Stop worrying

[Eccles from Beccles 0]

I am not a happy clapper but I am not worried about the new season.

We will get some new players if they are deemed necessary but I have every confidence in the ability of Alex Neil to get the most out every player in his squad. If he had been our manager for the whole of last season we would have cruised to the title.

The current squad is good enough to stay up with AN in charge and any additions will then improve our final position.

So stop wetting your pants.

Eccles

[Fuzzar 1,702]

They say talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, Waveney.

[Benjamin (Bradford) 0]

I agree, Eccles. If current squad was used and current out of favour players can be brought back on side by Alex Neil, we will be competitive. Norwich playing well by not agreeing any outs before ins. I hope we maintain our sanity, not get swept up with desperation and blow our money on over-inflated players.

[BOO 0]

Current squad will see us back in the Championship, don''t care who the manager is.

Alex is good but he''s not a miracle worker.

Still plenty of time for some signings but if we stay as we are we are down.

[Herman 9,710]

I''m not.

[smooth 114]

AN, McNally, the fans and team know new signings are needed.

Yes, there is time left for guys to gel and the more focussed you are for day 1 the better.

I am certain we will be trying to get guys in as quickly as they can.

I am concerned in the sense that I would have loved the signings to be in, but so be it.

We have been promised two winger and an attacking midfielder to join to give RVW ammunition, we had fer, a midfielder, Redmond and elmander as those signings. Hooper brought in to bolster the attack. So we all know it can not work out.

Let''s hope we have the centre forward lined up, the centre half lined up, the right back lined up. I do think another centre half may be needed and a wide player but we can look in January for them too.

Let''s hope we get some activity in the next few days. When we are away we very rarely do business so tie up something before Austria would be good

[Miss Bum Bum 0]

I am not worrying I am now hysterically panicking we have really screwed up what was a promising position just a few weeks ago

[93vintage 16]

We''re still dealing with the mess left behind by Hughton and Adams, a series of bum deals and sticking plasters. So it seems we''ll need another year to get back on track and further build the squad for the long term.We''ll stay up, but we''ll not be pulling up trees.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="93vintage"]We''re still dealing with the mess left behind by Hughton and Adams, a series of bum deals and sticking plasters. So it seems we''ll need another year to get back on track and further build the squad for the long term.We''ll stay up, but we''ll not be pulling up trees.[/quote]The  "mess" left by Hughton and Adams, in terms of their acquisitions, includes Whittaker, Bassong, Tettey, Redmond, Olsson, Hooper, Grabban, O''Neil, Jerome and Odjidja-Ofoe, eight of whom played at Wembley, with Hooper an unused sub, and many of whom will feature prominently this season. Plus Fer and Snodgrass, both seemingly sold for more than we paid for them. Plus Louis Thompson, courtesy of Adams, and picked by The Guardian today as a young player who might make an impact on the Premier League.

[Indy 3,283]

Simple facts are......we have a budget, we have a big squad with experienced premiership players on premiership wages, we are limited in the premiership to a squad of 25 and we can''t afford the luxury of Man City with 100 million pound bench of players.

We are just back into the premiership and were not a fashionable club.......we are limited in our pool of players available and need to be patient to get the right players in. P&o point in adding with no better quality than we have.

The great thing is we have four or five youngsters who could well make an impact, Redmond, Thompson, Murphy, Toffolo and Loza.

If we can''t sign anyone else then so be it, we go with what we have and give them the support they deserve wearing our proud shirt.

I''m sure we will get a couple more defenders before we play Palace.

[Old Shuck 183]

Hear hear and well said Indy. Sanity at last.

[mrs miggins 0]

Indy wrote the following post at 15/07/2015 10:14 PM:If we can''t sign anyone else then so be it, we go with what we have and give them the support they deserve wearing our proud shirt.

------------------

I''m afraid that''s not really good enough. If we haven''t signed anyone of note before Palace I think fans have a right to be p1ssed off. And as for using the kids (Thompson, Toffolo, Murphy and Loza) again, this won''t be good enough. Under no circumstances should we be using Toffolo and Loza this season, imo they need to be loaned to league one clubs.

[Indy 3,283]

Miggins as said I believe we will sign a couple players but we no doubt have a wage budget and probably already there with the players we have.

As for the youngsters well a few clubs...Southampton, Everton etc bring on their youth so why shouldn''t we, could Thompson & Toffolo break into our side, we don''t know for sure?

I''m past the point of worrying do we need to replace Hooper with the players we have been linked with? All those strikers have no better records on paper than Hooper.

[93vintage 16]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="93vintage"]We''re still dealing with the mess left behind by Hughton and Adams, a series of bum deals and sticking plasters. So it seems we''ll need another year to get back on track and further build the squad for the long term.We''ll stay up, but we''ll not be pulling up trees.[/quote]The  "mess" left by Hughton and Adams, in terms of their acquisitions, includes Whittaker, Bassong, Tettey, Redmond, Olsson, Hooper, Grabban, O''Neil, Jerome and Odjidja-Ofoe, eight of whom played at Wembley, with Hooper an unused sub, and many of whom will feature prominently this season. Plus Fer and Snodgrass, both seemingly sold for more than we paid for them. Plus Louis Thompson, courtesy of Adams, and picked by The Guardian today as a young player who might make an impact on the Premier League.[/quote] I''m not going to go on about transfer mistakes like RVW or Becchio. Neither am I going to be quoting from Guardian articles to get my point across, because I can see with my own eyes that it''s about the football.Most of the mess was the hoofball which got us relegated and almost stopped us getting promoted. If you look carefully then you can still see a hesitency in our play, ie we''re still affected by this. It''s always going to be an uphill struggle if we try and outslog the likes of Stoke, because we don''t have the finances to do it.I''m not saying we didn''t buy some good players, but both managers made too many mistakes and were trying for instant success at the expense of the longer term needs of the team (Hughton especially). Cut out the most glaring transfer errors, make a few tough choices for the greater good in the long term, and the problems are greatly diminished. There''s something of a slow turn around with transfers so if you neglect one area then it can take a long time to turn things around, at least without a clearout which will often upset the team. You''ve got to look ahead, otherwise you''ll constantly be trying to solve problems by opening your wallet or wasting money on short term fixes.One valid criticism not often aired by the happy clappers, nor mentioned by the doom mongers, is that we''ve failed to buy enough players in the 18-24 age group. We''ve often got in older players because we haven''t had younger players capable of stepping up. A side effect of this is generally spending more on proven experience, and getting less back from player sales.A year ago our central defence was somewhat patched up with a couple of older players, both of whom are now gone. Our purchases of O''Neill, Dorans and Mulumbu are probably going to turn out to be good examples of having to buy experience with little hope of seeing a return on the investment. And we have yet to get a long term replacement for Hoolahan.To be fair to Adams, he did buy some young players. But they''ve been of questionable quality and hardly played (or not been here). Similar can be said of many of our home grown products, excepting the fact that they''re probably not expected to do as well as our young imports.I''d like to have seen us keep Chris Martin instead of get an ageing Elmander, and buy someone like Afobe instead of someone with less potential like Grabban. The football board needs to provide a check to some of the aforementioned errors.

[TCCANARY 263]

[quote]

 user="93vintage
Our purchases of O''Neill, Dorans and Mulumbu are probably going to turn out to be good examples of having to buy experience with little hope of seeing a return on the investment. [/quote]

 

We only paid a fee for Dorrans.

 

 

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

Really good post 93 Vintage.

Norwich have been living short-term for quite a while now. The one season they were thinking about the future was the one we were relegated in. RvW and Fer were both seen as being players to develop at Norwich and be sold at profits in a couple of years. It worked with Fer, a little quicker than the club would have like but obviously not RvW.

I can understand the lack of long-term thinking though, in the last 7 seasons Norwich have been promoted or relegated 5 times (and had 5 managers) - this level of change and uncertainty has meant the club has rarely had a chance to grow organically but had to react to an immediate situation. There is also the issue of handing too much power to managers and allowing them to reshape the backroom staff too much - I have issues with managers choosing the Head of Recruitment and scouts as I feel it leads to an Echo Chamber affect.

It is clear though, that Norwich have not had a good transfer window since January 2012 buying Jonny Howson (which just about offsets the mistake of Ryan Bennett).

If you give managers too much control of transfers they will always pick players who are 27/28/29 as they don''t care if they are any good in 3 seasons time; in all likelihood the manager won''t be at the club in 3 seasons.

Hopefully Lee Darnbrough will be at the club longer than one season and the club can finally start to look long term and build a footballing philosophy. Alex Neil appears to be a great manager, but the club should not build their future around him - he''ll be gone, one way or another before most of the current players in the squad leave the team.

[93vintage 16]

[quote user="TCCANARY"]

[quote]

 user="93vintageOur purchases of O''Neill, Dorans and Mulumbu are probably going to turn out to be good examples of having to buy experience with little hope of seeing a return on the investment. [/quote]

We only paid a fee for Dorrans.[/quote]

I could have sworn we paid a fee for O''Neill. But I think you''re right except that we would have almost certainly been paid signing on fees for him and Mulumbu, a largish one in the latter''s case.

But the principle holds true in that we''ve had a bit too much of a turnover, often with little coming back in. We''re a bit too reliant on buying experience, and perhaps cut corners and miss out because of the need to make our money go further.

I''d be happier if we bought a few more players aged 22-24, many of whom don''t cost the earth and have bigger resale potential.

[Branston Pickle 3,632]

To be fair to Adams he did buy a couple of guys for the future, in McGrandles and Thompson, and Miquel was only 21 - obviously, whether any of them will come through as hoped is currently unknown. One issue is that (some) supporters don''t necessarily see things longer term and will consider anyone not brought in for the first team as a waste of money.

IMO we already have several players who could almost be considered as ''new'' signings, in the guys mentioned above + Toffolo, Andreu and VOO. If the management consider them to be good enough, it may reduce the number of other roles we need to fill. Some seem intent on judging our preseason only on how many bodies we get in (Watford seem busy buying anyone as long as they are foreign!), but they might want to think about what we already have.

We certainly need more in defence - as AN has mentioned - and are obviously looking at strikers (hence the Bamford/Gayle links), what I can''t understand is why there are some who seem to think those in charge don''t know what we need, when they obviously have a far better idea of what''s going on than we do.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="93vintage"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="93vintage"]We''re still dealing with the mess left behind by Hughton and Adams, a series of bum deals and sticking plasters. So it seems we''ll need another year to get back on track and further build the squad for the long term.We''ll stay up, but we''ll not be pulling up trees.[/quote]The  "mess" left by Hughton and Adams, in terms of their acquisitions, includes Whittaker, Bassong, Tettey, Redmond, Olsson, Hooper, Grabban, O''Neil, Jerome and Odjidja-Ofoe, eight of whom played at Wembley, with Hooper an unused sub, and many of whom will feature prominently this season. Plus Fer and Snodgrass, both seemingly sold for more than we paid for them. Plus Louis Thompson, courtesy of Adams, and picked by The Guardian today as a young player who might make an impact on the Premier League.[/quote]

1) I''m not going to go on about transfer mistakes like RVW or Becchio. Neither am I going to be quoting from Guardian articles to get my point across, because I can see with my own eyes that it''s about the football.2) Most of the mess was the hoofball which got us relegated and almost stopped us getting promoted. If you look carefully then you can still see a hesitency in our play, ie we''re still affected by this. It''s always going to be an uphill struggle if we try and outslog the likes of Stoke, because we don''t have the finances to do it.3) I''m not saying we didn''t buy some good players, but both managers made too many mistakes and were trying for instant success at the expense of the longer term needs of the team (Hughton especially). Cut out the most glaring transfer errors, make a few tough choices for the greater good in the long term, and the problems are greatly diminished. 4) There''s something of a slow turn around with transfers so if you neglect one area then it can take a long time to turn things around, at least without a clearout which will often upset the team. You''ve got to look ahead, otherwise you''ll constantly be trying to solve problems by opening your wallet or wasting money on short term fixes.5) One valid criticism not often aired by the happy clappers, nor mentioned by the doom mongers, is that we''ve failed to buy enough players in the 18-24 age group. We''ve often got in older players because we haven''t had younger players capable of stepping up. A side effect of this is generally spending more on proven experience, and getting less back from player sales.6) A year ago our central defence was somewhat patched up with a couple of older players, both of whom are now gone. Our purchases of O''Neill, Dorans and Mulumbu are probably going to turn out to be good examples of having to buy experience with little hope of seeing a return on the investment. And we have yet to get a long term replacement for Hoolahan.7) To be fair to Adams, he did buy some young players. But they''ve been of questionable quality and hardly played (or not been here). Similar can be said of many of our home grown products, excepting the fact that they''re probably not expected to do as well as our young imports.8) I''d like to have seen us keep Chris Martin instead of get an ageing Elmander, and buy someone like Afobe instead of someone with less potential like Grabban. The football board needs to provide a check to some of the aforementioned errors.[/quote]

 

1) There was an expensive mistake in van Wolfswinkel, but overall, as my list shows, both Hughton and Adams are in credit over transfers in.2) Hoofball? Really? Under Hughton we played hoofball? Hoofball, put crudely, is getting the ball forward early and often. Under Hughton we did the opposite. He developed a crab-like style in which we attacked slowly and in formation, to avoid being hit on the counter. And if Adams had a fault as far as tactics were concerned  it was in naivety, And whatever tactical legacy Neil inherited he has very quickly expunged. I saw no sign of either of those faults at Wembley.3) By "trying for instant success at the expense of the long term" you mean attempting, in Hughton''s case, to avoid relegation and with Adams attempting to gain promotion back? They should have not tried to achieve those things?4) Slow turn-round in transfers? Again, the facts don''t bear that out. In our three seasons in the Premier League, with Lambert and Hughton, as far as our budget allowed, we targeted pretty much every outfield area of the squad.  A few purchases turned out to be lemons, but the squad in Hughton''s second season was vastly different to - and better than - that which got promoted under Lambert.5), 6) and 7) "A side effect of this is generally spending more on proven experience, and getting less back from player sales." Because proven experience helps you stay up or get back up. In our last half dozen seasons we simply haven''t had the luxury of - or the money for - long-term thinking, admirable as such an idea might be in theory. There has always been a short-term goal to achieve.8) Elmander was bought about five years too late, as second choice after we had failed to get Toivonen, who would have been a much better acquisition. But Martin, for whom I have a fair bit of time, has yet to prove himself in the Premier League.

[Benjamin (Bradford) 0]

[quote user="Indy"]Simple facts are......we have a budget, we have a big squad with experienced premiership players on premiership wages, we are limited in the premiership to a squad of 25 and we can''t afford the luxury of Man City with 100 million pound bench of players.

We are just back into the premiership and were not a fashionable club.......we are limited in our pool of players available and need to be patient to get the right players in. P&o point in adding with no better quality than we have.

The great thing is we have four or five youngsters who could well make an impact, Redmond, Thompson, Murphy, Toffolo and Loza.

If we can''t sign anyone else then so be it, we go with what we have and give them the support they deserve wearing our proud shirt.

I''m sure we will get a couple more defenders before we play Palace.[/quote]

I agree with all the above, plus Turner, Hooper and dare I say it RVW still with us until any new players brought in.

[whoareyou? 0]

There are no points won for making expensive signings.

The manager knows what he is doing and how to get the best out of players and its still early days yet.

[93vintage 16]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="93vintage"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="93vintage"]We''re still dealing with the mess left behind by Hughton and Adams, a series of bum deals and sticking plasters. So it seems we''ll need another year to get back on track and further build the squad for the long term.We''ll stay up, but we''ll not be pulling up trees.[/quote]The  "mess" left by Hughton and Adams, in terms of their acquisitions, includes Whittaker, Bassong, Tettey, Redmond, Olsson, Hooper, Grabban, O''Neil, Jerome and Odjidja-Ofoe, eight of whom played at Wembley, with Hooper an unused sub, and many of whom will feature prominently this season. Plus Fer and Snodgrass, both seemingly sold for more than we paid for them. Plus Louis Thompson, courtesy of Adams, and picked by The Guardian today as a young player who might make an impact on the Premier League.[/quote]

1) I''m not going to go on about transfer mistakes like RVW or Becchio. Neither am I going to be quoting from Guardian articles to get my point across, because I can see with my own eyes that it''s about the football.2) Most of the mess was the hoofball which got us relegated and almost stopped us getting promoted. If you look carefully then you can still see a hesitency in our play, ie we''re still affected by this. It''s always going to be an uphill struggle if we try and outslog the likes of Stoke, because we don''t have the finances to do it.3) I''m not saying we didn''t buy some good players, but both managers made too many mistakes and were trying for instant success at the expense of the longer term needs of the team (Hughton especially). Cut out the most glaring transfer errors, make a few tough choices for the greater good in the long term, and the problems are greatly diminished. 4) There''s something of a slow turn around with transfers so if you neglect one area then it can take a long time to turn things around, at least without a clearout which will often upset the team. You''ve got to look ahead, otherwise you''ll constantly be trying to solve problems by opening your wallet or wasting money on short term fixes.5) One valid criticism not often aired by the happy clappers, nor mentioned by the doom mongers, is that we''ve failed to buy enough players in the 18-24 age group. We''ve often got in older players because we haven''t had younger players capable of stepping up. A side effect of this is generally spending more on proven experience, and getting less back from player sales.6) A year ago our central defence was somewhat patched up with a couple of older players, both of whom are now gone. Our purchases of O''Neill, Dorans and Mulumbu are probably going to turn out to be good examples of having to buy experience with little hope of seeing a return on the investment. And we have yet to get a long term replacement for Hoolahan.7) To be fair to Adams, he did buy some young players. But they''ve been of questionable quality and hardly played (or not been here). Similar can be said of many of our home grown products, excepting the fact that they''re probably not expected to do as well as our young imports.8) I''d like to have seen us keep Chris Martin instead of get an ageing Elmander, and buy someone like Afobe instead of someone with less potential like Grabban. The football board needs to provide a check to some of the aforementioned errors.[/quote]

 

1) There was an expensive mistake in van Wolfswinkel, but overall, as my list shows, both Hughton and Adams are in credit over transfers in.2) Hoofball? Really? Under Hughton we played hoofball? Hoofball, put crudely, is getting the ball forward early and often. Under Hughton we did the opposite. He developed a crab-like style in which we attacked slowly and in formation, to avoid being hit on the counter. And if Adams had a fault as far as tactics were concerned  it was in naivety, And whatever tactical legacy Neil inherited he has very quickly expunged. I saw no sign of either of those faults at Wembley.3) By "trying for instant success at the expense of the long term" you mean attempting, in Hughton''s case, to avoid relegation and with Adams attempting to gain promotion back? They should have not tried to achieve those things?4) Slow turn-round in transfers? Again, the facts don''t bear that out. In our three seasons in the Premier League, with Lambert and Hughton, as far as our budget allowed, we targeted pretty much every outfield area of the squad.  A few purchases turned out to be lemons, but the squad in Hughton''s second season was vastly different to - and better than - that which got promoted under Lambert.5), 6) and 7) "A side effect of this is generally spending more on proven experience, and getting less back from player sales." Because proven experience helps you stay up or get back up. In our last half dozen seasons we simply haven''t had the luxury of - or the money for - long-term thinking, admirable as such an idea might be in theory. There has always been a short-term goal to achieve.8) Elmander was bought about five years too late, as second choice after we had failed to get Toivonen, who would have been a much better acquisition. But Martin, for whom I have a fair bit of time, has yet to prove himself in the Premier League.

[/quote]I didn''t realise this was an episode of Question Time where every point is dissected in minute detail. I''m not going to bother replying to every numbered point to clarify or define what words like

long, big or good are intended to mean, as most folk will probably be smart enough to

comprehend the general ideas.Rather than turn this into an exercise in point scoring you might want to read Bethnal''s reply which covers the gist of what I was trying to say. We''ve both made fair comment and pointed to where the club can improve.

[Miss Bum Bum 0]

Some of our fans live in cloud cuckoo land.

With every day that goes buy the price of our targets go up especially if the clubs are not that worried about selling their prize assets to us.

The fact that McNally has made such a hash of it so far makes it highly unlikely we will survive this season.

I have faith in Neils ability but you cant make a silk purse out of a pigs ear.

How much longer must we endure this incompetence

 

 

[Mr Apples 1,317]

Totally agree, Houghton out.

 

Apples

[HertsCanary93 222]

I''m not panicking yet as much as some others are, but those saying we will comfortably avoid relegation with the current squad is ridiculous.

We need at least two quality signings in the back four minimum, both of which need to improve on what we already have an not just make up numbers. If Bassong gets injured we are in real trouble. This minimum is assuming that Jerome steps up and we get Brady wide left.

As I said not panicking yet, but with the whole domino effect of transfers, the longer we wait, the more we will have to pay.

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="HertsCanary93"]I''m not panicking yet as much as some others are, but those saying we will comfortably avoid relegation with the current squad is ridiculous.[/quote]

It is not ridiculous in the least.  We have enough strength, experience and team spirit to stay in the league with what we have - if AN continues to get the best out of them - and I see no reason why he won''t.   That said, one or two more in to cover/compete for places in the team will obviously help,  but imo - what we have - including the youngsters - is more than enough to do well.   

The premier league is as much hype as it is ability - and the pressure that puts on all clubs is considerable - so the main thing to a successful season  imo is to get the mental aspects right.   AN will do that and he will blood the youngsters and give them the belief that they can do well at this level - and if he does that and it works, we will be looking at a very good season.

[TCCANARY 263]

[quote user="Guy Burgess"]

Some of our fans live in cloud cuckoo land.

With every day that goes buy the price of our targets go up especially if the clubs are not that worried about selling their prize assets to us.

The fact that McNally has made such a hash of it so far makes it highly unlikely we will survive this season.

I have faith in Neils ability but you cant make a silk purse out of a pigs ear.

How much longer must we endure this incompetence

 

 

[/quote]

 

I like your new name, did you know that Guy was a Greenock Morton fan?

 

 

[Canarywayne 0]

We can forget about Brady signing because we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Hull don''t need to sell him because of parachute payments (remember those that we all banged on about last season and how we didn''t need to sell) and McNally won''t budge because if he did it would bruise his ego that somebody got the better of him.

so we might aswell forget that unless McNally put the club first before his prized ego.

[mrs miggins 0]

we went up last season because we basically kept all of our players.

[Woodman 92]

all through last season, our squad was consistently called ''a premiership squad'' by commentators, managers and the press.  Suddenly, now we''re promoted, we need loads of new players to survive.  For me, we need a new centre half who is better than Martin, Turner or Miquel, a left sided player who is better or as good as Johnson, a right back who is better than Whittaker - though Elliott Bennett seems to be making a name for himself there, a left back to challenge Olsson, though again Toffolo has an opportunity to grab there.  Lastly, I''m not sure we have to get this one, but a striker who does the same as Jerome.  If we get all 5 of them, the squad should be looking at being at the top of the second tier of clubs!