Disco Dale

Robby Bobson was at the club last night for a scheduled sportsman dinner at Carrow Road, see attached link; http://www.deliascanarycatering.com/Event-lists/October.htm Opinion here on Tyneside is that he was losing his marbles a bit when he sacked from the Toon job.  TV interviews were embarrassing as he was having ''senior moments'' and always wondering whether he''d left the gas on.

AJ - I''m looking forward to seeing ''Jarrett - Lean mean busty midfielder ''.  I know in the past Worthy has had his knockers, but that is taking it too far. I assume this is a comedy typo..........but you never can tell.  Could be a cunning distraction ploy.  Looking forward to see if anyone swaps shirts with him as well.

Really enjoyed the ''Norwich are back, Norwich are back'' away at Newcastle.

Funniest rumour I saw on there was about 2 months ago where ''if Norwich stay up, they will sign Montella from Roma''. Ha, ha, ha!

Wasn''t at the game yesterday. Does anyone know why Darren Ward wasn''t on the bench? Paul Gallagher was busy getting sent off for Sheffield Wednesday but was there an injury to Ward? 

When he first broke into the Chelsea team, I was at Polytechnic with his girlfriend for two years.  Got to meet him socially several times and he was an extremely nice bloke.  Always followed his career, watched him a few times for Chelsea.  Lost a bit of his youthful pace, but his Premier League experience will help us no end.  Started as a left sided midfielder, but can occupy anywhere across the middle.  Don''t forget, he scored the vital goal for Everton in the last few minutes on the final day of the season that kept Everton up in 17th place the 97-98 season and was in the FA Cup winning side in 95. The last time I saw him, he said he would meet in Norwich after a game and go out for a few beers.  Wonder if he still remembers that promise after nearly 12 years?

I live on Tyneside and the word from the Geordies is that Chopra isn''t good enough for the Premiership, but could do very well in the Fizzy Pop league.  Only good business then if Worthy is planning on taking us down.

Rumoured to be on £45K per week at Celtic, er...no!

I saw AS Roma and US Palermo at Stadio Olimpico last year and Mido the Roma striker had 99 and so did the Palermo keeper. Bizarre! 

Some of it is interesting, although don''t know what to make of the rest of it though. I was surprised that our 4 best passers were all defenders. I assumed that that honour would fall to the midfield, although we haven''t had a consistent midfield for a while due to injury. Statistics can be strange though. I am an egg-head scientist and routinely use stats at work. You can get them to show anything you want really. They are often used incorrectly as there are no rules about what statistics to use in what circumstance and there is a widespread ignorance associated with their use. Often incorrect assumptions are made based upon them. The following info is extracted from the player profiles on canaries.co.uk - probably a few errors in the data though when scrutinised. I always thought that a top quality striker should have a strike rate better than 1 in 3 (0.33). Matthias Jonson only appeared 37 times for Brondby in 4 seasons, but scored 38 goals! Hell of a strike rate that if the figures are to be believed. On this sort of form, you would expect one of the top European clubs (other than us) to have picked him up. Strike rate of 1.03 whilst in the Danish top flight. Hucks did hit 26 goals in the 01/02 season for Man City! In 93/94 and 94/95 Hucks hit 3 goals for Lincoln City without making a single appearance - miracle worker! Hucks has hit 103 career goals in 344 appearances. Strike rate of 0.30. Someone who can score without ever taking the field is a god! Leon has scored 72 career goals in his 10th season as a Pro (254 appearances). Strike rate of 0.28 with 19 goals in 01/02 season for the Posh. Matt Svensson has not scored more than 11 goals in a season in England.  His goals tally in English football is 44 in 210 appearances in 9 seasons. Strike rate of 0.21. WLY has scored 32 goals in 171 appearances. Strike rate of 0.19. The Doc has scored 24 goals at club level in 174 appearances. Strike rate of 0.14. Many of those appearances would have been in defence, but coming up for set pieces, some would have been as a make shift striker. Jarvo and Henderson have strike rates of 0.10 and 0.11 so far. Worse than the strikers mentioned above, does this make them crap? No, it means that they are young and still learning their trade and the figures may be subject to a high degree of error due to the low numbers involved. For info: Dean Ashton has scored 68 in 175 appearances in five seasons for Crewe. Strike rate of 0.39 and looks like being a consistent 20 goal a season man.  

What squad number do you think Deano will be given? The only unallocated ones within the current squad numbers are 2,4, 25, 29 or 30+. Can''t see a striker wearing 2 or 4, so probably 25 or 29 then. Do you think Jonson could be persuaded to give up the No.9? We could adopt the Italian approach and end up with stupid squad numbers like 99? I''m afraid I''m old school and like to see the first choice striker wear the No.9 shirt. Is anyone anorak enough to know if there are there are official Premier League rules on squad numbers?

Everbody join in.. O Danny, Danny - Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny Danny Crow (.....repeat ad nauseum). Thought he looked great when he came on, shame we kept Ryan Jarvis on for so long.  Jarvis looked well out of his depth. 

Don''t think we sold out our allocation at Boro and Block 61 of the Visitors seating was given back to Boro fans - leading to very poor segregation.  Good support from the Y''Army though.

Segregation was awful.  It was apparent that we did not sell all our allocation and Block 61 was given back to Boro fans.  City fans with tickets in this Block were rehoused in the remainder of the Visitors Blocks (60-64) on the day.  Boro fans were really quiet until they scored (even booed there team off at half time), but then turned really nasty and gobby when they scored.  Most of this Block 61 directly in front of us turned round and goaded us.  They were less than 2 metres away with virtually no segration and only a few stewards and police anywhere to be seen.  Some of it was quite nasty for a few seconds.  One Burberry-capped yoof was ejected, but not really sure if he was Boro or City as we were all so close. Bloke behind me got hit with coins thrown from the ''Family Enclosure'' to our right.  Stewards were pretty good though and did single a few idiots out.  It was not big or clever, but still nothing compared to the bad old days.

We are going to sign FREDDIE MERCURY from Southend United as well.  Give it a rest kids.

On paper, he ought to be fantastic, however, everytime he is given a chance, he is pants. Holt was not in game at all today, but when Helveg came on, he was dreadful.  Very poor distribution and ball retention and missed tackles. There are only so many opportunities you can give a player.  Comparisons can be drawn with his fellow Danish internationals Gronkjaer and Rommedahl.  They should be brilliant at this level, week in, week out, but unfortunately, there are not - despite what Morten Olsen says.

Saw AS Roma v US Palermo on Sunday in the Stadio Olimpico.  I was quite impressed with the Palermo No.9, Luca Toni.  I don''t know what Palermo''s cash flow situation is like at the moment or how long a contract he is on, but he looked damn handy. Palermo won Serie B last year and Toni got 30 goals in 45 appearances.  He reminded me a bit of Mark Hateley.  He seemed to trouble the Roma centre halves all game and tried to get on the end of everything.  He is 27 and 6ft4.  Seemed to be quick, strong, brave and didn''t dive like Mancini, Montella & De Rossi.  This is his 4th season in Serie A, and he has played for Brescia, Vicenza and Empoli in Serie A/B.  Career strike rate so far is a goal every 2.5 games, but his current form for Palermo is much better than that, Nigel - got to be worth a look for January - OTBC

Is there something sinister about our squad numbers as they appear on the official website (canaries.co.uk)? Robert Green and Darren Ward are both listed as Number 1 and Paul Gallacher and Joe Lewis are both listed as Number 12. Is there something we are not being told? Will we have 1A and 1B, 12A and 12B. I think not. Come on Norwich, sort it out, it''s not rocket science. OTBC

I know a binner who thought he was garbage when he was with them. He just didn''t ''get'' him and what other people saw in him and he had no idea why he was leading the line for the England U21''s. He was glad to see the back of him to Leicester and laughed at the transfer fee received. Wouldn''t trust a binners opinion of course, but I''m not convinced that he is missing piece in the jigsaw, more like the missing link.

I met Iwan at a recent Northern Canaries do and asked him the same question. As an insider in the camp and an experienced striker, he reckoned Hendo would be the one to go all the way. He thought Jarvis was lazy in training and this his attitude might hold him back. Must also mention that Iwan is a really nice guy, and he never shirked any questions, no matter how how near the knuckle they were.

Website address is www.urs-meier.go.ro/ Just signed the guestbook myself.

Hands up who saw the guy in the City shirt in the crowd at the Spain v Russia game last night? Also saw a Norwich flag there too. There was another City shirt at the Test Match yesterday as well. Went to England v Iceland last week in Manchester and saw a West Norfolk flag and the Capital Canaries flag. We get about don''t we? OTBC

Sorry, but I always liked the Carl Cort threads and its the closed season, so what else is there to gossip about? I got this useless snippet of information from a work colleague the other day. I now live in the North East and I mentioned the long-running Carl Cort/Asda threads on here. He told me about a story that appeared in the Evening Chronicle a while ago about Carl Corts missus actually got banned from Tesco Extra at Kingston Park in Newcastle. She was apprently kicking off at the size of the checkout queues and giving it the ''Do you know who I am?'' line. So assuming the Corts lived in the posh end of Newcastle, i.e. Gosforth, Darras Hall, Ponteland, the next nearest Supermarket would be Asda in Gosforth. The Corts probably did shop in Asda. There you go, some modicum of truth in the original threads afterall. OTBC from the North East.

Spoke to several Crewe fans on Sunday and they''d have Rivers back at the drop of hat. I managed to broker a deal to swap him for a Mars bar, which seemed to suit both us and Crewe. These Crewe fans also reckoned that Dean Ashton was lazy, and played well when the big scouts were watching. Mind you the kids adored him, but are resigned to losing him to a bigger club. I heard one Crewe youngster on the pitch after the match clutching a blade of grass from where ''Deano'' scored his last ever goal for Crewe. See you all in the Premier League

Hi Derby Canary, I''m sitting with about 8 Northern Canaries in the home end. Don''t know which stand yet, as I don''t pick up the ticket until Sunday. It''s going to be difficult keeping calm if Iwan scores, or gets subbed near the end, or when the final whistle goes. OTBC