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Agreed. But if he really did reject £20m+ for Omo that might come back to haunt him. Getting £11m for Josh Murphy remains the pinnacle of Webber's negotiation skill in my opinion.

It's funny that Sorensen needs to have pace to be effective as a CDM when everyone holds up Tettey as the best we've had and he was extremely slow. A CDM should be very good at reading the game and reacting, mostly to things in front of him but not always. I don't recall Tettey racing back to cover a breakaway in the way Skipp did, and Sorensen certainly can't do that either. A CDM doesn't have to be big and strong. Kante isn't big, nor was Makelele - probably the best ever CDM. A CDM needs to be positionally secure and able to control his area of the pitch - often that comes from having pace and/or strength, but it can also come from just being aware and reacting quicker than everyone else. What Sorensen is very good at is seeing positions and putting himself in the way. He is also extremely good at receiving the ball on the half turn and making space. He could play as a CDM with a pacey CB behind him perhaps, or a cover from full back. Neither Andrew O or Aarons is/was very good at that so maybe with our new back three/four in place the overall unit will indeed be stronger. I don't think in today's football you can look at one position and say "he's no good there". It depends on what is around him and what he can do with and without the ball in that structure. It also depends what shape we are going to play - the players we have signed so far don't really give us any clues.

Which they haven't done since 1961 apart from the occasional cup. Spurs are the Scotland of the EPL in their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They do glorious failure really well.

You think? Maybe I'm just too cynical but £10m for a 27 year old England international seems just a tad on the low side.......

I think it is almost impossible for supporters to correctly "value" their own players. I don't rate Aarons highly at all, yet most do and he is a regular for England under 21 so clearly I am wrong. I think Andrew O is bigged up because he is a young, Irish centre back and there aren't many of them around at this level. £30m for the pair would be fantastic business - I don't think we'll get that. The basic problem with almost every NCFC academy product I've seen in recent years has been their lack of positional awareness. They can have as much skill as they like and be wonderfully athletic but they all seem to get lost on the pitch. Conversely £40m for Maddison in the current market is an absolute steal and I have no idea what Leicester are thinking, unless getting Winks cheaply is the counter to keep both fees low. Not sure that's cricket, but it would make a lot of sense.

Personally, I think we'd seen it through........almost. The Farke revolution was virtually over when the Board clearly made the decision; but then we went and won away at Brentford. It was lucky. We held on. The players at the end were euphoric - I remember Normann in particular giving it large at the end. A flexible manager/CEO/Chairman whatever you call him or her might have said "Hold it! Let's give it another week or two to see what happens". Webber didn't do that and I never understood why when, at the time, there was nothing to lose by doing that - no candidate to grab as Smith wasn't sacked until a day later. A worst case scenario is that we'd have returned to losing games, which after a brief blip under Smith, we did anyway. It would have been good to see the Farke experiment fully blow out before admitting defeat. There's always a "what if....." in every supporters mind. Leaving that "what if" in all the circumstances is just another example of poor decision making.

Whilst also loving Ricardo's post and the sentiments he expresses so well, I also remember feeling much the same when we lost Ron Saunders and then Mike Walker, and maybe even when we sacked Ken Brown. We've had a few "dream" seasons since I've been a supporter and I've revelled in all of them. I remember under Walker visiting Highbury and expecting not to lose (we didn't, we drew); going to OT and expecting to win - we did, twice If I recall correctly. Brown won us a proper trophy and after the league conspired to relegate us he got us back up and to 5th in the old First Division. Then we sacked him. The Lambert years were also pretty good, as were the Stringer years. Worthington also produced some top performances, and the John Bond years were awesome. 2018-19 felt different partly because it was so unexpected, and because everyone was so onside. For me, it fell apart after lockdown and a little of the magic had gone by the time we won it the second time around - I still think we'd have struggled a bit more with crowds that year and I think we probably weren't as good as we (and everyone else) thought we were. My point is that golden times will come again. They always do. For NCFC they tend not come to when our expectations are high but when we fear for the worst. And it's much better when they're unexpected.

Some fine points on this post. One which I raised early on and which I think Don has brought up again is "what does success look like, and how will we know we've achieved it?" In a business context it's a question I ask every time I start a new project, yet no one at NCFC has ever seemed to ask that question let alone try to answer it, other than with a vague, "Establish the club in the Premier League". So, is that irrespective of playing style, debt, reputation or do we have some guidance as to how we try to achieve that "success"? Does it include a successful Academy? Does it include a "world class" training venue? Does it include a stadium with a capacity for more than 30,000 people? Does it include the women's team in something? What does "establish" mean anyway - 5 years? 10? Do they really mean "compete" rather than "establish" - if so, what does "compete" mean? "Ignore the noise" and other soundbites was never really enough of a philosophy to get us there. Without a CEO leading an aligned Board, with appropriate accountability and responsibilities I just don't see how anything else follows. Despite our recent partial success, we haven't actually achieved that much. Without some kind of measurement we don't even know how much is not much. What is the Board's policy and plan for the next 5, 10 and 20 years? Even without parachute TV money NCFC turns over around £30m a year. It's a decent sized business. I've never known a £30m company not have any kind of plan, yet we don't seem to have one, beyond occasionally winning some games of football. We certainly don't have a clue about what to do when we do win enough games of football to get promoted; and now we also don't seem to know what to do when we don't. I recall Webber being interviewed on the pitch, I think it was after the Blackburn game when we confirmed promotion in 2019. He said it had come earlier than they'd expected and it was surprising to the club and the coaching team what had been achieved that season. I realised then he was out of his depth - no one in an executive position should be surprised by achievement. He should have had all kinds of plans in place already.

Almost no one plays with a back 3 all the time, so that makes him a fringe squad member at best. Can't see him getting into a top half squad after his underwhelming form at Everton.

That'll be why it's a nightmare scenario - that they do it with Leeds and not us. Are you not paying attention? 🤦‍♂️

He was dropped by England like a hot potato. I'm interested though, what do you think his "right position" is, because it certainly isn't CB?

Still no sign of that CDM though.......

It didn't work at Huddersfield to begin with, and even then they only got promotion through the PO final on penalties, and didn't play nice football. So not that similar a scenario. But yes we did have a good 18 minutes at Coventry.

Points deductions should be automatic when managers behave badly. Liverpool would probably be relegated then.

A correct decision by the ref given that the Swansea player was in the wrong and the Luton player wasn't.

Haven't read this whole thread but the nightmare scenario may have already been mentioned - Webber moves to Leeds as SD and appoints Farke as his coach. They walk the Championship playing Farkeball and then easily consolidate in the EPL....... Be careful what you Webber-outers wish for......

Was never, ever, ever going to be a PL quality centre back and I never understood why any coach thought he would be. He still might be a decent CDM, but even there I don't think he's forceful enough. I said at the time £25m was a blinding deal, just as £15m was for Lewis. Webber takes a lot of flak but I can't think of a sale which has been anything but brilliant.

Well Marquinos isn't our player anymore so not sure why him. But I'd much rather have Onel and Sara than Dowell and Cantwell, yes. Mainly because they both give a s*1t.

So if that were true, surely both would have started more games? Dowell in particular - he started 32 games for us in 3 seasons. And in at least half of those he was completely anonymous. He will do better in Scotland where the standard is not as high, but he is nowhere near good enough to be a fixture in a successful Championship or EPL team.

We're not, we're selling Aarons and Rashica. Should you not have noticed, neither played very well for us last season.

Oh, you mean apart from letting 35 year old Olivier Giroud score an almost free header against us in a World Cup Quarter Final?

Dowell is another player who is much better now he's left. He's lightweight and injury prone. Yes, he'll probably do well in Scotland because it's a poor league, emphasised by the fact that Cantwell scored his 6th goal in 12 games for Rangers tonight. Two players who could barely get into a Champs side will now be first choice for the second best team in Scotland. Neither were good enough.

Ryan Manning? According to wiki, Tom Ince has two years left on his Reading contract - we surely wouldn't pay a fee for him?

Seriously? I mean, I love it to bits, but with a population of 145,000, it's the 37th biggest in England. I know size isn't everything but even so.....

I have no problem with his interview. I hope it means the local press are back onside. He's just another bloke trying to do his job as well as he can. He makes mistakes and he's admitted some of them. Isn't his fault he works in a very well paid sector; he still shouldn't get personal abuse from anyone, divorced or otherwise. Personally, I think he's done a poor job in the last two years and should be moved on for that reason, but I have no reason to abuse him or scream or boo.