Football 365 article on Norwich (harsh!)

[Winning 25 24]

http://www.football365.com/f365-says/9864996/Norwich-Need-Neil-To-Be-Ruthless...

"And the uncomfortable truth is that this Norwich side is not as good as the Leicester team that was promoted with 16 more points." Well we''ll find out next season I suppose.

[Fiery Zac 1,066]

Harsh and rubbish.

Same team maybe, but theyre overlooking the most important thing... We''ve got a very different manager.

[KeiranShikari_2 0]

lol we might as well give up now.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

Its harsh but its true we will need some better players in there to survive. The 11 that started are all good players but a level higher might me too much for them. I think we need some raw pace and power in there all over the pitch. We will be resorting to hoofs clear more often next year so need some players to make it stick up that end and to make chances happen.

[TimDim 0]

Jeez, what a pile of shyte !If this airheaded bimbo thinks Braidley Johnson is the same player that he was 12 months ago then she is totally clueless. We will have an income of £150m plus next season. Does she really think that we won''t strengthen the squad ! This pile of shite says nothing about the realities of the game, or our club but is simply a means for her to trot out idiotic cliches thatshe has picked up from e;lsewhere. Alex Neil is ''nakedly ambitious''. Whereas every other manager has no obvious signs of ambition we have to suppose. To deconstruct the rest of the shyte is to give it the credibility of some reasoned article. It is not. It is shyte from first to last. Back to the ironing, luv.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

Lazy. I hope she wasn''t paid anything for that.

Reminds me of all those articles last time talking about Holt being a tyre fitter.

[Paul101 93]

back to the kitchen dear ;)

but being serious what a load of a old tosh

[Yorkshire Canary 118]

Ill educated rather than harsh. This Norwich squad is virtually the same yes plus Jerome and Grabban. It is a squad that should never have been relegated and but for a win against WBA andHughtons negative tactics would not have been. Yes there will be some additions and we have a more positive manager. add to that the bottom half of the PL is as weak as it has ever been. We have every chance of staying up indeed i expect us to

[Trevor Hockey's Beard 526]

These closet Binners get everywhere - except to Portaloo Road on match day.

[NCFCgardener 0]

Clearly got bored of the Norwich Love-inn and decided to look at the flip side.

There are some who will find themselves outside of the team come mid-season, others will come to the fore whether they are new signings or existing players.

Redmond had a superb end to the season and took us over the line, very similar to the impact of Simeon Jackson a few years back. Wheres Jackson now?

[Budapest Canary 152]

What Yorkshire says. Last season we got relegated not so much because of our defense (just take a look at the number of clean sheets in the previous season) but because the lack of goals scored. With Jerome, Grabban and the improved Redmond (who won''t be used on the left wing as before) this is already a better side than it were last season, not mentioning our new manager and the money we can spend...

I actually have positive vibes about the coming season, this is a lot better team that got us promoted under Lambert (written off as relegation candidates before a ball was kicked) and with Alex we have an equally capable manager.

[Knock off Nige 1]

Interesting to read all the comments below the article. Almost all, from Liverpool, Man U and Arsenal fans are disagreeing with her. Points out negative tactics by the then manager and it''s also effectively the same team that finished 11th in the Prem the season before.

[Mr Angry 1,547]

She''s forgotten that 2 people will be missing from the team that got relegated-Hughton and (probably) RVW.

[Jim Smith 2,314]

Was also interesting to hear Redknapp saying on the sky coverage of the game that he never thought we would get relegated and thought that we would kick on an establish ourselves as a mid table prem club.

Truth is there is not really any such thing as a secure mid table prem club. Any club from 8th downwards can find themselves relegated if they have a bad season and that is what happened to us.

In my view this squad is considerably stronger than the one we went up with last time (although maybe not mentally but that will only grow with days like Monday) and we should be the best placed of the 3 teams coming up to stay up because we have players who are proven at this level. We should never have gone down and wouldn''t have were it not for Chris Hughton who has finally been exposed for what he is to some in the media and the wider football world. I think we need tinkering rather than wholesale changes to the squad. We need a quick centreback to play alongside Bassong, some pace on the left wing and (although its harsh) possibly a right back as well but we can afford to spend decent sums on 3 or 4 quality additions rather than have to bring in 8 or 9 new players like some newly promoted teams do because the bulk of the squad is already there.

Who knows maybe Vadis will also step up to the plate with a full pre-season under his belt. We really do not know what he is capable of yet.

[Mr.Carrow 376]

I wonder what she`d have written about Hamilton when they got promoted to the SPL....?!

[Branston Pickle 3,638]

To me the article just smacks of someone given an article to write, quickly, with access to a few facts but seemingly little background knowledge. I also love the tried and tested cliche trotted out about it having been a poor quality Championship this season - this is said every year yet to me it looks better each season.

If the author had chosen to, they could have done a very different job - we are much the same side as that which was relegated, but we are also much the same side who was safe the previous two seasons. There''s an interesting angle of those guys wanting to prove themselves again. It could also have mentioned the managers (Hughton not working out, our form under AN extrapolated over a season that would have seen us promoted with more than Leicester). And the finances - we are surely far better off than Burnley and will spend far more (and also more wisely than QPR) to strengthen areas that need it.

Sure, we''ll be installed as favourites for the drop, and there will be more lazy articles that have the usual lack of knowledge about the club, but it is for us to show they were wrong. It would be more interesting to read articles looking to show how clubs try to buck that trend rather than the boring "promoted teams will struggle" stuff.

[Nicko 0]

Not sure she''s right on Jonny Howson. He was injured for a lot of last season. I do feel like we might have got a few extra points with him in the team.

She''s right on Russell Martin, Whitaker and Bradley Johnson though.

My unpopular opinion is to cash in on Johnson anyway.

[BroadstairsR 2,138]

Controversy for controversy''s sake.

 

The mention of Robert Snodgrass being relegated again is out of order. The player has hardly played for Hull this season due to a bad injury, whilst I wouldn''t single out Leroy Fer as being high on the list of reasons why QPR got relegated.

 

NCFC were one of quite a number of teams who could have gone down that season. The others did not self-inflict by appointing a complete novice to be in charge of their last half dozen games.

 

All promoted side need to strengthen in any case.

[Buh 0]

Heard it allllll before

We stayed up last time, comfortably, with Zack whitbread and Elliot ward at the back

Realistically, we''ve never been better prepared than we are now. Core of good players, ambitious young manager, unified fanbase, cash rich, A-class staff, non-maniacal "Dr evil style" owners, best chairman ever, full house every week.

Can only see good things.

If you want to write an article about how Norwich will find it hard in the premier league then go ahead but it''s kind of a moot point. We already know.

[Horse Renoir 1]

Okay let''s ignore, key differences like

-upwards momentum

-Swapping an average defensive manager for a great pragmatic one

-A much better strike force

-Every player in our defence is one year older and more experienced

-Bradley Johnson was never a ''destroyer'' or DM and won''t be used as one next year

-More money to spend than last time

-Redmond is a better player than before

-Fer was a hindrance when things got tough

-Snodgrass unbalanced us, was the typical school yard ball hog despite not being that great

-We already have a stronger team that Watford or Bournemouth, more experience as well

-Sunderland, Villa and Leicester will struggle massively next year

-The players are aware they''re thought of as Championship level by outsiders and will want to prove them wrong

-Bassong is back to his best

Most importantly, we won''t be playing 75% of games with RVW or Elmander on top on their own which is either like playing with 10 men or playing for a 0-0

We''re a completely different outfit now

[ZLF 271]

The tenor of the article is overly critical & likewise the defensiveness on this thread is too yellow and green tinted but both have elements of truth and fiction in them.

the truth is, as always somewhere in the middle - we do need to invest in some quality, across the pitch, to survive. We didnt invest with worthy and got relegated, we did with lambert and survived. Leicester improved after they added huth at the back despite having a very robust champs defence - without Cambiaso they would have faltered.

We do have excellent team spirit and we cant lose that; but if we dont strength the spine of the team we will struggle - I do expect Neil to be ruthless in addressing the teams needs.

We will need options for Jerome, BJ, Martin, Bassong, Howson, Wessi, Tettey.

[HazzaJet 252]

My support worker (a Spurs fan) has said we will need a striker who has a good record of scoring in the Premiership. Our defence is also leaky, and I believe that is another position, Neil will look to strengthen.

[Six Pack 92]

We went down because of weaknesses in our defence and our strike force.There was never anything wrong with the midfield. I have full confidence in this midfield. Also Hoolahan was left out of most of the games.

The strike force has been addressed with Jerome. He is a massive improvement on what we had.

The defence everyone knows about including AN. Hopefully any acquisitions will be in this area and also extra strikers to backup Jerome. We are not only better than Burnley but head & shoulders better than Leicester.

[djc 0]

So if comparing to Leicester, based on the ''points difference'' argument alone, we were clearly not as good as Bournemouth (4 points behind) or Watford (3 points behind) - yet we managed to take 10 points out of 12 off them!