Branston Pickle

[quote user="Making Plans"][quote user="Branston Pickle"] that he can take tap-ins when they come along (both were chances my Mum would have taken[/quote] Isn''t that what strikers are for ? [/quote] ...of course, you could have read my post and come up with a sensible riposte/comment - but why do that when you can take me out of context and make me look daft? Muppet.

[quote user="Evil Monkey"]I don''t believe I''m reading this... Did you ever actually watch him play for Norwich? Did you, perhaps, see the service he was getting this season? Truly shocking - his goals have stopped this season being a relegation fight, and his goals last season gave us a chance on the final day of the season. Dean Ashton is no villain. Hang your heads in shame... [/quote] Of course Ashton is no villain, but nor he is he the footballing God that some will have you believe - for me somewhere inbetween is much closer to the mark.  He was and is a good player, but really did not look as if he could be bothered most of this season; his current little run shows me three things - that he can take tap-ins when they come along (both were chances my Mum would have taken), that when he tries he does look the part, and that a side playing well, with good players, creates chances.  Nothing here is news to anyone, surely?!!

This is all well and good, and surely no-one doubts that WLY is a good player, but where was this McVeigh last season when we needed him to help us to stay up?  I don''t think I''ve ever seen a more anonymous player than him in the games he played last season (eg Spurs); it is certainly interesting that he''s started trying again when playing for a contract/move. Your assertion that he has given us 19pts is also completely bizarre, as this belittles any other contribution to either his goals, or finishing off his crosses; how exactly does winning MOM in the pink ''un mean he gained us the 3pts v Burnley?  Using this token, the mom v Brighton (Doc) was responsible for the 3pts, not WLY.  Your point is more than a little spurious, but equally, the point that an up-for-it WLY is a big asset to the side is not really debatable.  

[quote user="ZippersLeftFoot"] The point is that if you read the local media you could be forgiven for thinking that the result and performances from the city boys was good.  However the sunday times piece is not alone today in stating Hull were denied a deserved 3 points by a lucky own goal.      The pieces focus on the lack of penetration from city despite having solid possession conceeded by a hull team who continued to be more incisive after taking the lead. In those circumstances worthy is right - it is a good point but having fielded our best 11 a(nother) poor performance and a scraped point against a lowly Hull side is not aceptable. Playoffs - you are having a laugh and a million miles off a realistic assessment of where this team is going WOrthy. [/quote] Interesting you should say this - I mentioned earlier the media is able to paint whatever it wants about a game, taking little note of what actually happened. If you read the Hull manager''s post-match comments, he was happy with a point.  He said: "I''m delighted with a point. We had a nervous start but did well in the first half and scored a good set-piece. Norwich didn''t create a great deal and things didn''t change after half-time; I thought we were going to hold on but I would have taken a point if it had been offered to me before the game." So is the media right and Hull''s manager wrong?  Probably neither, it completely depends on where you are coming from.  I''ve no doubt that a completely on-song Norwich would beat Hull, but we know we aren''t on-song, so a point was a reasonable return from the game.  To be perfectly honest the rest of it doesn''t really make any difference - in years to come we won''t give two hoots, it''ll just be another 1-1 draw.  I do note with interest your comment that the media says Hull almost got their deserved 3pts but for our lucky goal.  To me this applies rather well for how we lost last week - we lost to a goal that should never have stood.  I''ve no doubt the "Worthy Out"ers won''t allow this argument to go both ways, but we deserved a point last week as the Binners were incapable of scoring legally, but we got nothing; maybe we deserved nothing yesterday but at least we drew with a legitimate goal.

I certainly don''t think Walker is the answer, though he could probably have some sort of role to play.  Imo he succeeded the first time round due to circumstances as much as anything - he inherited a very good squad, was promoted from within so knew the players and their capabilities and they knew him - this sort of thing can count for a lot.  He was clearly a good coach given the right cirumstances, but for me "was" is the key word - his second spell at the Club was very poor (as were his spells elsewhere), and who is to say that a third term would be any better, particularly with him having been out of the loop for so long?    If we are to find any parallel now with the days in which Walker took over, it would be either Livermore or Williams who take the helm should Worthy leave, but there are plenty of others with links to the Club who I would prefer to see over Walker.  

The chances are much more likely that Waghorn was at the game and the others weren''t - reports for the nationals can easily be lifted from local reports and given their own touch.  Ron Clarke (who he, Google doesn''t seem to know!) seems to think WLY is called Colin, ffs, so I''m not completely sure why we should trust his judgement when it comes to reporting on Norwich. The fact is that reporters often have different views on games, as do supporters - I can''t remember how many times I''ve been to a game where we''ve played poorly only to read later that we were great, or where we have played a side off the park only to read that we ourselves were outplayed.  I have long learnt that the only way to get a true perspective is to go to the game, or maybe look at match stats (though these can mislead) - you really do have to take match reports with a pinch of salt.

You should take a step back and think about how absolutely bizarre you have become, almost a parody of yourselves, patting each other back and glorying in the fact that the club you supposedly support has just lost, and that anyone with a different view is "wrong".  Everyone is entitled to an opinion, in this case there is no real right or wrong and to believe otherwise suggests an arrogance beyond words. I sometimes wonder why I support the Club I do - I now live 150+ miles away, but come rain or shine will be there as often as I can, whoever is in charge and whatever League we are in; I will support whatever team we put out, and the players that are in that team.  The reason I do this is because I am a supporter.  To me, it seems that some people have forgotten what "support" actually means.  For me it certainly sure as hell does not mean glorifying in defeat and slagging the Club off at any and every opportunity as some appear to do.  I consider myself neither a Worthy in or Worthy Out person, I am just a supporter of my Club, will criticise and praise it when I feel it necessary - but if I ever got to such a negative position as some, I feel I could not call myself a supporter any longer.  

I agree - there are various pieces to this and none of them seem to quite add up; we have a long injury list yet let our top goalscorer and another squad player go, whilst bemoaning the fact that we are down to the bare bones.  I can''t help but think something will happen on Tuesday, as if it doesn''t then something really is amiss at the Club. It will be too late to buy players after the Reading game, though we can certainly get people in on loan right up until March.....but if we don''t get points and a run going soon, what exactly would be the point? - by then it would be too late for the play-offs (if it isn''t already), so we need players who will make a difference now, not in 3/4/5 games time.  I am just holding out that we are waiting to pull off some interesting signings as to do nothing makes no sense.  Today would have been good, so that they could debut at Reading, but any time Tuesday would do fine by me!!!

I do think people are being a little bit previous -  I for one am willing to wait until the Window closes before being critical, if it is necessary.   With Brennan we have binned a poor performer, and presumably intend to replace him with either a Youth player - something people have been crying out for - or with someone we are about to sign; to me either option is acceptable. On the possible signings front, surely the time to criticise is not now - just based on media speculation which is normally proven to be a pile of pants - but if and when we don''t sign anyone.  None of us know exactly what''s going on with the transfer situation, so why comment as if we do?  This is plain daft, and yet another example of some people seeing bad in everything the club currently does.

Well I for one would probbly prefer Earnshaw to Jerome; cetainly different types of player, but Earnshaw is proven over a longer period of time and has succeeded to a reasonable extent in the Prem, just not so sure Jerome is worth the risk - as Brum Chairman said, he''s only been doing it for a few months.

It is surely a good thing for all concerned as he wasn''t going anywhere at all with us and we can use a youngster whilst saving his contract costs.  It is whether it is smart at this particular point in time that I''m unsure of - we still have a long injury list and have so far signed no-one in the transfer window, so this leaves us even further down on our already woefully thin squad number of experienced players.   That said, he was often rather ineffective when he came on so I don''t really suppose this matters too much - one of the youngsters will come in and be much more up for it.  

[quote user="USAcanary"][quote user="Branston Pickle"] [/quote] This reply is just so wrong and misleading. Lets examine bit by bit. As an Accountant I do feel there is rather a lot of mistaken accounting in here, along with made up figures (eg "we can assume he made at least £1.5m a season" - this is based on guesswork, nothing more), but I can''t really be bothered to go into it - I do this sort of stuff at work all day and am not going to at home! The figure was based on the 150K that Neil Doncaster reported as Ashtons JAN wages and bonues , 10 months would be 1.5 million. Now it could be as much as 2 million or as little as 1 million but obviously its somewhere in that region. Sorry I don`t know the exact penny. Maybe Dean got paid nothing the last 12 months. That would make it look better. The fact is that cash in less cash out on the purchase and sale = a healthy profit, whatver Dean or Crewe may have taken.  Even £1m profit would be pretty good going in one year, but overall c£4m clear profit has been made, of which we keep the vast majority.  There really is no need to look any further into it, 4 million-1.2million(Crewe and Deanos cut) = 2.8 million But even excluding Deans wages (1-2 M) what were the agents fees on BOTH sides of the transaction? Its already been reported that we paid agents 500K of which we can assume the vast majority of that is the DA transfer (3million was bigger than all other transactions combined) Then we have agents fees for a MUCH bigger transfer (7M) which has not been reported yet. There is no creative accounting here. The numbers are all numbers I pulled from Canariesworld and the Pinkun.  I never said we did not make a profit, I just said its much smaller than most are reporting. I was always led to believe in accounting that profit = income minus expences (maybe wages and agents fees are not real and the money is fake.) [/quote] Sorry, re-posting stuff doesn''t suddenly make it right.  I can see what you are trying to say but you are combining many different items and getting them muddled.  Your argument could be used when talking about any transfer, of any player, anywhere - why just pick on this one?   For instance, I am sure Hucks has earned what most would consider to be a small fortune from the club in his time here.   If we decided to sell him, these costs wouldn''t really have any relevance on whether we made a profit or loss in terms of transfer fees. The fact is that there are a wealth of considerations that come into play in talking about finances.  One thing you do seem to have missed is that we now save a huge pile of cash from wages we don''t now have to pay Ashton.  If you are determined to take Ashton''s salary into consideration in your attempt to downgrade the money made from his sale (and incidentally, he was only on this higher rate for a few months), you should probably take this cash saving into consideration too.  Given he had 2+ years to run on his contract we will save c£2m+ in cash on his wages, which is c£1m more than we paid him - in your world surely this increases the profit made?

Fingers crossed - these are all rather promising and certainly not impossible, but we''ll have to wait and see.  For me, if getting McSheffrey, Halford, Davenport and a sniff of Jerome signing = Ashton (and maybe Green) leaving, then c''est la vie!  We certainly get the best of it imo - we lose a disinterested Ashton (and maybe an underperforming Greeno) for way over the odds, in return we get a bunch of decent young players (oldest is 24 I think?), who would add plenty to the squad in a decent mix of positions.  I for one would be happy.

As an Accountant I do feel there is rather a lot of mistaken accounting in here, along with made up figures (eg "we can assume he made at least £1.5m a season" - this is based on guesswork, nothing more), but I can''t really be bothered to go into it - I do this sort of stuff at work all day and am not going to at home!  The fact is that cash in less cash out on the purchase and sale = a healthy profit, whatver Dean or Crewe may have taken.  Even £1m profit would be pretty good going in one year, but overall c£4m clear profit has been made, of which we keep the vast majority.  There really is no need to look any further into it, to bring his wages into it is to bring in an irrelevance in terms of his purchase and sale - indeed, turning the argument on its head one could easily argue that as we have not had to pay the rest of  his contract - costs we were committed to - we could add that into the profit made figure.  Why not? - it is certainly a cash saving for the club at the very least, and can be added back into the Playing budget.  This, of course, is as incorrect as including his wages against the profit made on his sale. No, the fact remains that the deal made the Club a good return in one year, by anyone''s standards.  

I don''t think Worthy''s record is really all that bad.  OK it is not spectaular on recent signings, but if you are given only a few ''00k to play with, in this day and age, you are hardly going to get the finished article.  I do think it is a little unfair to write players, such as Hughes, Jarrett, Etuhu off so soon; Jarrett and Etuhu in particular have not been given much of a chance whereas Hughes is a 100% effort player every game, something that at times you really do need. Jarrett, for example, certainly looked poor in the few games he had prior to getting a run under his belt at Plymouth, but has looked pretty good on his return - it sadly seems that, for some reason, for many he has had his chance, so nothing he now does counts. Thing is, this all rings bells re: Iwan Roberts, big time: the difference being that he was given a chance to come good.  His 1st season record is rather amazing - he scored just 5 in 29 league starts, and by the end of Jan in his first season had scored just 2 in 20-odd games.  I can just imagine the reaction he would have had on this board at this time in January that season.....

This thread is just plain scary.  It seems to imply that we should all be zombies who have the same opinion.  This is just completely bizarre.   If I ever woke up feeling as downhearted and miserable as Ronbol et al seem to feel, I think I would probably give up with football altogether.  I also really cannot see how Worthy having some people who back him meant that it was inevitable that Ashton would be sold; a strong case could be made for the opposite being much more likely - Worthy stuck his neck out and took a punt on Ashton when no one else would, so there was a chance that Ashton might have felt he owed Worthy something.  That said, this is football so it was only a slim chance!!  I can''t help feeling that had Worthy been ousted, the chance is that Ashton would have walked earlier in the month and for much less money.

[quote user="Canary Boy"]    I see Alan Pardew this evening stated in the Dean Ashton Press Conference that he kept coming back with bids even though they were rejected. Finally, the Norwich board accepted the 7.25 million transfer fee. More lies from our board...didn''t they say on Saturday that no one has bid for Green or Ashton yet? [/quote] No, sorry you are wrong - in more ways than one.  As I recall they said we had had no bids that interested us, which was true, and tbh the club actually said very little on the subject if you look back at the quotes.  It seems you have fallen into a common mistake of  believing the media and the way they portray comments rather than looking at the actual comments made.  For example, Doncaster''s quote from Saturday was : “As and when there is anything to report we will report it. As of yet there is nothing“. 

I have to agree - I recently decided I was fed up with all the Boards but decided I wanted to know what was going on - I just live too far away to be able to get any information other than from these sources so I am stuck with them, and they in turn are stuck with me!  The negativity does show that there is a feeling of being let down amongst some supporters, a feeling which you can understand to an extent.  Everyone is entitled to voice their opinions, but some seem to have got into a mindset of thinking any rumour or conspiracy theory going is the cast iron truth, and anything the club does is bad; at times you could be forgiven for wondering if they actually support the Club at all given that anything and everything it does is so bad.  Maybe people will look back on this episode in a year or so and think that perhaps they went a little ott on the negativity, or maybe it will be the less vitriolic of us who were in the wrong, and we will find that the Club really is as bad as they say - but I desperately hope not.  One thing is for sure, there would be little point in these boards if everyone agreed with everyone all the time - I just wish some of the negative posts were a little more ''reasoned'' rather than the rants using deliberate misquotes that we so often see.  

[quote user="Tumbleweed"]......and you forget the 15% sell on fee. So if Deano really is the real deal and becomes one of England''s top strikers there could be a future windfall which would be very nice thank you. With inflation and 3 years at a good footballing club (which is also, rightly or wrongly, more "trendy" than Norwich and therefore gets more profile), lets say he is worth £15m. That would be £2.25m to us for doing nothing. That ain''t bad.[/quote] No, whilst I can see that people are disappointed to lose Deano, the fee really is not bad.  I did start off being a bit annoyed about the deal, but the more I think about it the more I think it is actually a very good deal and is for the best - he was not on the form we''d hoped this season, and we now have the opportunity to get in 2/3 decent players who can take us forward, rather than putting too much reliance on the one player.

I think people are rather talking with their hearts rather than their heads here - they are obviously disappointed to lose Ashton, but cannot cope so are lashing out a bit.  I do not feel that the Club, be it the Board or the Manager, has lied to the supporters; at times it may not have told the complete truth, but this was for very good reasonsm, and is what the real world is like.  It does not revolve around Norwich City (much as it should!!), and deals are not and should not be conducted in public - this is just sensible for all parties involved.   It also seems to miss the point that selling Ashton for £7m+ is just not bad business by any shakes.  When I read the news I was disappointed but the more I think about it the less I think it as a problem: we made £4m+ profit in 1 year, he had only scored 10 in 28 this season, and was clearly not in the form we''d hoped (+seems prone to strains).  We now have a £5.5m pot to get 3 good players in try to kick-start our season and get into the play-offs, which is still not beyond us.  For me, the more I think about it, we have gone from having no chance yesterday to having a better chance today.

NO! NO! NO! Before today I was undecided, but now am firmly in the camp of what good business this is.  We have made £4m Profit in one season, he is out of form, and injury prone - jeez, West Ham fans are gutted and I know why; they just can''t work out why we are so distressed and nor can I.  

There''s bound to be the melodramatic posts from some about how everyone should resign, we''ve been lied to etc etc, but for me those people just can''t see the bigger picture.  The fact remains that we have made £4m+ profit in one year to sell someone who just didn''t seem to be producing the form we''d hoped for this season: he did almost help us to stay up, so we can all thank him for that, but I don''t think anyone would have had Ashton scoring only 11 goals for us by mid-Jan; to get anything like the £££s we are getting for him is  rather amazing when you bear in mind some of the lower fees that are being paid for other players at the moment. I hope Worthy can pull off some more of his decent signings with the cash - some of the most recent ones have rather clouded his record, but I do think he has signed some very good players in the past (including Ashton himself).

There is rather a lot of melodrama going on bearing in mind we have just done a pretty decent bit of business.  IMO £4m profit on one player in one year, is not "selling out" anyone - particularly when he has not even been playing like a £5m player this season, let alone a £7.25m one!!  

The facts are patently that West Ham are a bigger club than we are both in terms of support and financial clout - does anyone really think that we will, in the foreseeable future, ever be in a position to bid £7m for any player?  No - and it would take 3-4 years (or more) of Prem stability to be able to - and even then there are many sides such as Bolton and Charlton who I can''t ever see being in a position to spend that big too often, if ever....particularly for a player who is not showing great form and is currently injured! Personally I think it is a shame that he''s gone, but can see there are benefits; £4m profit in a season being one of them.  The fact is that he has played the majority of this season and it was clear that he was not firing fully - be that because of the side being poor or him off form is largely a moot point - and he clearly looks like an injury waiting to happen what with all the stretching and treatment during the games.  The fact that this is the case suggests that relying onhim to ''fire us into the playoffs'' as we''d all hoped, was unlikely.  We are now in a position where we have the best part of £6m to get players in to hopefully kick things on.  OK some may say it is too late but whilst I''d have love to have kept him, we could yet be better off with 3 decent £1.5m-£2.5m players in our side than Deano, sad but true.

[quote user="Paul Rankin"] to be honest good work Alan Pardew.  He is a top class player and deserves to be in the top flight.  8 million is a lot of money but at a club like west ham he should do well. Certainly help them maintain their premiership status and is young hungry player.  Looks like pardew is building quite a squad there at the moment. Lets hope worthy spends any moneys wisely..... how about a Halford/Jerome/Danns triple swoop - that would make my year!! (still not sure about 2 million+ for jerome, but should score the goals in this division) [/quote] I''d still love him to stay but I personally think it would be a very good piece of work by Norwich if we can eke out anything approaching £8m for him.  Assuming the money was put in the transfer kitty we could easily get 2-3 replacements in the £1m-£3m bracket rather than the c£250k-bracket that we seem to have been limited to, which could finally kick our season on.