Ernie

I have to agree i can see no relationship between Howson being injured and not being able to give Jacob a rest when needed. What about Canos remember he was supposed to be Redmond''s replacement, Josh, Pritchard even Naismith?Responses like this unfortunately raise more questions than answers about his managerial ability if he feels the expensive signings he''s made aren''t good enough to step up to the plate.

[quote user="BroadstairsR"]My query about your comprehension skills has just been resolved in full. Not that I was really interested, just being polite, but ESN springs to mind.[/quote] 👍

[quote user="lake district canary"]McGrandles broke his leg on loan at Falkirk in February. Presumably back in Norwich to recover.[/quote] Thanks

With all this talk about our midfielders/number of I have forgotten all about McGrandles and where he''s gone to on loan? Can someone remind me and let me know how''s he doing. Thanks.

Playing players in their best positions I believe has shown an upturn in performances and of course results, rather than trying to shoehorn players in just to try and accomadate certain players. Add in the Murphy twins who have shown that they can be match winner''s things are looking a lot more positive. If we can keep these levels up and strengthen in Jan the areas we are weaker in then a continued cup run and automatic promotion place look very achievable.

Ruddy Godfrey Bennett Bassong Whittaker Canos Mulumba Pritchard Murphy Naismith Nelson Subs Lafferty Morris Jones Martin Olsson Turner Thompson

Excellent result, to come back from missing a penalty and being a goal down showed some real resolve. Barnsley and Newcastle losing a good day all round. Carry on like this and AN might well win me round and eating humble pie!

[quote user="Lavanche"][quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]This is what happens when you need strikers and central defenders but just buy more midfielders of a similar ilk..[/quote] We have 5 spots for midfielders in our current tactics Pritchard/Jo Murphy - Wes/Naismith - Ja Murphy/Canos -------------Tettey/Mulumbu-Howson/Dorrans----------- That does follow modern concept of having 2 players for each position and leaves only long time injured Jarvis out from players that AN has thought to be in range of selection this far, plus Thompson as emergency choise. We currently have also 2 strikers and 2 emergency choises for that spot and few midfielders that have played that spot. 4 fullbacks, 4 centre backs with 1 emergency choise. I really find it hard to see where our squad would be unbalanced or position where we have too much choises[/quote] Or you could say we have 3 RB''s Pinto, Martin, Whittaker possibly 4 if you include Godfrey, 1 LB Olloson but he''s injured and Toffolo''s out on loan. You should include in that midfield list even if injured or on loan Brady, Andreau, Maddison and again poss Godfrey as they are still our players that''s 16 in total!

This is one thing i agree with AN on, they will make mistakes but they need our support and encouragement if we want them to develop and progress. Giving them a hard time when they get it wrong is counterproductive.

I wonder now that Moxley''s here that he''s said to AN "Well my old son you''ve spend £20-£30 million on players and not brought the striker that we desperately needed so now you want another £10 - £15 million for that striker, sorry pal but you going to have to sell those players you don''t want here before you can buy anyone else" Maybe just maybe he''s looked at AN''s transfers and decided he doesn''t trust him with anymore money? He''s not his man and has hardly backed him publicly perhaps he just doesn''t rate him, who knows? Or maybe we have spent out? Or is it easier to say I''m just a plain old stupid supporter that just doesn''t understand the in and outs of the world of football, so its probably best just to treat me like a mushroom. And so the plot thickens.

[quote user="BroadstairsR"]My main concern is with Alex Neil. After last season''s shenanigans, and yes I know he did not always have the best of good fortune, I am worried that his there might be shortcomings in his tactical nous and in his ability to really motivate the players. I do not accept this "lack of experience" label either. He has now had a good rounding in the art of ''managership'' following on from a career in the professional game. We cannot allow ourselves to fall short because a manager is not or no longer up to the challenge. This has happened overmuch in the past. The squad is fine save a couple who by being on the books are wasting resources and that lack of a top-drawer striker. Regards the latter, Oliveira might well surprise and we have the next window to address shortcomings in any case. Apparently there is some money there, although just how much is the puzzle. Wee Alex, you have that magical ten/fifteen games to justify your position, in my book at least. This squad is well capable of promotion, even automatic, as things stand so it is up to the managerial team to get the most from them. The start-stop beginning to this campaign evokes doubts that will hopefully be erased within a month or two. The Board would be amiss if that axe has not already been sharpened though.[/quote] I agree, we have, even with our obvious short comings in certain departments enough quality to gain promotion if managed correctly. But now I am a little confused as to what our financial position is as we were prepared to spend up 12 million on McCormac but after failing to sign him Moxely then tells us we need to sell to buy? Well if money was to tight to mention why did AN spend £3 mill on Maddison, £8 mill on Pritchard, £8 mill on Naismith and £2.5 mill raising to £5 mill with add on''s for Canos a total of £21.5 - £24 mill if our main priority clearly was a striker? I don''t think even AN would have blown all his budget on attacking midfielders, he must have been told there was more money available for a striker. Which can only lead us to one conclusion, someone''s lying.

[quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="Ernie"][quote user="nutty nigel"]A very short but very true post from the Capt. pointing out why football is so exciting. I guess some like to dream of success. Others are more comfortable predicting failure along with that old stand by "hope I''m wrong". I expect some joy for both points of view but hopefully we''ll be there or there abouts at the end. If we knew what was going to happen would it be worth going?[/quote] You are right Football is very unpredictable and exciting. I will never forget my trips to Wembley our European adventures competing for the early Premier League title Justin Fashanu goal against Liverpool being 3 1 down at home to Forrest and the entire ground getting behind City and coming back to draw 3 3. Win draw or lose I will keep suporting Norwich. Players and managers will come and go some good some not so and mistakes will be made its part of football but that does not mean blind acceptance of continual consistent repeated mistakes. You see there is a difference and doesn''t make me a half empty guy in fact i like to think of my self more as a half full.[/quote]Football reminiscence is a subject close to my heart Ernie. I love how positive people are when looking back. It must be some kind of built in mechanism where by after a certain period of time we just remember good things. Like your memory of the comeback in that Forest game kind focuses on the comeback rather than the whole game. A more recent similar memory is the Middlesbrough 4-4 draw. Those 90 minutes remind me so much of the 9 months our last Championship season. We started ok in both. It then turned bad in both. So the fans got disgruntled in both. Then it all started to come together in both. The fans came on board again in both. The only difference being that the 2014/15 season ended in victory, ironically against Boro, where as the 2005 game only finished in a draw.One of my friends likes to criticise me for being "too accepting". But I don''t think I''m any more accepting than him. I tried to say the Birmingham result was unacceptable. So much so that I tried not to accept it. I though "if I don''t accept it then it didn''t happen so job''s a good ''un". But every time I look for the result we still lost so my not accepting it has been a waste of time. We are where we are and thank goodness there''s finally a game again on Saturday. I hope we win. Not sure if I expect us to win because I have learned to expect the unexpected! We have a new striker to look forward to. He seems to be a disappointment to most people but he''s ours now so for me he''s the main man. How will it turn out? Who knows! At the end of the season we may be saying "if only we''d signed Mccormack......." Or we may be saying "Thank the Lord we signed Oliviera and not McCormack....." If we don''t accept him now we''ll never know[:)][/quote] Nelson was clearly a plan B or even C signing however im all for giving players a chance as you say he could turn out to be excellent for us just like a very unfancied Grant Holt at the time.

[quote user="nutty nigel"]A very short but very true post from the Capt. pointing out why football is so exciting. I guess some like to dream of success. Others are more comfortable predicting failure along with that old stand by "hope I''m wrong". I expect some joy for both points of view but hopefully we''ll be there or there abouts at the end. If we knew what was going to happen would it be worth going?[/quote] You are right Football is very unpredictable and exciting. I will never forget my trips to Wembley our European adventures competing for the early Premier League title Justin Fashanu goal against Liverpool being 3 1 down at home to Forrest and the entire ground getting behind City and coming back to draw 3 3. Win draw or lose I will keep suporting Norwich. Players and managers will come and go some good some not so and mistakes will be made its part of football but that does not mean blind acceptance of continual consistent repeated mistakes. You see there is a difference and doesn''t make me a half empty guy in fact i like to think of my self more as a half full.

My personal analysis of where we are at present has much more to do with the bigger picture than the league table and the ease in which Birmingham turned us over. Yes we have some good players but only when played in their best positions. We now have an expensive array of players that can challenge Wes however we can''t play them all at the same time but we did mange to retain the worse performer and loan out one of the most promising who we were told wasn''t going anywhere. We are light for quality at CB LB and worse of all up front and this is a team thst AN has put together. He has failed to get rid of the deadwood and in Whittakers case actually rewared him with a new contract. I could go on and on about our collective failings to date however my biggest concern is i have lost faith in AN judgement and ability to create an effective motivated team. I am hoping he proves me wrong.

Before I get shot down I''ve been supporting NCFC for over 40 years and only have the clubs best interests at heart. Like everyone when AN first came in I thought who? However I liked the way he called it, he seemed to know who he was (very sure of himself), how he wanted us to play and what he wanted to achieve. He then went on and got us promotion. Fantastic, a real chance to reap all the rewards of the Premier league, get established and move on. However we all knew before the Premier league season started the very minimum requirement was a CB but I still felt we needed reinforcements at RB, up front in fact most places barr midfield! (remember most people at the time still didn''t regard Martin as premier league quality RB or CB)with Hooper and Lafferty not fancied by AN, RVW powderpuff and Grabban (give me enough clear cut chances and I might score). Well the end result in truth was quite predictable yet so frustratingly avoidable but more worryingly was AN seemed to lose his way (the Newcastle game did seem quite a turning point), he still didn''t know his best 11, how to set the team up, substitutions etc etc. So we come full circle again with the glaringly obvious need for more firepower if we want a realistic chance of going straight back up. Personally in my humble opinion we needed much more than that, a real clear out of the dead wood and many senior players relegated not once but twice. So before the season has started we give Whittaker a new contract, why? Get in 2 keepers (wow) Canos potentially a good replacement for Redmond, Nelson (I''ll reserve judgment until he''s got some games under his belt) and Pritchard, who is a very good player. Now unfortunately we are left very light up top especially as Jerome is injured, Lafferty (needs no explanation) Naismith (definitely not a striker) Nelson and Morris. We have loaned out our only other LB, who I was hoping under the circumstances with Ollson out injured would be given a run in the team and only then would I make a judgement on if he''s good enough. Whittaker isn''t good enough as cover and shouldn''t even be playing, Brady is wasted there and is far better further forward. CB''s, any injuries or suspensions and we are in trouble, Bassong not the player he was and makes to many costly mistakes, Turner is very unlikely to ever play for us again and Martin is a much better RB than a CB regardless of how many times he gets played there. However we do have a large number of midfielders but unfortunately they are to often played out of their best positions by trying to shoehorn them in all together. You don''t play Howson on the right or as a holding midfielder he''s an attacking CM who will get you goals when played correctly (why when we have so much quality in this division do we need 2 holding midfielders anyway), don''t play Hoolahan on the left he''s totally wasted there, drop Naismith and even though his performances have been dreadful AN doesn''t seem willing/capable of doing this (I don''t care about the price tag, play players who are performing). To top it all we then loan out Maddison a player who should and would be in my opinion be pushing Wes. Throw into the mix players that don''t want to be here (Lafferty, Naismith, Klose poss Ollson and Brady?) and players that shouldn''t be here (Bassong, Turner, Whittaker etc) AN has big problems and I have to say a lot of which he''s created. I also believe he has been badly exposed with his lack of experience and contacts in the football world. He seems to have lost his way with no clear plan of how he wants to set up, play, change or even influence a game his refusal to play 2 up front regardless of opposition, players being played out of position and poor subs Ieads me to the only conclusion that''s he''s not up to the job, which is a real shame as I so want him to succeed. We need to bite the bullet and get Bruce in before this season is lost, if not it could be years before we go back up. Just to add the board clearly has a large part to play in all this but that''s for another thread!

Good point well made re:Lafferty so switch with Morris. Agreed re:Jones.

[quote user="Move Klose"]Jones Martin Turner Bassong Toffolo Thompson Godfrey JaMurphy Maddison Canos Lafferty McGovern Andreu JoMurphy Morris +3 others[/quote] Same team, fringe/squad/younger players all need game time/something to prove not bothered about the result that being said cant see any reason not to be able to go out and get a result. On paper that team should have more than enough to beat a league 1 side. Should also help in identifying which players are good enough/will be for the Championship/Premier league.

Well at least we can give the squad and youth players a game as well as those coming back from injury!

If the Sky reports are true then I am really F...... off. What the hell are we doing if we have only just tabled a bid, we have needed a proven goal scorer since we were clearly struggling for goals last year. AN has said his no 1 priority was to sign a striker, it beggars belief that if McCormack is our number 1 target that we have only just bid for him and to make matters worse, if correct, its 10 million. Now whatever you believe he''s worth clearly we are never going to sign him for 10 million. As someone else said it smacks of the Brady fiasco. Rant over.

He''s worth whatever someone''s prepared to pay it''s called market force''s and if he does sign for us and not with any of our promotion rival''s i for one will be more than happy even if he is 30. We need a proven goal scorer now and if we try and do on the cheap i believe that will be even more of a gamble and even if he doesn''t pay of and we dont get promoted at least we can say we really gave it a go. We messed up last summer and paid the price big time i hope we have learned our leason. I understand other''s thinking of Norwich as a small time club but if our own supporters do likewise we will never go anywhere. Norwich have the potential to be a massive club believe that and live the dream. OTBC.

[quote user="Lynn Canary"]How can someone say Russ is a ''ok cover at centre back''. He played centre bac in our promotin season and was voted in the team of the season. No, he probably isn''t good enough to play centre back in the premier league, but in the Championship, he is one of the better defenders. As weak as our defence was last season, fo the championship, it looks like a very strong defence[/quote] No offence but in the season we got promoted it wasn''t through having a strong defence it was more through out scoring the opposition. Regardless I still feel his best position is at right back not CB although he can play there. Hence the desperate need to strengthen at the back last summer which almost every Norwich fan could see, however we didn''t, nor did we improve up top, end result, relegation. If we had brought in the quality we needed like Klose in the summer we might still have avoided it.

Holt Fleck Suggett Gordan Dury

Australian keeper cant remember his name, pure class. He could do everything as long as it involved picking the ball out of the back of the net.

Watson Fleming Fox Paddon Drinkell

Yes, Klose without a doubt.