Beetley Yellow

Indeed, one wonders what will constitute success or failure next season. If we do not keep the squad together (... doubtful I think) and have to rebuild, what will be acceptable? Top half, play-offs? If we do keep much of the current playing roster, anything less than automatic promotion is going to be a fail I would have thought. If only we could hack in and get a copy of ‘The Webber Master Plan’!

Indeed, semantics. The concern is, if we do ‘cash in our chips’, will we get lucky and be able to build a team that ‘gels’ like last time? Or was it more than just luck? The latter one hopes.

‘Square 2’ then? Which will be very much the case if we decide to sell off the young talent we have. We’ll be rebuilding again similar to when the had the Maddison ‘windfalll’ will we not?

There are a whole host of reasons, mostly already covered above. Number one for me though is the failure to address our defensive frailties- even in winning the Championship last year we shipped far too many sloppy goals and were hugely vulnerable on set pieces. The need to address this was painfully obvious- if you cannot defend non-losing positions in the Premier League you are very much ‘dead in the water’. That and going on a ‘wing and a prayer’ that our midfield would step up to PL class, which has happened in brief flashes but with no consistency.

A Man Utd team that have looked dreadful for much of the season. I have thought we'd have given them a decent match, to lose by 4 and play so badly is disappointing. As for DF sticking around, put yourself in his position- he is never going to be able to improve himself beyond managing a bottom of the league team at Norwich in the current circumstances, he is never going to improve upon this. If a top 5 or 6 Bundesliga team comes calling, I'd suggest it would be seriously tempting.

The goal was given, Spurs would have had to use up an appeal to contest it and I don’t think they would have done so. VAR-ing every goal is robbing the game of the essence of the sport- the euphoria of your team scoring. Actively seeking a reason to not allow a goal every time one is scored is as ‘anti football’ as it gets.

The limited number of appeals thing must be the answer. Do not review every goal, each team has 2 appeals per game, one for goals awarded for / against, one for red card offences. I don’t think Spurs would have even used up an appeal on Pukki’s goal yesterday, there were no on-field protests that I could see.

An intrinsic part of the model we are adopting. I have glory hunting work colleagues who support one of the ‘big’ PL teams, overlooking Norwich for always having displayed a lack of ambition. Idiots I agree, but I given our position now I kind of understand the thinking- 18 to 26 (at best) in the ‘pecking order’ is always going to be our glass ceiling.

Absolutely, they were shockingly bad. The only consolation I’ve taken from the defeat is that at least we didn’t spend £140m to be that that s**te. Take Grealish out of that team and they have nothing.

We will only be in ‘the mix’ with several clubs with wealthy owners willing to spend. We’ll get one or two years of parachute payments to have another attempt at fluking not being relegated. This is where we are at present.

17/20, the trick for me was to try to recognise the terrace or stand on one long side or behind the goals from TV coverage ‘back in the day’. I still managed to get the corrugated roof at Newcastle wrong (Watford had one similar..., grrr!). The Kippax at Maine Road was one impressive stand though, I can remember my time at Manchester Business School and staying on the upper floors of the residential block- you could see that stand in the distance, towering over the surrounding housing.

Being an old git..., from what I remember it was the third most prestigious European competition. I remember the Cup Winners Cup (each nation’s domestic Cup winner being represented) being second in the pecking order. This and the European Cup were single game finals at a neutral venue. The UEFA Cup final was a 2-leg Final (home and away legs). It was very much the ‘cinderella’ competition of the three.

I had to ‘double take’ too, I thought they’d got rid of the old domestic-conservatory-stylee executive boxes, but then realised the slum that comprises their away end was now to the right rather then to the left. A bit of googling suggests the exec boxes are still there but they built a new tv gantry as the old viewpoint didn’t project an image befitting a Championship club.

As mentioned earlier, it is very possible. Leicester RUFC did it at Welford Rd as shown here In the first photo the existing stand seating and back of the old stand can be seen to the left of the posts. I suppose the question in our circumstances is the viability of something similar taking into account the presence of the road behind (and I suppose the inner ring road beyond that) whilst being able to achieve the required ‘sight lines’. But there are plenty of examples of stands being built over roads (Old Trafford, Villa Park). Does the Club own the ‘redundant’ road?

Absolutely do-able, Liverpool did it as said and Leicester Tigers Rugby Club did something very similar a few years back which would be the way to go. They built the new stand behind the existing (we would have to build over the old Carrow Road), constructing the new upper tier and roof keeping the low level existing in use. Over the close season the lower tier was rebuilt. With some off site prefabrication and sensible phasing the disruption can be minimised.