BarclayWazza

Whatever happened to that player that was arrested on suspicion of being a peado? Assume awaiting trial hence no news?

Refer to my previous comment about those who can't bring themselves to say a bad word about the club - I did mean to add pedantry to the snide jibes. But OK, I'll play the game. We're in decline. We're scoring less, we're creating less, dont know exactly where we are with goals conceded but we certainly haven't fixed the leaky defence. Our talisman striker has lost his assist machine and is only getting older and slower. We are largely dependent on PL money to just stand still (which while nearly everyone else is spending essentially means we're going backwards) and if I were to do a poll, I'd suggest overwhelmingly that the consensus is that we're in a worst position than 2 years ago to bounce back up. I note you dont state that you actually think we're in a better (or same position) as the last PL relegation so I find your motivation for your comment a bit odd.

Have you seen anything this season to suggest that we're in a better position now than what we were 2 years ago?

Nope sorry, I claimed pro-Delia posters not having any comeback was a sign things are bad. This is a sign of the apocalypse....

I think the implication is that if we are in decline and don't go back up then without parachute payments we will struggle.

Personally I think this is the start of a decline. Looking at last time we came down we kept Aarons, Buendia and Cantwell and had £40m from the sales of Godfrey and Lewis. Since, we've essentially p*ssed that 40m plus the Buendia money up the wall, not found a solution to key parts of the squad (CDM, Pukki backup, solid defence) and our only real saleable assets are Aarons and whatever we might get for Cantwell. Said it many times before though... we must have pulled in £250m in PL money and parachute payments over the last 3 seasons yet our net spend over that time can only just be above zero. Something isn't right somewhere. I think the sign that things are really going bad is when you get the usual pro-Delia, can't criticise the club for anything poster's unable to offer anything of a counterpoint so resort to snide jibes - seen quite a lot of that recently!

I'll always give Hoolahan a pass on his comments because that seemed to have been more influenced by Hughton than any dislike for the actual club. He'd built up enough goodwill prior and since to justify his legend status. Same with Holt, the guy spent most of his years as a journeyman lower league striker and this would likely have been his last chance at a big contract. Again, definitely earned enough goodwill for one minor transgression to be overlooked. I'm neither here nor there with Cantwell. Should have been an excellent player for us, has other issues that for whatever reason means he's not been. Hasn't earned the legend status of a Holt or Hoolahan so while I don't wish him ill will, if we get an 8 figure sum for him then fair enough but I don't really give a hoot about what he gets up to for the rest of his career.

100% this. I said at the start of that season that we have an incredible opportunity with the crop of young players that we had to really build a side and that we needed an experienced CB to bring together Aarons, Godfrey and Lewis, a decent DCM and backup striker. 50-60m worth and we've got the makings of a mid table PL side. Instead we spent £750k on Byram and a bit on youth prospects. Ever since I've said the necessity of the self funding model due to the owners is what's holding us back as a club. Best opportunity we've had in years to establish ourselves in the PL and its f****d because Delia doesn't want to give up her plaything. Disgraceful imo.

Just announced that he's going to write off the loans owed to him and donate proceeds of the sale to Ukraine.

I wonder after a night like tonight what LDC thinks after settling down with his Horlicks and reading this thread back..... If tonight was to be savoured, im sorry you were disappointed.

What surprises me here is that the capacity issue has only been briefly mentioned and the basic economics of supply and demand. While there's a waiting list and tens of thousands of people who will basically just pay whatever, the club have no incentive to drop/freeze the prices this season. Previous freezes imo have recognised that we do have a high general ST price as this has been a discussion around ST renewal time for years. In terms of comparison, it doesn't take much effort to look at individual clubs and compare their pricing tables with ours. Our cheapest seats are for the stands behind the goals and the corners. I've just looked at Leicester as it's one that's been mentioned previously with a similar size capacity to us. Our cheapest ticket for last season is more expensive than probably 60% of Leicester's available seats and if you compare like for like in terms of areas of the ground, for the most part it looks like we're at best only comparable. Lots of favourable pricing for children as well. Looking at the other promoted sides, our cheapest seat is more expensive than the comparable areas in the ground and some of the side seating (which is still cheaper than our side seating) Similar with Watford. Behind goal seating much cheaper, side stands cheaper than our behind goal and they do something where if you live more than a 75 mile journey from Vicarage Road, your ticket is even cheaper. I appreciate this is 16 teams short of a whole PL sample (and these are 2021-22 prices, but I've compared them to our 2021-22 prices) so I cannot completely debunk that our cheapest tickets are in the top echelons because Man City offer 100 seats really cheap, but that's an argument designed to distract from the truth. Which is that for comparable teams to us, we are far more expensive for comparable seats. And if we get relegated, its only going to be a more stark difference.

Nope. But it's OK because wE aReN't GoInG tO waste MoNeY lIkE wE dId On NaIsMiTh. As someone else said, and I've been saying for years, it's perfectly possible by recruiting the right kind of player who will have a sell on value to actually step outside the comfortable self funding model to give ourselves a better chance of staying up. But, predictably, the club and the usual suspects who defend it are more than ok with being the only club with a chance of staying up who don't spend a penny.

Jinx.....? 🤣

Theres a valid question here though. Take out the "noise" of DCB's accounting, if you add up the fees received for not only Buendia but also Godfrey and Lewis and then include PL money and parachute payments, the investment in the team has been woeful. My favourite piece of accounting is how we sign Giannoulis and Gibson in 2020-21 and then count their transfer fees in this season as part of the "unprecedented" sums we've spent this year despite the fact they are approximately £15m worth of direct replacements for two players we sold for approximately £40m the season before.

Yes, because we f*cked up on a couple of players, let's just raise the white flag and never buy any players when fighting relegation again.... 🙄

OK let's stay uncompetitive with a p*ss poor owner and hope 3 other clubs are properly sh*t each year

Foreign/rich owners don't have to be a lucky dip... But my argument against whatabboutery goes further. Nearly every club in the Premier League now has a billionaire owner. In comparison, we sold the best ever player to pull on a Norwich shirt for approximately 150% of the net worth of our owners. It's not about whatabouttery, its about having the tools being able to compete at this level. With more and more money going into the game, the wage structures and transfer budgets we have to stick to make it harder every year for us to be competitive. I guess the question then becomes what do you want from your football club, if you're happy with us being "little old Norwich" who do things the "right way" but never manage to do anything of note in the PL then thats your right. I just look at the opportunities and the players we've had over the last 10 years or so and while we might have improved off of the pitch, on the pitch we haven't maximised those opportunities. The bottom 4 this season are very poor and Brentford could easily be drawn into the equation. Again, we've got an opportunity but it appears any purchases are dependent on sales so once again the size of Delia's wallet is restricting us. I certainly did not suggest that we might just stay as we are, don't put words in my mouth. I'll elucidate. Under Delia we have previously had threats of administration, time as League One club and recently gone backwards to a mid table Championship club. Nothing says that we are immune from doing that again under her ownership. This season already feels like a backward step from the last 2 attempts. Staying a yo-yo club is reliant on wisely using the money from player sales and the multi million pound players are running out. I consider the range of what I think is our potential under Delia/richer owners and save the word "deluded" for anyone who thinks we can become "established" as a PL team under Delia. Perhaps falling back to League 1 is equally unlikely but I'd ask what's the point in this? Each subsequent promotion (if it happens) is celebrated less than before because of the inevitability of us being uncompetitive the following season. Already, I couldn't really get excited about the last two promotions for that exact reason. Alternative ownership perhaps opens that range up, I'd say League One is highly unlikely but it at least gives us a chance to be something other than whipping boys each year. You've already resorted to name calling and now you've invoked the "you're wrong but I cba to explain why". You're nearly at the full house for I don't have a good argument for my opinion. Please do indulge me - what is so blindingly incorrect about the fact our owner is unable to make us competitive in the PL? Because I really can't understand the blind faith in an owner that has only put a meek attempt into PL survival in the last 3 attempts.

Absolutely this, and I can't believe people still buy into the alternative.

Nice bit of name-calling and missing the point there hoggy 🤣 What the Delia apologists hang onto is 2 fairly flimsy arguments... that the alternative is a stinking rich Eastern based owner with questionable plans for the club/human rights records (it's not) or LoOk At IpSwIcH aNd PoRtSmOuTh, Be CaReFuL wHaT yOu WiSh FoR etc. Instead of misdirection and whatabouttery, how about recognising that the last 2 games actually put us in a really good position to have the chance of staying up and the owners lack of ability to put a few quid into the club and acquire the player that gives us a much better chance to stay up actually means they are a hindrance as an owner. If relegation occurs again this season, it's one again at the feet of the cook. Let's just break this down... Hoggy's words basically translate as wanting an owner that can put a few quid in to give us a better chance of staying up is a deluded view. Let that take a moment to sink in...

Getting irritated by the people who look at this as a binary issue. Having a rich foreign owner doesn't immediately mean they are a sh*thouse and that we should be grateful for what we've got. What's become obvious is that without external money, we're really going to struggle to ever compete in the PL. We're still favourites to go down and 2 results against very poor teams is just masking this. With money we might improve, we might not. Without it we almost certainly are limited to where we've been last few years.

She looked happier in the crowd when we were 1-0 down than she did when we were 2-0 up at Brentford 🤣 Get the old hag out.

2019-20 Team with Emi gets relegated 2021-22 Haven't really improved the rest of the squad AND we sell Emi. Relegation pretty much nailed on.

I don't know, I mean the club claiming they are committing £75m this season but its actually some that was spent last season and some next season. I'm no Alistair Campbell but that looks like spin to me.

You're still making an incorrect comparison. Claiming we've vastly outspent Watford and Brentford but ignoring that none of them have funded this with the sale of their star player. Watfords major departure last summer was Will Hughes. Buendia, he is not. Where you possibly want to be looking is Buendia basically shaped our playing style for the last 3 years. Losing a player of his magnitude goes beyond the £33m we got for him. We now look lost with pretty much no attacking ability. This is what the model relies on.

Again, its how you spin it. I'm assuming you're taking the full £75m but ignoring that we sold 2 players for c.£40m last season and replaced them with 2 players worth c.£15m but physically made the payments this season. Taking Gibson, Giannoulis, Kabak and Normann out of the equation, our net spend might be a bit more than Watford. Not slating the way the club structured these deals, even though player sales and parachute payments probably brought in around £80m last season, with Covid it was probably sensible to make the Gibson and Giannoulis purchases dependent on promotion. And its clear with Kabak and Normann the pot wasnt sufficiently deep to buy them from this years budget. No issue with that. But championing that we've committed £75m this season when it's reasonable to say it's actually over 3 years is pure spin.