Hank shoots Skyler

That ranking really irks me. How can we be 4th highest when there are 6 teams above us with a better score? We are joint 7th with Brighton!

As soon as I read this sentence for the first goal I knew I was in for a treat. I love how every bit of credit offered to him is then immediately taken away in the same breath ‘Cantwell makes a good (but obvious) run and then taps it in (luckily) through the keepers legs’ It’s the total lack of an attempt to hide the underlying hatred of him…

Yes I know the Denmark connection, that’s fine… but I don’t understand why these kinds of players have to be such a pipe dream for Norwich fans when teams of arguably a similar size are doing just that!

I think they're paying around 30% of his wages, so what about £3 mil for half a season? But you're right. Why on earth would he or Eriksen come to Norwich? No way could we expect to sign these kinds of player when they are signing for prestigious clubs as big as Brentford, or Rangers playing the same team every other week in the Scottish Premier League. This should be a realism check for everyone. Its funny, you are clearly sticking up for the club, but don't seem too realise how much you are indirectly insulting it at the same time. If Brentford and Rangers are capable of making such short-term deals, then there is absolutely no reason why we can't - if we wanted to. But I think that is what the point is, its not that we can't possibly do it, but that we simply don't wish to. We are so risk averse. Presumably we are expecting much more from Gilmour and Kabak for the rest of the season, which would justify our lack of action, I certainly will be looking out for some improvements from them to come!

I'd have terminated both the Gilmour and Kabak loans to make room for Ramsey...

I'd be fuming if I were a Burnley fan to be fair. I heard they have had issues with the new ownership given debts to the previous owners still need to be cleared out of the club's own resources via the leveraged buy out - hence the lack of transfer activity / profiting this month. Not a good look for the new owners. I'm not close to a Delia-outer as there are far more fans who dislike their owners than fans that do. A lot of what we have is taken for granted IMO and won't be fully realised until we get an owner in who doesn't have a genuine love for the club - which isn't unlikely in the future. But Burnley's situation doesn't really make me feel much better about us not trying a bit of business in this window though, they are in a crisis totally devoid of anything here. I still think even under our current ownership that we could've tried something!

I agree, I actually think he’s our best option at CDM as well and should be starting more games, he’s just not quite the ‘every blade of grass’ type of player I think we need in there.

So are you saying that you feel the club DID actively look to buy players (without firstly selling) but couldn’t find anyone? Because that’s not the vibe I got from anything Bailey has written, nor the club’s own messaging. RE the bit in bold - That’s weird as I would say the opposite for the most recent window. I recall the Rashica one happening quickly and under the radar at the start of the window, but nearly everyone one else was heavily rumoured up to the transfers happening. I can recall the Tzolis, Normann, Williams, Sargent, Kabak ones all being on the radar several days before they signed. I guess the ‘transfer rumours’ thread would reveal all but I can’t really be bothered to go back… An obvious example that springs to mine is the ‘hope Sargent doesn’t sign’ thread from TVO, I don’t think he made that thread after Sargent was already announced 😆 I guess what we don’t know is the extent in which we tried to sign players but didn’t / couldn’t. The likes of Billings, Josh King, and Ajer were all strongly rumoured but presumably they’d have been others. However, the fact that there has literally been not even the slightest sniff of a rumour of a purchase, combined with the tone of the club’s own messaging, I’d say we most definitely weren’t actively looking at bringing anyone in. I don’t doubt we had targets in mind, but we clearly just needed to generate some ££££ first, which is a real shame if we end up falling slightly short on staying up.

Although I do think it would have been possible to try a permanent signing without the wheels falling off the club if it didn’t come off / we didn’t stay up, I am okay with us not doing that given we’d spent the budget in the summer. But if we are including sending back Gilmour, Kabak or both for a new loan deal(s) then no I am not particularly. Expecting / hoping to see these two loans feature more for the rest of the season and to improve, otherwise it will have been a waste of loan fees / wages.

He won’t be playing now other players are back from injury Jim. He’s fallen immediately out of favour after every time he’s impressed in an NCFC shirt and I have a feeling that won’t change…

I thought @Christoph Stiepermann made a valid point to honest. If we didn’t have a natural goalkeeper in the team then I think we’d all agree that even an average one is better than not having one. We don’t have a midfielder currently in that mould (I like Sorensen but he doesn’t have the mobility to cover the back 4), so bringing in a natural to do that job would service the overall balance of the team very well - even if the player was not the best individually. As it is we will be continuing to shoehorn a player whose strengths lie elsewhere in the midfield. I.e. playing Normann there and not giving him the freedom to go play 10 yards further forwards and not worry about protecting the defence every time he goes forwards, playing giving Gilmour there and not giving him a better and more mobile foundation behind him. But given the messages from the club and through the Athletic etc have all been about ‘we’ve got a big squad’, ‘players are coming back from injury’, ‘sell to buy’, ‘budget was all gone in summer’ blah blah blah I would wager that we didn’t even try to bring in such a permanent or even a loan signing for the expense of Gilmour / Kabak in the first place. I find it odd that all the messaging from inside the club RE transfer business has been extremely passive, suggesting we can’t even look to buy anyone (without selling Todd / Aarons first), yet on here the posters backing the club’s lack of activity revert to messages along the lines of how ‘difficult this window is’ for ‘teams like us’. Which isn’t wrong at all, but not at all consistent with the club’s actual messaging. So a bit of a moot excuse. As it happened the only rumours we ever heard of were of Cantwell leaving, the only thing that actually happened as well. If we end up going down by 3-6 points I will seriously question why we didn’t try something this window. Changing Gilmour or Kabak out for another option would not have hindered the team notably if the new player(s) didn’t come off, not cost us much at all in the grand scheme of things. Buying one £5-6 million option, or even £8 million, would not have bankrupted the club if we were still relegated. We will see what happens but I am hoping for serious improvement from our two failing loans in the second half of the season to justify our persistence with them over anyone new.

I know posters don’t like it when anyone on here tries to decipher Todd’s posts, but both of these messages clearly do not read like a player who is simply leaving the club on just a 5 month loan…. Be very surprised if we ever see him in an NCFC shirt again.

and for dropping Cantwell / Gilmour...

I'd love to know but don't think we ever will sadly!

Well put TGS 👍 The fact he is a local lad and has been an academy player from under 10 level all the way through to the first team as well, just makes the whole attitude / lack of professionalism a tad more sour tasting doesn't it? We could forgive a player like Buendia wanting away after coming here from abroad with no prior ties to Norwich. DITTO Godfrey and Lewis etc, to a lesser extent, who were brought in a youth prospects from the likes of York / Luton as the ages of 17-18 I believe. And as you say, all of these players have pretty much objectively moved on to better things, or at least the move appeared so at the time. You could understand why each of our prospects wanted to make their move, and when they did. However for Cantwell, can we really understand why he wants to leave right now? Is he moving on to better things, or better money? No and no. So why wouldn't he want to stay and fight back to where he was? We will probably never know the details but hard to see an answer where he isn't shouldering a large amount of the blame (even taking stock of his personal issues which I felt Farke was tellingly unsympathetic of). This is the first case in recent years of one of our 'golden' players unravelling to the extent their value nearly fully erodes, honestly I don't think we will get more than £7 mil for him at this point. Even that would be a good price. Its a sad state of affairs that this has happened to him as he must represent a generational talent, having came all the way from u-10s level. All the makings to be a club legend, all the ability on the pitch as well make no mistake, but just not the right head on those shoulders. I now don't expect to see him in a Norwich shirt again and can honestly see him getting an awful reception at Carrow Road next time he visits. Particularly if he is up to speed in a few weeks and playing regularly and well for his new team... however he certainly has my sympathies if he wallows around at championship level struggling to find any kind of form. What a shame the whole situation is!

Sorry Badger - I should've quoted @spencer 1970, as it was him who reacted with exclaim to your mentioning of Naismith. The Naismith signing definitely burnt our hands but there were lots of pretty obvious things about that transfer which set it up to really kick us when we were down (when it didn't come off). I.e. signing a 30-31 year old with no resale value and his best years at a bigger club in Everton way behind him, as well as not writing in sufficient wage reduction clauses for relegation. Too pretty big no nos, but not something which should stop us making a signing like Brentford have in Erikssen, or another 'marquee' type permanent signing.

Naismith cost us £8 million and was under a bloated contract for 3.5 years as a totally failing player (2 of which he was on loan to Hearts I believe but god knows if we even had his wages covered - probably not 100%). Can't really see much a comparison with that and a 6-month deal of a free agent, Brentford have probably chucked a few million at him plus wages but if it doesn't go well by summer then there is no obligation to be hamstrung by him for three subsequent years...

Brentford aren't Norwich, it was never going to happen for us. We couldn't possibly sign someone on a short term deal without immediate liquidation if we were then relegated.

Bit of a chicken and egg situation here, what came first, fan losing faith in Cantwell or Cantwell showing a lack of professionalism / desire to play for the club. Although he has always had a small minority who didn’t take to his hair / Alice band / social media imagine, I’d say 99% of fans were always behind him, and 100% of supporters in the ground. Until this season at least. You’d also have to say plenty of players in the team get similar levels of **** on here; McLean, Rupp, Sargent, Gilmour, Idah (up to the last two games), Gunn, Hanley, etc etc, yet they don’t totally fail to keep themselves fit. Personally I think the fan base has had little to no impact on the situation. He doesn’t really deserve to be bailed out under the cover of a very small portion of fans who didn’t take to him for silly reasons. Everything that has happened this season with fans losing faith / being disappointed by him etc has been fully justified.

I don’t recall anyone mentioning how unhappy Cantwell was over the summer.

Yeah something like that. But isn’t swearing about the club due to long term frustrations more of an offence / more worrying for a fan, as opposed to mimicking what a girl said who he’s probably trying to pull whilst under the influence? Both are far from great of course! But there’s certainly a lot more to read into Wes’ incident than Toney’s IMO. Didn’t Wes then score versus Villa and not celebrate? I wonder if there’ll be any of that from Toney - I highly doubt it…

What an odd snipe to make. Cantwell finished last season as one of our best attacking midfielders, as he was through 19/20. Had he been sold in the summer after another good season, as well as Buendia, then damn right fans would be disappointed to lose him. If any of the fans, or the club, knew what was going to follow with him this season then I’m sure he’d have been out the door for a decent fee and no questions asked!

Interesting. Makes sense assuming we are going to exercise the 12 month contract extension to get a fee for him in the summer.

Yep exactly this. And I agree with you on Kabak. Arguably Smith keeping him around makes even less sense than Gilmour, as he’s not even close to playing for Smith, save for 2 injuries at CB. At which point I’d be just as happy with Sorensen at CB than I would Kabak (in fact I think I’d prefer Sorensen there). Then we have Zimmerman as a 5th choice. Seems pretty low risk, even if we didn’t try to replace him with another CB. At least with Gilmour I can see that he has been a favourite for Smith, so understand if he wants to be kept around, just don’t know why he’s a favourite in the first place…

Farke wanted to sign plenty of players who fell out of favour pretty quickly Hoggy. Amadou, Patrick Roberts, Franke, Heise etc etc. Gilmour went from starting every game to totally out of the team, and we’d then won our first game without him. He wasn’t involved in Farke’s last 6 games in a row. A 6 game run which featured the 0-7 at Chelsea and 1-2 against Leeds, Farke’s lowest points of the season yet he didn’t fancy changing things up with Billy in the subsequent matches. If he wasn’t going to then, when on earth was he?! It’s a pretty wild assumption to assume Farke was about to play him, all of the evidence points to the opposite. I’m confident that had we not changed managers then Gilmour would be with Chelsea right now via us terminating the loan, or a Chelsea recall (an option they could no longer exercise once Gilmour started playing again). I know you’ve said previously that Farke has had a good record for when he’s dropped players in the past (I.e. Leitner, Oliveira, Drmic, Cantwell), do you honestly think he called it wrong with Gilmour? And yes he was mediocre under Farke, but has he not also been mediocre under Smith? Where would you rate him in central midfield? He started every game (8 in a row) for Smith, until his injury, so basically he’s been seen as our best CM outside of Normann - probably. Is that where you’d put him? IMO he’d be 5th or even 6th choice for me (same as Farke). I see on my ‘ranking our players thread’ only 5% of posters on here fancied Gilmour as in our top 3 central midfielders, so if he comes back in the team immediately as a 1st / 2nd choice CM like he was pre injury presumably it won’t just be me wondering why.