4th floor

In short, Webber's tenure has been classic gambler's tale. He came in, made lots of small smart bets, won big, then lost a fair bit. He then totally lost his head by trying to chase modest losses and get a gigantic win. He's still up on where he started (mainly infrastructure), but substantially down on where we'd be if he hadn't lost his head to such a significant degree. Webber's situation shares some similarities to that of Chase, albeit the latter's success was a lot more sustained and reached much greater heights. I cannot see Webber being as well respected a generation from now, as Chase is at present. Overall Webber will probably be viewed in years to come as something of a flash in the pan who lost most of what he won without really reaching his potential.

The biggest confounding variable would be the possibily that Webber bought players that Farke didn't really want and didn't suit the way he wanted to play. In a discussion thread a couple of days ago one or two posters were critical of some of the transfer choices, and at least one (who has worked in football) was sceptical before the season kicked off. Who knows exactly what went on between Webber and Farke, for instance whether Farke was happy or not with some of the acquisitions or the sale of Buendia, and who had the final say in transfer decisions. But it doesn't look like Farke favoured several of the new players, and regardless of this idea, Webber shares a large proportion of the responsibility for transfers as part of his job description. Farke's last time in the PL was a write off due to most of the transfer kitty being diverted to pay for Colney upgrades. So that season and the statistics that follow from it (which get tagged onto his PL record going into the current season) can be reasonably discounted to a large degree. Overall, if it's the case that Webber couldn't get players for the current season which suited Farke's desired playing style and system, then the question of whether Farke can manage in the PL perhaps doesn't have a clear answer. Questioning whether Farke is good enough for the PL is fine, but only if the same question is asked of Webber.

Just about all Webber's principles and philosophies seem to have been thrown out of the window in the last six months, and now he's gambling everything on such a bizarre appointment. I expect Webber will eventually crack up like McNally did before him. So sad.

Excuse me for not approaching this from a strictly footballing, tactical angle. Just some genral thoughts about why I wouldn't be pointing the finger of blame at Farke. In a nutshell, the problem is that the board seem to have delegated almost all transfer decisions to Webber. Perhaps a lack of checks and balances lies at the root of our predicament? This season Webber appears to have gambled, perhaps buoyed by another Championship title, and also keen to seen to be spending after a very frugal previous PL campaign. Selling Buendia might have made more sense under a different scenario of different purchases, but for reasons that Parma and others have mentioned we've ended up with an additional series of gambles and spread our purchases too thinly. We got a lot of sales spiel from Webber before the season started, but he was strangely silent when things didn't go to plan. He then 'comes out fighting' with more spiel when his silence becomes deafening, and tells us that DF's job was extremely safe ten days before it wasn't. Webber has gambled fairly sizable sums on several young/youngish players in the expectation that they appreciate in value, as opposed to a more focused reinforcement with more experience. Obviously, part of the risk is that we probably won't see much of a return if we get relegated. Few of last season's buys have made it into the team this season, ready to go with the wind of promotion in their sails, even if not quite PL ready. Under Lambert it was something like 8 in 9 played regularly in the PL, this time round it's a far lower percentage. More starkly, some of this season's acquisitions haven't featured much either, with Farke appearing disinterested in them from an early stage. Webber has got a lot right, but I feel that we're making the same kinds of errors that we've made in the past. Eg spending big, but not spending wisely. Not keeping enought of our promotion team together. 'Bolstering' our squad with raw young academy loans from top PL teams (and perhaps too many loans in general). An abrupt change in style. If this all goes pear shaped, then perhaps the biggest mistake was giving one man too much power. Before it was an individual manager deemed to be at fault eg Hughton with RVW, Alex Neil with Naismith. Now it's an individual director of football. But wasn't the director of football role supposed to be a cure for previous discontinuities, and to avoid the sort of abrupt changes that we've just witnessed? What can be done to remedy this apparent problem? Nobody seemed to like the idea of a football board, and a previous attempt under McNally never seemed to really materialise. All in all, poor old Farke didn't appear to have enough clout or input to be able to prevent Webber from being too cavalier and revolutionary in his approach.

I think Webber is putting the cart before the horse. A self-funded club like ours is much less likely to become PL regulars without a big increase in capacity. You can see how far behind the club has fallen in the last 25-30 years by our capacity. Since around 1990 we've only got an extra 5000 or so, but at present could probably get attandances somewhere between 40,000-50,000. We've been here before many times. As soon as we get PL money, every last penny is thrown into a futile effort to stay up. Then post-releagtion it's a repeat cycle of throwing every last penny trying to get promoted and hence into a position to upgrade the stadium. For pretty much the same reasons, Colney was allowed to rot for the last 25 years. Any talk by the club about a new stadium or substantial upgrade in capacity being contingent on becoming established in the PL is merely an excuse to go rainbow chasing.

I can only really describe the OP''s post as odd.

Is anyone brave enough to admit to having wanted Lambert to replace Farke in the recent past?Is anyone crazy enough to want to replace our current brand of football with the Lambert school of knocking crosses in for a big striker to get his head on?Perhaps one positive with Lambert''s new job is that we won''t have to hear constant calls for him to return to Carrow Road whenever he finds himself out of work.

[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"]There is a Chinese proverb that says “anyone who writes something starting with a Chinese proverb is talking out of their posterior”. (The Chinese don’t say “may you not get what you want” to mean good luck, they just say “good luck”).[/quote]I''m sure I''ve had "may you get what you want" from a takeaway in Yarmouth a few years ago. Possibly a bad translation explain things?

I was saying back in March that the football was the best I''d seen in over 20 years. It weren''t the finished article by any means, but I could see back then exactly where we were headed, and I''m not at all surprised how things have developed since.So it''s interesting that some on here are now saying the football is better than under Lambert. However, just a couple of weeks ago someone else strongly disagreed with me on this point, even going as far as saying bits of it were amongst the worse he''d seen.I sometimes wonder if having slagged off the quality of Farke''s football, that some people are now going to be setting the bar ridiculously high in terms of things like number of goals scored and league position. If we don''t get promoted then Lambert will still stand as better than Farke, and the Farke sceptics will therfore have been justified in their caution.

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="4th floor"][quote user="Icecream Snow"][quote user="4th floor"]Can someone explain how we got from McNally and Bowkett, to Jez Moxley, and to today''s situation? I can see several job titles, but I''m not sure who''s doing what. It all sound a bit like musical chairs to me.[/quote]Jez Moxey replaced McNally as Chief Executive, and Ed Balls replaced Bowkett as Chairman.I think Balls had proposed a new structure with a Sporting Director. When Jez Moxey left, Steve Stone was keen on the job, but felt he didn''t have the footballing experience required.So then we ended up with Daniel Farke as Head Coach, Stuart Webber as Sporting Director, and Steve Stone as Managing Director, with Webber taking some of the responsibilities from the old Chief Exec and Manager roles.Ben Kensell has been doing the Sales & Marketing role and gets the Chief Commercial Officer title, which sounds like the same role with additional influence and power. Bethnal says Zoe Ward''s been doing the agent liaison work on top of other duties.It sounds like the division of work between Kensell, Webber and Ward left Stone preparing the accounts, and arguably you don''t need someone at board level to do that.[/quote]Thanks, that''s a good summary. It looks to me as if we''ll be relying on Michael Wynn-Jones, Ed Balls and Delia''s nephew to oversee the whole thing.[/quote]Phillips was in business, but perhaps more importantly Foulger has been a director for 22 years, so it is a fair bet he knows a bit about the ins and outs of financing a football club and how to oversee that. I do not see any problem with not having a specific chief finance officer on the board.And I think Icecream Snow''s view may well be at least half the explanation for Stone leaving - that he found he was to an extent sidelined from much of what a traditional football chief executive does.[/quote]No disrepect to Foulger or Phillips, but I don''t believe it''s an accident that our upturn has happened since Ed Balls and Tom Smith arrived on the scene. Them two seem clever chaps.

[quote user="Icecream Snow"][quote user="4th floor"]Can someone explain how we got from McNally and Bowkett, to Jez Moxley, and to today''s situation? I can see several job titles, but I''m not sure who''s doing what. It all sound a bit like musical chairs to me.[/quote]Jez Moxey replaced McNally as Chief Executive, and Ed Balls replaced Bowkett as Chairman.I think Balls had proposed a new structure with a Sporting Director. When Jez Moxey left, Steve Stone was keen on the job, but felt he didn''t have the footballing experience required.So then we ended up with Daniel Farke as Head Coach, Stuart Webber as Sporting Director, and Steve Stone as Managing Director, with Webber taking some of the responsibilities from the old Chief Exec and Manager roles.Ben Kensell has been doing the Sales & Marketing role and gets the Chief Commercial Officer title, which sounds like the same role with additional influence and power. Bethnal says Zoe Ward''s been doing the agent liaison work on top of other duties.It sounds like the division of work between Kensell, Webber and Ward left Stone preparing the accounts, and arguably you don''t need someone at board level to do that.[/quote]Thanks, that''s a good summary. It looks to me as if we''ll be relying on Michael Wynn-Jones, Ed Balls and Delia''s nephew to oversee the whole thing.

Can someone explain how we got from McNally and Bowkett, to Jez Moxley, and to today''s situation? I can see several job titles, but I''m not sure who''s doing what. It all sound a bit like musical chairs to me.

[quote user="king canary"]"Farke has had a harder job'' This argument has been made before remains utter nonsense. Farke took over a squad that finished 8th the season before, had a fair few internationals and had one of the most potent attacks in the league. Lambert took over a squad full of recently signed deadwood who had just taken the biggest beating in their history, with no pre-season and had narrowly avoided administration. Alex Neil was a poor manager, yes. But to claim Farke had to start from scratch is laughable- Farke came into his first season with a squad containing Klose, Pinto, Tettey, Pritchard, Maddison, Oliveria, Jerome and Murphy.[/quote]Four of the players you mention are no longer at the club, and lots of others have left, or like Naismith have effectively left. I never said Farke had to completely start from scratch, but he''s come into the club during a period of rapid change, ie unlike the situation when Walker and Stringer took over. Excluding the youngsters, it''s only Tettey that''s been here longer than three years.

[quote user="lake district canary"][quote user="TIL 1010"][quote user="Bill"]of course not[quote user="TIL 1010"]Lakey reckons that Farke is a combination of Saunders, Stringer and Walker ! Dear God i will have a pint of what you drink mate as to me it looks more like Morgan, Megson and Roeder.[/quote][/quote]Steady on there City1st as i would hate to accuse you of following me around. Amazing to think that you and a few others so quickly forget the turgid stuff dished up last season and the first six games of this.Certainly cannot remember Saunders,Stringer and Walker doing that.[/quote]Saunders got the fitness levels up and gave the team the belief they would out run any opponent. Stringer got us playing high posession football and Walker turned that ability to hold on to the ball into more meaningful attacking play. I would say that sums up what Farke has done in little over a year, get us fitter than anyone else in the division, turn us into a side comfortable on the ball able to keep hold of it and then put it to good use in an attacking sense. Not achieved anything yet in terms of trophies, but the progress along the above lines is plain to see.[/quote]Saunders was before my time, but I would also add that neither Stringer or Walker (first stint) inherited the mess left behind by Alex Neil where we''ve almost had to start from scratch.Lambert inherited a squad which was virtually brand new, however he had the benefit of starting in League One and was able to leverage momentum once in the Championship.Farke has had a harder job, probably more akin to what Walker did in his second stint but without quite as onerous financial constraints. Already he has us playing better football than any manager since Walker.Nobody is saying we''re the finished article, that there haven''t been bad performances or problem areas, or that Farke has proved himself in terms of points/league position. However you can clearly see that Farke is well on his way to achieving a quality which is much higher than anything we saw under our most successful managers of recent years ie Lambert, Hughton, Worthington, Neil.

[quote user="TIL 1010"][quote user="4th floor"][quote user="TIL 1010"]I really cannot get too excited about being in a hurry up to extend Farke''s contract. What exactly has he achieved to justify it as at the moment it is still a work in progress for me but some on here seem to be getting carried away on the back of getting to 5th in the table regarding it as some major achievement.[/quote]I view Farke''s achievement as his team playing the best football in over 20 years. Perhaps I''m guilty of getting ''carried away''?[/quote]Better than the Paul Lambert era ? Come off it for goodness sake.[/quote]While he was a very good manager, we didn''t get much further than crossing the ball for Morrison or Holt to head in. Farke by contrast looks to be more in the mould of Stringer and Walker, where there was much more depth and quality to our play.I suppose what turned a lot of people off Farke was that he was trying to improve the quality, hence he didn''t immediately set the team up to play attacking football in similar way to how Lambert did.Maybe those who were recently slagging off Farke''s football as being boring didn''t realise what he was trying to achieve, and didn''t notice the improvement?