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sgncfc

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Everything posted by sgncfc

  1. I don't think we need much at all to make our plan A team quite good. Assuming Sargent and Hwang recover well, we're well covered up front. The Kenny at CB experiment appears to have legs (so credit to Wagner for that) and alongside Duffy (who was excellent on Saturday) or Hanley that weakness should be fixed. Wide areas are sorted - I don't like Fassnacht or Hernandez as back ups but they're here and they're not going anywhere. Fullbacks are a problem for me - I'd like to see a loan in both positions as none of our current options are good enough. I'd let Giannoulis and MaCullum go as neither can defend or have good enough engines to be wingbacks. We have the creativity in midfield in Nunez and Sara. We have to get them further forward. Whether that means a CDM or a more defensively minded CM is debatable. But we need someone - Gibbs may be the future here, but he's not there yet. I liked the Barnes signing at the time and I still think he can bring something we don't have.
  2. There seem to be two issues on this thread - is our squad good enough to make the playoffs and if they do what is the point of winning them? To be fair, these were discussion points before the season even started. What is the point of competing to win a league when being promoted is completely pointless? The only way it isn't pointless is if Mr A chooses to finance a splurge in the transfer market - always possible I guess, but why would he? So yes, being promoted is pointless. On that basis, our best season is to lose in the PO final, but we wouldn't want to lose having got there would we? So should we lose in the SF's? Maybe, unless we're playing Ipswich. But if we do get up to 6th we're not going to want to lose are we? So maybe 7th is the best option. But then we lose half our income next season whereas if we do get promoted we can reset again and maybe keep Rowe, Sara, Gunn, Gibbs, Nunez and Sargent as the basis of a half decent team. Even when we come straight back we get two more years of parachute money and it's two years of developing Kamara, Tomkinson, Hills, Ryes, Aboh and Fisher etc. That's where we are. That's our position in the football pyramid. So is our squad good enough to get us to 6th. Yes, it is. On song, with confidence and belief we could make 5th or 6th. A lot depends on these "exciting" January plans. A couple of decent Arsenal loanees (Smith Rowe? You're having a laugh!) would help. What I'd really love is for us to win the PO's and then just announce that we're not going to try and compete because it's pointless; because the football model is broken so that we force the powers that be to at least recognise the problem. But they won't of course - they'll just let Talksport badmouth us again. Maybe I'd really rather finish 7th and have a happy year watching 1p5wich get stuffed week after week instead of us.
  3. I just can't see Wagner and his "coaching" staff coping with McKenna's. A sound defeat I think, hopefully no more than 3-0. Wagner will then say we played well and that Fassnacht in particular had a good game, despite him ball-watching for the last two goals and that Hernandez was always a threat. He will go on to say that Gibbs is the best striker on the books and Maclean was again outstanding at centreback. And they still won't sack him.
  4. It's their turn. It's just the way football goes. Ours will come again.
  5. The number of players we have moved on for decent money over the years who have failed to progress is really quite amazing. As for Godfrey, I suspect this is just Dyche playing the market again to generate some offers in January for a player he doesn't rate. He knows CB's - he was one, plus he sussed Gibson out in a couple of games. I wouldn't have Godfey back if they paid us to take him. Getting £20m plus for him was genius PR at work. Like Omo, he isn't actually a very good defender.
  6. Or maybe they could pay more than £10 on buyback to encourage those who can't go to register their seats more often. Strange that we have such a waiting list, yet never seem to sell out.
  7. The way we are playing at the moment, they will destroy us. They attack with speed through the middle and counter well, so even if we do get any pressure they're still a threat. I don't think we have the players to stop them now, and Wagner tactically is simply no match for their guy. Sargent maybe would have given them something to think about, and Rowe could if he gave a t++s, but defensively we don't have a prayer. I would never "settle" for any kind of defeat at Portman Road, but if you gave me a fighting draw I'd take it. Our only chance is that Man Utd sack their manager and steal McKenna before next weekend. But even then, I suspect they'd still do us.
  8. So the four year deal he got in the middle of that summer when we kind of knew Buendia was on his bike already was what then? Advance compensation? Farke had started to get a tune out of some of those signings and whilst that Brentford win was fortunate, there was a reason to be positive as we had 3 winnable games to follow after a very tough start. Webber panicked and pulled the trigger too early. And it was never the plan for that to happen.
  9. What's Haaland gonna do when his looks go?
  10. The first was (should have been) a pretty standard save; the second was a deflection but he made no effort to move his feet or claim the cross - not just his fault, mind; the third it bounced away from him - again! Goalkeepers at this level should be saving that - at least pushing it away from danger. He got away with one almost identical shot in the first half. I think Gunn would have stopped the first and third.
  11. That's good advice, which I will be taking because I'm not going to watch these incompetent morons any more.
  12. I didn't expect anything this season to be honest. I never thought we had a chance of the top two, and the Playoffs were a big ask while we tried to rebuild/consolidate. I thought that meant we'd blood the youngsters alongside some old stagers to give them a bit of belief and steel. I thought that was what Barnes and Duffy were for. Did we ever think we could miss Josh Sargent this much? I assumed, somewhat naively, that we would actually play our biggest summer signing when he was fit, rather than stick with a player who was deemed not good enough for us in this league 3 seasons ago. Even so, I simply cannot believe the incompetence on display by our manager and coaching staff. The inability to see what is happening in front of their eyes. The lack of understanding on how to set up a team and how to ask players to perform. The stubbornness of sticking to the same format and expecting something different to happen. The fact that Fassnacht, time and time and time again ball watches rather mark or press his man, and no one shouts at him. That doesn't happen on a Sunday morning! David Wagner may well be a lovely bloke. A football manager he is not. He is completely out of his depth. I'd much rather see Reyes in goal than Long if Gunn is still unfit. I'd rather see Fisher, Warner, Sainz and Gibbs starting. I'd rather get Tomkinson and Kamara back from their loans in January and get them in the squad. And finally.................sign a fn**ckign defensive midfielder!!!!!!!!
  13. I could make our players better. Anyone with half a brain cell could make our players better.
  14. Dreadful, dreadful second half. Millwall's reserve keeper showing why he was Millwall's reserve keeper. Why is Hernandez still on the pitch? Why is Wagner still in a job?
  15. For 20 minutes we were really good, then for some reason we stopped playing. Sara should have closed down Kone and Long should have saved his shot. For the second both Long and Baath were taken out by a defection, but both were already in the wrong place for the cross. Personally I'd have brought Nunez on for Hwang, not Barnes. So much ball watching, not enough marking and pressing. Fassnacht and Hernandez both invisible and both need to be substituted - get Gibbs and Sainz on. Watford were equally rubbish though. They also have a useless manager with no idea, no plan of how to play and no organisation.
  16. This could explain why I don't really like watching football anymore, if coaches are genuinely doing this. What a shame that those youngsters don't play the game for love, rather than results. Re the restaurant analogy - I might go back to that restaurant to give it a second chance, but I probably won't keep going if the food continues to be bad. The purpose of complaining is to improve the standard isn't it?
  17. Well, I guess that's a novel way of winning a football match.
  18. By the time he makes his offer, the way the club is going £25 a share will look like he's overpaying.
  19. A great example of how a manager can improve a player. He'll never be as good for anyone else or anywhere else so hopefully for him Howe stays for a few more years. One of the relatively few players Norwich have sold over many years who have gone on to reach the heights of the game.
  20. I think this is spot on - BUT it would help if Wagner didn't keep messing with a performing team with really, really stupid substitutions which in the last 3 games have probably cost us 6 points. Whoever is telling him to do it should move on....
  21. This. Unfortunately some "supporters" think that individual results are the only thing that matters and as soon as you have a Board or a SD who thinks that then a club like Norwich will never find itself. Before everyone shouts me down - it's about performances, commitment, heart and soul. That's what football is. That's why we played it and that's why we watch it. It's about going with your family or your mates. It's about the highs and the lows - not just the always the same (supporting Man City must be really boring!) Yesterday was classic Wagner Norwich City. Lucky to be 2-0 up at half time, having played OK but conceded several big chances Leeds didn't take, we were then completely in control until our manager, for reasons known only to him, replaces Hernandez (our out ball down the left side who had played well and terrified one of their star players all game) with Tony Springett, who swaps wings with a clearly knackered John Rowe. I don't know why Rowe can't see out a game fitness wise, I just know he can't. I also know Springett is not the player to bring on in that situation. If Hernandez needed changing it should have been for Placheta - another speed merchant to match theirs,and their tactical switch, and much more defensively adept. Within seconds our substitute keeper (not good enough for Millwall, but fine for our supposedly aspirational club) makes a horlicks at his near post. It happens. But we're still winning until we contrive to give their best player two of the easiest goals he'll ever get. The first was a decent shot that no one closed down, the second was just5 a gimme. Our keeper didn't get within 3 yards of either. No pressure, no strategy, no on field captain screaming at his absent covering midfielders, no sprinting, no teamwork etc. We then spent almost 15 minutes passing it to anyone not in the same colour shirt. For 60 minutes they were our team. For the next 30, instigated by a manager who is tactically clueless (but we've had loads of them before) they were the embodiment of embarrassment. It hurt a bit more that it was a tactical change by the man we dumped that we couldn't deal with. There are lots of reasons why we lost yesterday but the main one was the manager, not the players. It should have been a good day - he made it a bad one. All that commitment, heart and soul disappeared. All that belief gone. When we had Webber and Farke as a team, we never lost that, even in defeat. There was always the promise that if we stuck to our ways it would all be OK. Not any more. What it will be is average at best. That's why it all feels so depressing; there's very little to hope for beyond trying to stay within 10 points of 6th place until Barnes and Sargent come back. Our new young SD has the chance to start again. Bring in a young, hungry manager to work with, tell the supporters what the plan is and to be patient. Keep Sara and Rowe. Get rid of Hwang and Idah. Play the lad from Man City up front or recall Kamara. A new beginning. Wagner, Andy Hughes at al should be gone by Christmas. They are safe mid-table. We need hope and laughter again. And by the way, what does Danny Baath need to do to get a game?
  22. No, the squad is clearly not good enough. We are a mid-table Championship team currently being managed and coached by a mid-table Championship manager and coaching staff and run by a mid-table Championship Board and Sporting Director. However, there is now (finally) some hope that might change. We are keeping our heads just above water financially until Attanasio and his new appointments step in. Let's see how that all pans out. In the meantime, just enjoy the occasional victory because that's all we're getting.
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