NorthernYella

Mind games a la Mourinho, time for Adams to say "anything other than a win for Liverpool on Saturday will be a disaster for them, a Norwich victory is unthinkable, only the title will do for Liverpool now, 2nd place will be a failure. Norwich has to be three points for Brendon Rogers, my team knows only a miracle will get us the three points. We can''t even score goals, what have Liverpool got to fear?"

From the BBC website this stat, if Hughton stays we are going down "It''s about time a Chris Hughton sub did something - of more than 60 Norwich changes this season, nobody has scored or contributed an assist."

Sell Pilks and then be ambitious and use the money and another 4 or 5 million and go get Thomas Ince, he would be a great signing and worth every penny, even Hughton can get something out of Ince

Re Thomas Tuchel, I found this the other day, this guy will be at a bigger club soon: http://bundesligafanatic.com/remember-the-bruchweg-boys-mainz-are-facing-bayern-again/

Your greatest task was always going to be to replace Paul Lambert, unfortunately it is becoming increasingly obvious your appointment of Hughton has been a failure. Tonight''s game was summed up when Hughton brought Hooper on with THREE Minutes to go when it was perfectly obvious that Elmander and Hoolahan wasn''t working. We are presently sleep walking to relegation and if we get to Christmas with less than 15 points (which I think we will) we will be in real trouble. Norwich fans have not minded your McNasty image and high ticket prices when we have shown fight, commitment and a real desire to win, but we have a problem when it seems you will not do the necessary to stop us sliding to inevitable relegation. Ewan Chester has done a great job getting Fer, RVW etc to the club, now we need a man to lead them and get the best out of them. Mr McNally please sort it out!

Just did a bit of research on Internet trying to find some alternative managerial options. Really I think you need to have a successful recruitment policy like Southampton have! But I came up with Thomas Tuchel and Luis Garcia Plaza (have fun googling all!)

If we lose on Sat, Hughton will be sacked, if we draw he may go to. I like Hughton as a person and if he turns it around I will be more than happy. But money has been spent, on I believe good players, and McNally expects results. I still think we will stay up either way and I think Di Matteo would be an excellent choice of manager, failing that G.Zola. I''m off to Man Utd and Man City games next week, looking forward to it however is in charge, as I think we signed some good players this summer (whether Hughton was totally in charge of transfer dealings I think is debatable). One way or another I think we''ll be okay.

It does seem a lot of the football pundits enjoy their summer holidays too much and take little or no notice of the transfer activity at clubs like Norwich (although their love affair with Swansea continues!) I for one think we did well to stay up last season as our squad on paper was not too far off Wigan''s on paper. Although Hughton''s tactics nearly saw us undo all the hard work we did late autumn, early winter. Our squad on paper now seems of a very similar quality to West Ham, West Brom, Southampton, Fulham, dare I say Aston Villa. The teams who look in trouble to me are Crystal Palace, Hull, Cardiff, Stoke, Sunderland, Newcastle. For me Man City first, then Chelsea, Man Utd, Spurs, Arsenal, Swansea, Everton and then our tier of clubs.

'' Make of this what you want (beating Man Utd and losing to Luton spring to mind) "If" by rudyard kipling If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don''t deal in lies, Or being hated, don''t give way to hating, And yet don''t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master, If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you''ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ''em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds'' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that''s in it, And - which is more - you''ll be a Man, my son! Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

I would love to know how many Ipswich fans post on this message board trying to wind Norwich fans up. If they don''t and some of you can really be a Norwich fan but this depressing and running your club down, what is the point of supporting Norwich or liking football? All the doom and gloomers were out at the start of the season and have now re-appeared after this current run. Could we get relegated? Yes Are we playing crap? Yes Was Saturday''s performance embarrassing? Yes BUT please can all who rejoice that this is 2005 or 1994/95 repeated just stop trying to ruin this message board. Are the club trying to break the transfer record not once but twice? Is McNally a hard nosed business man, but far more ambitious and determined than Doncaster or Chase? And Hughton has not suddenly gone from a good manager to a crap one? Fair play to everyone criticising the players and management as sometimes they deserve it but those of you that love to see us losing and like to sh1t stir shut up and get behind the team as we will need everyone behind this team to stay up this year and this is a massive year for this football club. If we stay up this year with all the TV money coming it will set us up for the medium term as an established Premier League club. OTBC

Just come through on BBC that Brighton have signed a striker leanardo Ulloa from Almeria for £2 million, not saying CMS would solve striker probs, but maybe CMS plus Hooper/Graham would

How about Tom Ince from Blackpool, certainly more of a Daniel Sturridge type forward than a classic out and out striker, but would be a great signing. Surely a young player with loads of potential and would definitely inject a lot more pace into our side in the final third. I think we do need an out and out striker as well but if there are not any that are in our price range and that will improve us I think Tom Ince would be a great alternative signing.

Firstly: dome and gloom is overrated, I''ll save my depression if we are still in the bottom three over the winter months. Hughton is a successful manager and has a lot of mental strength managing Newcastle and Birmingham thru very difficult periods. If he kept Newcastle fans happy, he won''t have any fear managing NCFC. Secondly: we desperately need a DM. Reading the Pinkun debate everyone calling for return of Fox. I went to about 10 away games last year and I wud agree we are a much better side when Fox plays, but we need a player who can pass and tackle, we need a player like Hughton had at Newcastle, Tiote, with this sort of player we wud progress as a side and cope better with teams who play clever, quick passing football. We need a Safri type player again! Thirdly: Hopefully we are not this years Wolves and can do what West Brom did last year. We cud do with another striker. It was clever of Nigel Adkins to leave Lambert on the bench against Man City so he didn''t waste his energy chasing down the Defence all game. Holt shud def start at home, but if we cud conjure up a player to lead the line who has some pace that wud be a huge advantage, let''s hope Morison gets his act together as I think he cud do this role up to a point. Fourly: i predict we will finish 15th and stay up

I can''t believe anyone says we should sell Holt for less than 5 million, are you crazy?! We are not a charity. Was Holt not the best target man in the Premiership last season, McNally is a wise business man, why should we sell Holt for anything less than 8-10 million, he was the top goalscoring English striker and how many other strikers got 15 goals last season in the Premier League?! His age is irrelevant, football is about immediate success, you have to achieve game in game about, and now! So to have Grant Holt in your side is priceless, McNally quoted how much Liverpool paid for Andy Carroll, and how much wud we need to spend to replace Grant Holt! Also totally agree with earlier comments that Holt may as well sit in our reserves than score goals for one of our relegation rivals, why shud we be pushed around? If someone offers 8-10 mill for Holt, fine, otherwise I believe McNally will say to Holt either play for us or sit in the reserves and we''ll wait for the right offer which is best for Norwich City Football Club

If we could theoretically sign Nicky Maynard before the transfer window closed would you sign him? Or do you think we have enough up front? Or do you think Maynard is too injury prone? I hope we have enough up front, but fear we may struggle to score more than 1 goal in most Prem games which often isn''t enough to win as many Prem games as we woul like to.

If you don''t want to play/go to the watch the big games what''s the point of being in the Prem, maybe some people would rather we were still in the Championship/league one?! And for the record I went to Wigan and have watched Oldham a lot since moving to the North West so clearly I''m all out for the glory games!

Certain posters like Lester whose threat was "now whose laughing" and also "relegation fodder" who seems to be appearing on pinkun article comments box and on Pinkun live message board. The only person I find funny who is publically criticising is the poster on Pinkun live who calls himself Glenn Roeder and makes funny ridiculous comments, fair play to him at least!

About time us fans started enjoying this season isn''t it?! After coming through football doldrums we are in Premier League and held our own against two teams who have been in the Prem for a while now. Okay it looks like we were shambolic last night, but I for one enjoyed going to Wigan, enjoyed our extended game highlights on Football First on Sky of the Stoke game and can''t wait to visit Old Trafford, Anfield and all this season. For a few idiots to seriously criticise the job Paul Lambert has done or say he is not the right man for the job this season?! You are idiots and clearly have no idea! When he is a manager of a Top four Premiership Club or a top European club you won''t be moaning about Paul Lambert because you would have found something else to moan about! I''m not bothered by you idiots, I''m just shocked you really think your ideas are credible! Saying that Alan Hansen shares your confidence and he has no time for medium sized clubs, so I guess it just says more about the short sited character and snobbiness of some people that they just want to hop on the next bandwagon, rant over! Have a good afternoon everybody, I''m off to do something worthwhile this afternoon!

I would go with Morison just ahead of Bennett and Pilkington yes, as I think Morison''s pace as well as power would bother John Terry and all more than Holt. I love Grant Holt as much as the next Norwich fan, but feel Morison would be better suited for this game, as I thought Morison was more of a threat away at Wigan. As for Fox, I would definitely play him as we need someone to help us retain possession when we get the ball, so that we could either hit Bennett, Pilkington or Morison on the break, or pass it short between the midfield three of Fox, Crofts and Johnson. I would also play three in centre midfield to stop the Chelsea midfield having it all their own way. I definitely believe Bennett and Pilkington could cause Chelsea problems.

I don''t think we need to worry about what is defensive and what isn''t- we are about to play one of the best teams in world football so we need to match sure we don''t do a Blackpool as this stage last year and get hammered. Yes we need to not sit back, but also we need to get on top of them in midfield and try and retain the ball when we do get possession. Not an easy job for Lambert, but being realistic the West Brom game is a much bigger game than this one. I think we should play the following team: Ruddy Naughton. Whitbread. Da Laet. Tierney Crofts. Fox. Johnson Bennett. Pilkington Morrison

Gutted, forgot about that! Hopefully he doesn''t end up at one of our rivals like QPR as I think he could make an impact for a club like that this season, especially as he seems to have a lot better attitude than Adel Taarabt!

Just had Josh McEachran on SkySports News this morning, very highly rated at Chelsea, considered a natural replacement for Frank Lampard, originally asked by the club to stay at Chelsea this season to be involved with first team, but with Chelsea''s new signings imminent Josh wants first team footballer - he says he''s frustrated that his youth international team mate Ross Barkley is getting first team action at Everton (Ross Barkley was talked up by Capello on Goals on Sunday as a very exciting talent) This coming weekend a word with Chelsea over a season long loan for Josh McEachran could be a great idea for us. The best argument to put to Chelsea is look how Tom Cleverly has come back from Wigan and Danny Welbeck from Sunderland, both starting in the Man Utd team and looking the part. I feel we need something extra especially with no Lansbury and Pacheco and think Josh McEachran fits the young and hungry Lambert model and seems very talented. With experience already in the Champions League and the Premiership and at youth international level, including the U21s, I believe we should put in an enquiry and see what the club and player say.

I was at the game on Sat and I felt we looked very light weight in centre midfield playing the diamond formation, on other away trips I''d much rather us play 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1. As for this weekend I''d like to see De Laet and Barnett in Central defence with, Tierney staying at left back and Naughton in for Russell Martin. I would like to see a 4-4-1-1 formation with Fox and Crofts in the centre, Bradley Johnson on the left, and Bennett on the right with Hoolahan just off Holt or Morison, but as a humble onlooker in Lambert we trust.

Sorry about this post being submitted twice I had real problems posting this and then site went down, couldn''t access it on Internet or by phone to see if it had posted, page went blank or didn''t load so it appeared it hadn''t been sent.

A few years ago it was discussed on Radio Five, that the Bolton Chairman, who seems to wield quite a lot of influence within the footballing world, wanted to revolutionise the structure of football, he wanted there to be a Premiership One and a Premiership Two with perhaps no or limited chances of promotion up from the lower leagues. See also this article:http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/oct/24/bolton-wanderers-premier-leagueThis would obviously be disastrous for a lot of the lower league teams which we played only just recently in League One and would forever change the face of English football. Although his ideas have not yet been taken up, what with the financial pressures many clubs are experiencing, and Prem teams/Top Champ clubs (Lambert and Norwich being an exception) unwilling to invest in lower league talent, the future of teams with a fan base of less than 15,000 look unpromising at best.Personally I would be happy for the Premiership to take ownership of both our National team, professional league structure and grass routes football if it genuienly meant that money could be shared around more fairly, but in a money orientated and success driven industry like football we all know this is very unlikely to happen. What is more likely if lower league clubs fall on hard times is probably some kind of Prem sister programe, where for example Bury and/or Oldham could come under the banner of say a Manchester City who would become a starting place for their young talent who would then play in the lower leagues (possible Semi-Professional by then).Up here in the North where a Blackburn, Bolton and Wigan season ticket are far cheaper than an Oldham season ticket, you can see how some clubs stand no chance, esp in the case of Oldham where the Council seem to have decided it would be better for the area if they moved out of the Town (probably because they think the football club divides the community, as very few of the Asian population visit the football ground).Clearly, the league structure of clubs in twenty years will be very different, and I expect our club to be just fine, but some of the great aspects of our club game, like the gaint killing or little clubs holding their own, i.e Wimbledon in the Prem, could be soon lost forever to the history books.