Bethnal Yellow and Green

The Villa CEO, Christian Purslow, was the Liverpool CEO previously and is friends with Gerrard from that time. I feel he was itching to get Gerrard in and was just waiting for a bad bit of form from Smith to have an excuse to do it. Gerrard had a clause in his contract that if a club were prepared to pay a certain amount of compo he could go, so it was a really easy deal to negotiate - seems they didn't speak to anyone else at all. I doubt the club said anything to TalkSport about Lampard. It was probably info they got from one of their presenters who is either friends with Lampard, or someone close to him. The fact that Harry Redknapp, who is related to Frank Lampard, is a regular on TalkSport is probably a clue to where any such info may have come from.

I think the media were actually making educated guesses last weekend, rather than having any clear information. Norwich have been particularly cagey about the whole manager search and let only minimal details be known when Farke was sacked. I think many assumed that Webber would have a man ready to go, but then it was quickly updated that Norwich hadn't had official talks with anyone before Farke was canned. They used the international break to give themselves some breathing room to not get involved in negotiating someone to come in, while Farke was still in the job. I presume this was to make sure there were no leaks and reports being leaked of Norwich having lined someone up to take over before the Brentford game was played. That game was vitally important and I'm sure Webber wanted to avoid any off the pitch distractions. Whether that is the right or wrong move is debatable. While unseemly to have been going to other managers behind your current manager's back, it is also a practical move. However, with no players around to train until today (and I'd imagine today will largely be fitness work as is the norm after a holiday period) it was less necessary to have a man ready to step up immediately. The fact the club announced that Steve Weaver would run training also shows the club were fully aware that they may not have anyone in before the players returned.

It moved from 'back end of the week' to 'weekend or beginning of next week' at least a couple of days ago now. A day or two slip is hardly anything to panic about. I presume Villa sacking Dean Smith may have meant a slight delay in their timetable as whoever they wanted to speak to might have also wanted to speak to Villa. The last bit of appointing a manager is agreeing backroom staff and dealing with compensation. If the rumour is that Lampard wants Joe Edwards from Chelsea then it may be the haggling to get him out of his current Chelsea deal is taking a little while to sort out. Norwich aren't just appointing a head coach, they need his assistant, first team coach and head of performance as well. If Norwich have agreed everything in principle, then the new head coach can already be getting on with match preparation for Southampton and will be feeding into Steve Weaver anything he wants him to work on. Usually though in training patterns the beginning of the week is general ball work routines and the match prep stuff comes in the last couple of days.

PinkUn and Athletic have been saying for a number of days now that the announcement will be made over the weekend or the beginning of next week. Calm down.

I rate Kabak - he was thrown in the deep end with Norwich and none of the centre backs have looked particularly great and all made mistakes etc. Worth remembering that Kabak had zero pre-season so went from May to September without playing a single game, even a friendly, and was massively lacking sharpness. Throwing him in against Watford was a mistake and it showed. As he's played more he has improved and was very good in the Burnley and Brighton games in particular. He has shown he is very good on the ball and is a good passer - a modern centre back rather than an old fashioned one who boots people high. Not that he is weak or poor in the air, which I don't think he is. Liverpool were fairly keen to sign him, but they had issues with their homegrown quota and couldn't bring in overseas players without moving some on first, so they decided not to make the deal permanent (especially with Gomez, VVD etc returning from injury). Despite being a fan of stats etc myself, even those in the industry will tell you they aren't that useful when assessing centre backs. Kabak has a high reputation due to good performances in Germany and impressing in several games for Liverpool. Not the finished product by far, but is young and could develop well. Alternately, he might have already plateaued and this is as good as he gets. (BTW star ratings on FM are based against other players in your squad, not out of all the players in the game)

Sorry, should read ‘can’t’.

Seems unlikely to me. If Knutson wasn't interested in leaving Bodo/Glimt until the end of the season Norwegian season (which is Dec not Jan, so that is a pretty major inaccuracy from the ITK) then that would have ended Norwich' interest even before Farke was canned. As King Canary so correctly points out, getting a shot at the PL would be a huge step up for Knutson, who was pretty much dead set on moving to Rosenberg after this season ended anyway. He isn't going to pass on an opportunity in the highest profile league in the world for the sake of a few more weeks in his current job. Maybe his agent is trying to swing it as an issue to get a bit more wage, or Bodo are being tricky with allowing Norwich permission to speak to him, but can see it being a complete break down in talks. It seems the manager search is being very closely guarded by Norwich and not even the local press boys have any news. While SB does get some news out first, it is generally on things that are not that secret and are also known to the press (although they may not publish it).

I'm not ITK at all.

Wales have are now introducing mandatory checks to large events with over 11,000 people from 11 October. This is the kind of policy change the Premier League is preparing for - while possible for fans to refuse (politely I would hope) to show vaccination status or negative test right now in England - it may not be that way for too much longer.

I suspect they may have a 10 minute period where they ask everyone for it, and see how many people get into the stadium in that time compared to normal. If it dramatically slows things down, then I can see some clubs with large stadiums having to allocate arrival times to fans so they can make sure everyone is seated by kick off. By the looks of it, nothing. They say it is voluntary.

It is prep in case the Government make it compulsory for anyone attending large events to have these things (negative test, vaccination etc). Premier League being sensible in trialing it out to see how much it slows down entrance and also getting fans used to the idea they may asked for and require these things in the future. Better fans learn how to get their Covid passport etc now rather than being told it will be compulsory 48 hours before a game later in the season.

When you look at the actual position the players adopted versus Arsenal, while the 'base' formation is listed as 4-3-3, it looks more like a lopsided 4-2-3-1 in practice. Against Leicester, McLean tucked in deeper on the left-hand side while PLM pushed further forward on the right-hand side. It makes sense for Norwich to do something different in the Prem than they do in the Championship as they have swung from being one of the best teams in the league to one of the worst. Carrying on as if nothing had changed would be strange. Will be interesting to see what Farke pulls out of the bag for the Watford game. It will be the first game where Norwich will be expected to be on the front foot and Farke may revert back to the 4-2-3-1 base formation.

Kabak has played 120 mins of football since May - not a surprise he might not be ready to start tomorrow. Not sure where the idea that Farke takes new long with signings comes from - Dimi came straight into the team in Jan as did Williams recently. If there is a clear place for a player then Farke puts them in.

Funny you should say that...

It definitely was better that than having Watford, Brentford, Newcastle in the first few weeks - but doesn't change the fact it was a disaster and put Norwich on the back foot straight away. Would have been tough without many changes to the squad, but to have that while trying to integrate a bunch of new players made it particularly bad. Think the lack of cohesion across the midfield is a direct impact. If Farke can get Rashica out of his funk that he had last season and get some confidence into him then Norwich will have a real weapon in attack. Have to remember that several of the new boys are coming in off personally difficult seasons so will need to find their form.