danielsroundabout

What are you doing on a discussion forum then?

Who are the idiot fans? Would it be those who highlight and draw attention to the disastrous decisions and appointments that the owners and management have made these past couple of years? Or would it be those who are welded to the fact that any decision made by the club is a good one?

There''s been a lot of negativity since Saturday and now a certain level of resignation but it has not been at all bad for Ed. First half of the season saw him raking it in for making a prize p*at of himself each Saturday and now, on the back of that he''s got the live tour. All good reasons not to be present at many of the teams most dire performances. Then, there was the AGM where the club was forced to admit that the £90K in the accounts was a payment to Balls but that it was all very legitimate. Now, without a CEO again, there''s a further opportunity to swing a bit more his way, especially given that we must have a bit in the kitty following the recent window. Finally, whilst likely missing out on a promotion bonus, I''m sure the owners will want to give him a little for avoiding the drop. Doubtless he''ll say he doesn''t want it before he agrees to reluctantly accept.

Our record this season is totally at odds with the OP''s comment that we often do well against the top teams whilst struggling against the lower sides. Nonetheless, in answer to the question, we have a vital section of the team - central defence, in the hands of incompetents. For a number of windows now, it has been generally accepted that what we have in this department is not fit for purpose and reinforcements are essential. And yet, this recent window was allowed to open and close without the slightest reference to doing anything in that area. Alex Neil is always talking about individual mistakes being our undoing. Does he not realise that these mistakes occur consistently when a player(s) are simply not good enough? Klose has performed in waves for us. Awesome on arrival, desperately poor in the Championship, fine after adjusting to the new division but again recently dire again. Martin is easier to assess. He is not a centre back, never has been and never will be, totally out of his depth in that position. Alex Neil swears by him and will ultimately lose his position because he has not addressed this glaring problem.

Nearly as on the ball as the OP querying whether injury accounts for Oliviera''s absence after his condition has been so well documented this past week.

I haven''t seen or heard coverage of tonight''s game but have seen the criticism being heaped on Mulumbu on here. I assume from the way in which he is being singled out, that he was badly at fault for both Wigan goals. Can somebody confirm this as being the case?

NN From the very start, you engaged in an attack on the "framing" of my question and now you have moved to the point where you are criticising me personally - questioning the opinion I have of myself, controlling nature etc. The pomposity of your explanation of how a forum such as this works rather reeks of hypocrisy when you have just spoken of the opinion I have of myself. As for what appears to be your main problem with my OP, the reference to distorted views of happy clappers, I note that you have not commented on my opinion that those who condemn everything the club does, have equally distorted vision. I guess it demonstrates that I have balanced outlook, something that would destroy your attempt to categorise me. You make the point that only a very small handful have actually addressed the original topic. Well this is hardly surprising when from the very outset, a certain individual elects to take the post down a totally different route, posts around thirty times (all off-topic save maybe one) and then introduces his notorious pal to ensure further fractious exchanges continue. I have read (and instantly disregarded) the various pieces of "advice" you have offered on how to behave on a site such as this. Should I need guidance in the future, I''ll try to find somebody a little more humble.

LDC From the outset Nutty took the thread down a totally different route from the question asked in the title and indeed, the text. Next, he brings your name into the irrelevancies that he is posting. Next thing, you are posting and whilst your initial post partially addresses the subject, you sign off with a taunt to Morty. If you don''t consider that an action of attention seeking idiocy, hell-bent on developing childish exchanges, I don''t know what it is. From that point, you have endless posts, none with any thread connection. You say in your last post "I started nothing on this thread except to try to answer your op". So your closing quip on that first post, are you genuinely telling me you didn''t think it would provoke a response? What planet are you on?

Well NN, you''ve got the thread up to ten pages now by simply ignoring the title and my main question and taking the thread down a long and divisive path, picking up on a phrase I used which touched on a nerve. There is nothing wrong or inaccurate in talking of "the distorted views of happy clappers". Happy clappers agree with and support every decision taken by the club, however good or bad that decision might be. For me, that is often a distorted view governed by their yellow and green blinkers. At the other end of the spectrum are those who criticise everything that the club does and their views can equally be considered distorted. I don''t think any right-minded person would disagree or take exception to those generalisations. Yet somehow, you find it necessary on this thread, like so many others, to ignore the topic, go off at a tangent and worst of all, to introduce the name LDC into one of your posts. The next thing is, he starts his pathetic little spats with anyone and everyone and any forlorn hope of sensibly discussing a topic is gone. Thanks to both of you.

My apologies NN. So that''s 29 to me and just the one to you.

When discussing the merits of our four main CB''s, Klose Bennet, Martin and Bassong, I find it strange that distribution becomes almost the sole attribute upon which many judge the four. To me it seems to be the way by which many state the case for Martin over Bennet. Surely the gifting of goals to the opposition is less desirable than see a ball cleared from danger into row Z. Yesterdays second goal conceded typified the way in which people look the other way whenever RM fouls up. The headlines pointed the finger at Klose, indeed, AN publicly accused him of naivety. Fact is, RM had one player to mark and stood rooted next to him as he rose unchallenged to head home. Klose off the pitch not relevant but no mention of Martin, the real culprit.

How right you are Carra Rud. I started this thread some eight pages back, stating my hope that we have different personnel making transfer decisions and conducting transactions from those who have handled earlier windows. The thread was immediately de-railed by Nutty Nigel who decided to take it down his usual route by ignoring what I had said and concentrating on the "way the question was framed". So started some thirty or so posts from him, all off (my) subject and inevitably he then gets the other prize dipstick, LDC, to carry on the infantile line of argument. Congratulations the pair of you, you''ve done really well.

I guess it''s pie in the sky, asking you NN to take a good look at yourself but accusing others (Seattle on this occasion) of posting personal abuse or being plain off topic, really does take the biscuit. With this thread, you have succeeded (in your eyes) in completely taking it from my original question, to six or seven pages of personal attack and total irrelevance. I was hoping you''d just drop it at some point but I should have realised that is not your style.

Just got in and thought I''d see if this thread had attracted any replies to my original question or whether NN had succeeded in completely de-railing it with an attack not on the question, but "the way it was framed." If that''s not grabbing at straws, then I don''t know what is. On this thread alone he has twenty posts, none of them addressing the topic, all of them attempting to discredit me and my OP. It would appear that my use of the term "happy clappers" hit a nerve, at least that is the conclusion I draw from his avalanche of tripe. I had used the term (happy clappers) to describe a particular group of City supporters, nothing sinister or disrespectful. I could have said, as an alternative, "even City''s most ardent supporters". To me, the two phrases have equal meaning and maybe use of the latter might have allowed my thread to have developed without getting infected by the NN virus (inevitably, it was then contaminated by the incurable LDC strain). By the way, my thanks to the posters who were not taken in by NN''s attempts to destroy the subject by either jumping on him or actually providing answers to the original question.

pleases

I simply referred to our past record in window activity, hoped that it is not in the same hands and asked if anyone knows who are involved currently. I am sorry that you find the framing not to your liking but as I said, your distorted involvement leases me neither.

You just can''t help yourself can you Nutty? I was simply showing concern that we may still be relying on the same personnel in this window who carry responsibility for so many past disasters. And citing Oliviera as an example of past success (and I''d not disagree there) begs the question why has the manager preferred Jerome for most of this season? I was simply asking if any supporters know who carries out these tasks, didn''t want to hear your contentious bleating.

So much of the reason for us being where we are, as opposed to where we expected to be, can be attributed to abysmal dealings in windows past. These decisions account for us sitting on a clutch of demotivated players who don''t want to be here but current contracts make shifting them on so expensive. Even those happy clappers with the most distorted vision will agree that our record here is not good. My fear at this time is that we may still be relying on the same level of experience and ability when it comes to those currently charged with identifying, selecting and negotiating our next set of transfers. Whose hands is this responsibility currently in?

Well said Yankee, what type of specimen takes to a forum such as this to announce somebodies passing when he clearly hasn''t a clue who, indeed if anybody has died?

He said this season is all about promotion, promotion, promotion. Not next season or the one after that. Can''t remember a prediction being shot down so quickly, had hardly left his lips.

Sorry to repeat what so many on here are saying but "friend of the joint majorities" has a history of disaster attached to it. Just think of names like Gunn, Adams, Fry, Balls, Smith and Phillips. All appointed on the back of being known/friends of the owners. Now we have Moxey, friend of a friend. Not been here long enough to judge at the moment but based on stuff posted by TIL1010, the Wolves fans couldn''t wait to see the back of him after his lengthy and largely failed time with them. Another highly questionable appointment at a senior level has to be the Technical Director who is now working close to professional footballers for the first time in his life and has recently been put in charge of player acquisition and disposal (albeit the manager has the final say). Presumably the board, by which I mean the owners, would have rubber-stamped the meteoric rise of this member of their staff. As ZLF said on this thread when discussing a DoF post for Hodgson, such an appointment would lead to the removal of Ricky Martin, or at least return him to a level of player development with which he has experience.

Keelansgrandad mentions the Plymouth manager as a possible replacement for AN. He warns that he has no experience of having a bit of money to spend. After frittering millions in the past few years, we are now at the point of needing somebody who can manage without the ability to buy players. I liked Robin Sainty''s Christmas Eve article Root and Branch etc. which summarised the state of the club perfectly.

Despite Klose''s poor spell in his most recent outings, his omission (and Bassong''s inclusion) defy all logic for me. Likewise, calls for Captain Calamity. Any centre-back pairing that includes either of Martin or Bassong is a disaster waiting to happen. Since my OP, I''ve now seen the Channel 5 clips of the goals today. The player closing down the scorer of Barnsley''s second looks like Dorrans. Instead of standing big in order to block the attempt, he turns his back and appears to be dodging the flak. Total disgrace.

Only those within the club will know what is going on behind the scenes but the restoration of Bassong to the team suggests there must be serious issues surrounding Klose. We all saw that Klose''s last few outings fell a long way short of what we had come to expect from him but to replace him with a guy who guarantees chaos whenever he plays cannot possibly be the answer. Both Barnsley''s goals today were attributed to Bassong by Radio Norfolk although I think that a little harsh as far as the second is concerned. He simply blocked a fast cross and it happened to fall to a guy who subsequently scored. If I were pointing the finger for the second, it would be at our player who was closing down the goalscorer. This player, at the moment he needed to stand big and tall, actually ducked and turned his back. Who was it?

I guess the responses from AN and indeed, all the others, were much as we should have expected. They generally concerned past events and decisions which have led to where we are today. Just about the only reference to changes going forward centred on the additional role given to Ricky Martin and this is seriously baffling. I stand to be corrected but am thinking he has absolutely no experience of playing or coaching at this level and no transfer market experience at any level. For anybody not familiar with the individual, just google Ricky Martin Norwich City and click on the interview when he was appointed Technical Director. Not at all impressive. Given that so much of what is wrong at the club can be attributed to poor transfer policy, this one really does take some understanding.