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Kingston Yellow

Blame the Board before AN

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Alex Neil proved his ability to galvanise and motivate a team last season. This season; he was unlucky not to be in the top 3 after his first 5 games (robbed by the ref at Palace being the most obvious example but there were several others in our first few games).

So here we are in the bottom 3. Some terrible performances of late and some suspect tactics but still the players seem to show fight for the cause - at least in patches.

So some are calling for the manager''s head. For me; it''s the board that have been negligent. No signings of note in the summer. Messed about trying to sign players on the cheap for paltry sums of money.

And January window; sure, we spent a lot of money. Yet I''m as sure as I can be that only Bamford is AN''s signing. The rest have hallmarks of the "footballing board" and "head of recruitment" sticking their noses in.

As if AN was looking at Pinto or Klose. Or the lad from York or Coventry or Dartford. These are clearly signing by "others."

The board, or DM played a master stroke bringing AN last season. And since Wembley, have made an absolute car crash of things.

I think we''re going down now. But I don''t blame AN. Regardless of some of his naivety. He was extremely unlucky in his first half dozen games. It''s the Board who should be held accountable.

We will do well to get behind the manager and hope he''s given a proper shot at things next season.

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Managers are often helped heavily with recruitment due to having so much other stuff on their played. Apparently the player Everton signed on deadline day, Martinez has never seen him play in the flesh. It''s the same for all clubs. We know Alex Neil was instrumental in Naismith and Bamford because of what the players have said. Of course scouts probably recommended Pinto and Klose etc. Just like scouts recommended Cabaye to Pardew when he was at Newcastle or scouts recommending Marhez to Pearson, Vardy to Pearson etc etc etc.

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No, I''ll blame Alex and the team. Sorry, but the buck stops with him and the players he chooses. Apart from a decent defender in the summer he has been well backed. The board can only do so much, and although they are not perfect by any means, they have tried to give him as much as possible within financial means.(He has proved already this season that if he isn''t happy with a signing then he will send them packing btw.)

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You''re quite right about Naismith. Apologies. A couple of beers into the evening.

But the point remains. We''re desperate for defensive reinforcements. We weren''t convincing last season. This season we''ve been woeful for the most parts. And who do we sign? An attack minded right back (who''s been dropped already - which tells me what AN thinks of him) and a centre half who likes to play the ball out. Absolutely crazy.

Whichever way you want to cut it; regardless of what other clubs are doing - the Board have got it absolutely wrong this season and as far as I''m concerned are accountable for the complete disaster this season is turning into.

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Someone remind me please what defenders did we try to bring in during the summer? It''s a serious question as I have in my mind AN didn''t want to upset the spirit of the squad by bringing in a lot of new blood? If that is the case then it''s not the fault of the Board, but a serious case of misjudgement by AN.

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It''s not really an either-or thing though. Did we our activity in the summer window hamstring us? Yes, for sure. The fact we didn''t sign any out an out defenders apart from Wisdom on loan was utterly baffling. The fact we''ve since spent £20m in January seems a bit too little too late.

However with the players at his disposal, is Alex Neil getting the most he can out of them? No, clearly not. If he had these players fighting and scrapping every minute but we weren''t getting the results then I could get it but right now the team are not performing even remotely close to their abilities.

So are the board at fault? Oh yes, for sure. But is Neil blameless? Far from it. And quite frankly there is only one thing we can change right now.

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Kingston...im gobsmacked. Blame the board? for what? since 1-7 this board have season by season, dependant on Citys limited finances, improved situations in nearly all areas. Last summer they failed to bring in the defensive cover we badly needed, but its not a blame situation. For the probably first time in the clubs history, they actually did go out of their way to bring in huge names, even from overseas,we know for a fact they tried hard to get Koulibaly from Napoli for example. Alex was also deeply involved in going personally to watch certain  guys, remember that plane trip to Marseilles to watch NKoulou? Ok the club failed to bring in what was required, but heck,  for our club to at least  try, it was by far the biggest venture  ever attempted. This spurred the board on to  hopefully give us a better January window, and imo this window was fantastic.Its an absolute fact that itll take 2 or 3 seasons windows to shove all the remnants of players from previous seasons and previous managers out of the club. In this respect, Alex had an almost impossible job keeping us up, dont let those first few games fool you, i never was. The defeat at Southampton early and then game 9 at Newcastle showed us the stark reality. Alexs already hard task has been compounded by himself, by stubbornly playing he old guard we know arent up to the task, playing guys in wrong positions, also not either having, or to scared to adopt, another system like 442 or 433, the one up front he has persisted with, and its not worked. So its rests with him not the board.

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The point is - my point is; tonight, the forum is full of posters calling for the managers head, however, the way the club has conducted itself since promotion has been a shambles.

The summer transfer window was a total farce. We neglected to bolster the squad adequately. By a long shot.

The January transfer window - we''ve spent a lot of cash but absolutely haven''t address the key issues at Centre Half and Right Back.

I''m simply pointing out that before people turn their pitch forks on the manager, have a good look a the Board. This footballing board is holding us back and the manager isn''t getting to sign the players he''s desperately needed.

And I''m not overlooking the fact Alex Neil hasn''t looked convincing the last month or so.

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Sorry but i just disagree, i think  most posters have week in week out said why not Bennett alongside Klose, ive said if Bennetts not available at present then try Wisdom. I would like a back 4 of  Wisdom, Bennett, Klose and Olsson, with Pinto and Brady as wing backs. What im saying is, the board did bring players in, but Alex either does not play them, or drop them to soon, He relies to much on the old guard,of which yes we have to many still at the club. But that again is where you have to be realistic with a club like City. It was just impossible for us to completely change a whole team like a Watford have done, in just 1 or 2 windows. The board can only work within a financial limit that only they know.I truly believe we do have enough good quality to survive in this league, just, if only Alex had played guys in right positions, found a formation that had worked when the one up front clearly hasnt, and got his players  confident and playing as a team. Anyway, its all about opinions, you blame the board before AN, i do not, whatever we say  wont change much at the top.

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Our relegation is the inevitable result of August''s failure. Another one to add to the list of egregious decision-making: continuing with Hughton post-Christmas; appointing Adams. What''s next I wonder? Hooper firing Wednesday to the Premier perhaps.

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You''re making my point for me. Alex Neil is not playing them, because their not ''his'' players. They''re not the players he wanted to sign. That is exactly my point. No point making such a bold decision as to appoint AN - amazing foresight on McNally''s part - and then not let him sign the players he wants.

I do agree with some aspects of what you''re saying - re players out of position etc - but my point is not sack the Board. I''m simply pointing out that tonight, there are loads of posters calling for the manager to be sacked - in my opinion the Board haven''t helped him at all.

They''ve brought this bloke Lee Darnsborough in - who was sacked from Burnley - who if you remember didn''t sign anyone when they got promoted. We didn''t improve the squad appropriately last summer. In the January transfer window we''ve signed 2 defenders - one of whom is clearly not what we needed - an attacking right back - the jury is out re Klose.

Meanwhile, AN wanted Naismith and Bamford in the summer and we didn''t sign either.

I think my point is clear. The blame should at least in some part be directed at the Board. Not squarely at AN.

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[quote user="Kingston Yellow"]Alex Neil proved his ability to galvanise and motivate a team last season. This season; he was unlucky not to be in the top 3 after his first 5 games (robbed by the ref at Palace being the most obvious example but there were several others in our first few games).

So here we are in the bottom 3. Some terrible performances of late and some suspect tactics but still the players seem to show fight for the cause - at least in patches.

So some are calling for the manager''s head. For me; it''s the board that have been negligent. No signings of note in the summer. Messed about trying to sign players on the cheap for paltry sums of money.

And January window; sure, we spent a lot of money. Yet I''m as sure as I can be that only Bamford is AN''s signing. The rest have hallmarks of the "footballing board" and "head of recruitment" sticking their noses in.

As if AN was looking at Pinto or Klose. Or the lad from York or Coventry or Dartford. These are clearly signing by "others."

The board, or DM played a master stroke bringing AN last season. And since Wembley, have made an absolute car crash of things.

I think we''re going down now. But I don''t blame AN. Regardless of some of his naivety. He was extremely unlucky in his first half dozen games. It''s the Board who should be held accountable.

We will do well to get behind the manager and hope he''s given a proper shot at things next season.[/quote]It  is hard to lnow where to begin with this, er, intellectually unrigorous post (that is code for the legal term "total b*ll*cks" but one tries to be kind when confronted by assertions as stupid as claiming that of the several signings we made this winter only Bamford was wanted by the manager). However I will give it a late-night go.For starters I am confused. Are we blaming the board, ie the seven directors, or the mythic footballing board (that I thought had been created, including the long-departed am Joe Royle, to help guide an inexperienced Neil Adams and which Alex Neil had effectively sidelined as soon as he became manager and so is now a total irrelevance to this discussion)?Leaving that tricky general question for the OP aside, so Klose  - whom Neil has put straight into the starting line-up as soon as possble - is an £8.5m signing made by this quite possibly irrelevant footballing board to fill a key gap in the squad that everyone here thought was a clear priority but to which the manager was oblivious? And Neil didn''t want the £8.5m Naismith? Who was put in straightaway? Yeah, right, as I gather young people say, rather effectively, in lieu of proper sentences, with verbs and such like.Nonsense. The truth is that we were always in danger of being relegated, because promoted clubs are always so threatened. And this season we are probably, crudely, the poorest club in a division in which money is the single most important factor in where a club finishes.The summer transfer window could have been handled better (I said so at the time) but was far from the shambles as which it is now being demonised. The only missing piece - and an important one - was a class central defender. And, under pressure, Neil has made mistakes. But that is the price you pay for being a pauper club club in the richest league in the world with a promising manager on a steep learning curve.

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Purple - however much you like to pontificate and suggest that you have a better grasp of all matters concerning NCFC than the rest of us, your opinion is absolutely no more valid than anyone else''s.

It is my opinion, that the Board have made complete arse out of the this season''s transfer policy. It is only your opinion that "it could have been handled better.''

Whilst you like to downplay the summer transfer window for whatever reason, I think the majority of us were hugely concerned that we did not address the key weaknesses in the squad. And because we didn''t address those weakness (in the summer and arguably in the January window) it is therefore not a huge surprise that we now look likely candidates for relegation.

I''ve earlier acknowledged that I overlooked Naismith in my OP - if you''d have read the thread, you would know this.

My point to this thread is, that before people hang the manager out to dry, it is clear to me that the Board (I''ll leave you to trivialise over precisely who''s accountable) have made numerous errors this season. Not just Alex Neil.

The only part of your post I agree with is that we have a promising manager whom I hope is given the opportunity to manage us beyond this season - whichever league that is.

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[quote user="Kingston Yellow"]Purple - however much you like to pontificate and suggest that you have a better grasp of all matters concerning NCFC than the rest of us, your opinion is absolutely no more valid than anyone else''s.

It is my opinion, that the Board have made complete arse out of the this season''s transfer policy. It is only your opinion that "it could have been handled better.''

Whilst you like to downplay the summer transfer window for whatever reason, I think the majority of us were hugely concerned that we did not address the key weaknesses in the squad. And because we didn''t address those weakness (in the summer and arguably in the January window) it is therefore not a huge surprise that we now look likely candidates for relegation.

I''ve earlier acknowledged that I overlooked Naismith in my OP - if you''d have read the thread, you would know this.

My point to this thread is, that before people hang the manager out to dry, it is clear to me that the Board (I''ll leave you to trivialise over precisely who''s accountable) have made numerous errors this season. Not just Alex Neil.

The only part of your post I agree with is that we have a promising manager whom I hope is given the opportunity to manage us beyond this season - whichever league that is.[/quote]I don''t think my opinion is generally better than anyone else''s. In this case I am sure my fact-based post has more value than than an outburst that claims, against all the hard evidence, that Neil had nothing to do with almost all the senior winter signings. Bamford you acknowledge may have wanted by him, and now you accept Naismith was.As to Klose, The Guardian''s (German) German football expert said he was Wolfsburg''s best defender last season and it was a real coup for us to get him. And we needed a class central defender. And Neil has started him as soon as he deemed him ready and has played him all through both games. Does that look like the actions of a manager who knew nothing about signing this player and didn''t want him? No, I don''t think so either.Jarvis was simply turned from a loan signing into a permanent deal, so it is fair to assume Neil had always been happy with having him on board. So that only leaves Pinto, and although he has now been dropped to the bench there is nothing to suggest Neil didn''t want him at least as an addition to the squad. There are clubs where the manager has little or no say in transfers, but Norwich City have never operated that way, even when Neil Adams had the overblown football board to help him, and from memory Alex Neil made it publicly clear early on he expected not to be dictated to by such a board over transfers.To repeat, I think the summer window was in part - only in part - mishandled. If it was such a disaster how come the squad it left us with was in 15th place with 23 points from 20 games when the winter window opened? That aside the board then backed Neil with a record amount of money and freedom in the winter window. That we are in danger of relegation is due to a combination of that partially mistaken summer window, of being a pauper club, and of managerial inexperience. And of those three factors the last two are by some way the most important.

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[quote user="PurpleCanary"]And of those three factors the last two are by some way the most important. [/quote]
And, arguably, the third factor is a consequence of the second. Alex Neil is a talented young manager, but there''s no doubting his appointment was the prudent (cheap) option. In a parallel universe somewhere I imagine a rich Norwich City and their money bags owners thanking Neil for helping the club to promotion after the play-off final and then appointing an experienced manager like Ranieri in his place. Yeah keep dreaming, as if we could ever hope to compete with a massive club like Leicester.

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i said start of season  not getting in the CB cover we needed was fundamentally a failure, but that the board should not be blamed. I repeat, from info we have gleaned since the summer, they were actively seeking and bidding highly for players like Koulibaly, the likes of which no NCFC board have ever done before. They were in new territory, and ok  they could  not attract a good european CB  then, but u cannot blame them for not trying. Fast forward to January, theyve given Alex the money, and got in a good CB from Wolfsburg, an RB (thou personally from his style i think RWB would be more suited) from Zagreb, a proven PL warhorse from Everton, and a couple of promising  young guys in Adams and Godfrey, then to top it Maddison from Coventry, and Bamford.Id say from that the Board have set their sights higher, given more finance, and improved as the year has gone by. Then look at Alex, has he improved since the summer with the team on the pitch? Id say he has deteriorated, and is now clueless, despite the board giving him the finance and influx of new players.

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Ideally we would have an owner who could have lent the club say £60m - £80m last summer to buy some quality players so that the club could establish itself in the PL. Then over time the money could have been paid back.

Unfortunately we are about eight players short and it shows.

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I think the board have a history of poor mistakes (hughton, then appointing adams) but hindsight is a wonderful thing. IF we hadn''t appointed Adams, we couldn''t guarantee anyone else could have given us a better chance? Was AN available at the time?

AN showed he was a talented manager, and despite the summer failing us badly to prepare for what we all knew would be another long, gruelling campaign, I do feel the Board have gone a long way this season to address that.

They have backed the manager financially, they have more importantly secured some transfers (which I''ve been concerned about their negotiation skills in the past) we have secured a warhorse in Naysmith and a quality defender in Klose.

As we all know some players take time to settle and learn this style, and AN is still seeking the right balance. I suspect Klose will improve. One hopes Pinto might adjust better as a wing back, with someone behind him to offer more cover. The Premiership simply doesn''t allow you that time!

AN is making mistakes, and all managers have their favourites and make strange selections. The Board have done all they can this xfer window. IMO the most important fact is if you sack AN, who would you get, and have you got any guarantee they''d do any better.

I''ve said on several threads, perhaps our promotion came too rapidly. Even if we go down, I feel AN will show his strengths in making us a very strong team, and perhaps he''ll improve moreso as a manager in that time. Lets face it, none of us expected a great season!

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AN inexperienced as we all know especially those in control as was the case with Adams. What was the solution before bring initially Joe Royle and then Mike Phelan both didn''t work out for certain reasons. Was AN given the option of such assistance?

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The problem for AN is that as a club we have seen this situation before and our experiences from here on till the end of the season... Relegation and going with a whimper.

The players are showing traits that some have shown previous when in this position, proving they are not premiership players.

The management are making tactical mistakes in a large number of games that are different in each game.

So I do blame the board but I also feel that AN is a potential victim of our recent history. I can''t see how this situation is any different.

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Purple - sorry to burst your bubble, but you are a delusional, pompous idiot if you think your post is factual. It is simply your opinion.

Let me be clear, I''m not suggest that heads should roll. I''m simply saying that the Board got the summer transfer window badly wrong and this has had a major impact on AN''s ability to get points on the board this season.

We were extremely unfortunate not to have picked up 4 or 5 wins from our first 6 games. We were robbed against Crystal Palace. We wiped the floor with Stoke but didn''t have any quality up front to convert one of the many chances we created.. We were unfortunate to have a player sent off against Southampton. And we had large spells of dominance against Liverpool.

Who knows where we might be if we had made serious attempts to buy a centre forward in the summer and bolstered our obvious weakness in defence - and picked up 4 wins and 2 draws from our opening 6 games. I doubt we would be in the bottom 3.

There were all sorts of excuses offered as to why we weren''t able to make key signings - in particular, geography which I personally think is bo11ocks.

My assessment after the Brady negotiations was that we were trying to do it on the cheap. Further, there were also rumours that other clubs / agents found our board difficult to deal with.

Come the January transfer window, we seem to have ''scoured Europe'' to scout Klose and Pinto and have therefore taken a punt on two players who have no PL experience and so far don''t look convincing.

They have each featured in two out of our last three games, in which we have shipped 10 goals. Hardly convincing - regardless of what some German sports journalist has to say Purple. Who, by the way, is only expressing an opinion - not fact.

We needed defenders who could hit the ground running. The fact that AN has dropped Pinto after just 2 games speaks volumes and the jury is very much still out on Klose.

In the context of Lambert leaving relatively recently because he couldn''t get the board to back him - we now have another exciting, ambitious young manager who we have arguably not backed properly in the last two transfer windows. We obviously spent a lot of money in January, but I''d be really interested to know which defenders AN would like to have signed. I''m sure he didn''t suggest Pinto and Klose (both of whom I hope come good by the way.)

Alex Neil is in the firing line this weekend. And I can understand why to some extent. But before turning on AN, it seems to me that the Board should carry the can if we go down this season - which is looking likely.

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My impression is that the football club had one plan of action in mind and Alex Neil had another when it came to summer recruitment. He maybe wanted to watch a player himself, see videos, speak to the player etc, but the club were relying on doing things their own way.Whatever happened, it seems likely that there was a lack of communication, a lack of understanding between the manager and others who were overseeing the process. There was a hint of this when Alex Neil vetoed the move for that Argentine striker at the 11th hour, after the player had arrived at Carrow Road.It also seems likely that the club had trouble getting a recruitment team together, eg translators, properly qualified lawyers etc. Alex Neil alleged this in his Radio Norfolk interview, and it suggests that the club were for ill-prepared to handle the transfer window.Blame the board, call it mismanagement, an excellent effort, or whatever. But I can''t see how it''s all Alex Neil''s fault.

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Kingston, you are - and I don''t blame you - avoiding the point. You said only one one of our eight winter signings was a Neil choice. The rest (you later backtracked and admitted Naismith may have been wanted) were effectively forced on him by the football board. I''m as sure as I can be that only Bamford is AN''s signing. The rest

have hallmarks of the "footballing board" and "head of recruitment"

sticking their noses in.What you are talking about there is not a matter of opinion but a matter of fact. Either it is true or it isn''t true that Neil had most of the signings forced on him, and crucially didn''t choose Pinto or Klose for the 25-man squad. Now that is such an unlikely claim that the onus is on you to provide some facts to back it us.

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Not sure why everyone thinks that by adding some further players in the summer we would automatically be higher up the table, both Villa and Newcastle have spent huge amounts and the latter have only just gone above us. Equally, we were 5 or 6 points clear of the relegation zone going in to the January transfer window, spent 20m and we are now 1 point adrift of safety.

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