughts on RVW too

[quote user="GJP"]If he has that much of a bright future why have they only given him a 1 year contract and signed Husband?[/quote] I didn''t say "they" think he has a bright future

Totally agree Icecream: Striker expansive, yet combative midfielder RB/CB hybrid and we are done I think Toffolo has a bright future though and hope that it will be here

[quote user="Yellowbeagle"]It''s impossible to tell how the overseas signings will do, Klose was a much more highly thought of player in the top German division and he really struggled last year in the championship. These new players are going to have to adapt quickly to a very brutal type of football. I think to expect all of them to work out is abit much and i would like to see a couple of promising young players brought in from our league system to compliment the new foreign players.[/quote] It''s impossible to tell how domestic signings will do either - some signings work, some don''t - it''s down to the staff, no matter where the player comes from, to identify the right players and integrate them into the squad and style of play

yep - I did say, if needed and tbf we have other options...I just thought Ibe was a good shout to maybe cover RM and ST will keep my trap shut from now on :)

If you think we need one, who would you suggest? I''d go for Jordan Ibe on loan from Bournemouth - he''s got a lot to prove

It''s a bit like a real life game of Football Manager at the moment: when you take on a team with a minimal budget and start scouting nations that you know historically to be technically competent. Most signings are a gamble, especially at this level where a player can thrive at one club, but not another. What I am very pleased about is that we are overhauling the defence (only a couple of years later than I would have liked) and we are doing our business early. My positive slant on it is that Farke and Webber know who they want and are making sure they get them rather than messing about until deadline day. And if they know who they want, it suggests they have scouted them or know them sufficiently to know that they will fit in to our style of play and our squad.

I have a feeling that we are going to have a tough start where fans, players, staff and board are going to have to remain strong and keep faith with what we are trying to achieve. Once we get over that, I hope we can make it to the play-offs, but my realistic expectation is that we finish 7th.

I''m not saying that we should sell Jacob Murphy, but I think he is one of the players that we could manage without if he were to go. We''d still have Josh Murphy who, for a long time, I thought was the more likely to succeed.

If we keep Jerome, I don''t think we need to sign any strikers: Oliveira, Jerome, Morris, Naismith & the Murphys could all fulfill that role - guess it depends how mobile Farke wants us to be with our attackers

Very good OP out of curiosity is anyone swayed into thinking that Irvine could be the Head Coach for us? Personally, I''d look elsewhere, although AI should be commended for his work since AN left

I have no doubt that he is going to be a great success as a manager...although he may find himself as a short term solution for clubs, unless he can learn and improve from experience. I think that only then will he become a viable long term manager for a club. I agree that he hasn''t necessarily shown a willingness, let alone, the skill to learn and improve from his time at Norwich although to be fair to him, the Premiership and subsequent season in the Championship are intense places to be trying to learn and improve. For me, he moved away from what brought us success and as he lost faith in his players, they lost faith in him and for all his bluster, I think he was wracked with self-doubt during the tough periods of our season in the prem and this season which would not breed confidence to get through it.