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gissing canary

Neil Adams signings - still affecting the club today

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Last time we got relegated, we signed the following:

Lewis Grabban - £3m. Clear success, sold after 18months for 8.5m.

Kyle lafferty - 1.5-3m, depending on who you believe. Failure, no chance we get money back.

Gary o''neill - free. Success, left on a free, but played well.

Carlos queller - free. Mini failure. Didn''t need him. Didn''t play.

Cameron jerome - 1.5-2m. Success. Played a lot.

Vadis - 3m. Failure, hasn''t played. Sold for big loss.

Mcgrandles - 1m. Unknown, but leaning on failure, as for the fee you would expect something special at 18?

Ignasi miquel - 850k-1.5m. Failure. He joined behind; turner, Martin, Bennett, bassong etc. Stupid signing.

Louis Thompson -350k. Unknown.

Joos hoisveld - loan. Failure. Madness of owning so many centre backs, who never played.

For me 3 successes, 5 failures (mostly not too expensive) and a couple of unknowns.

My more general point is. When we last got relegated we signed a lot of players, but very few actually made the squad better or really nailed down their place. Largely the players that were already there significantly better. Which explains why the club has been more focused "difference makers" and renewing contracts this time around?

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If Jerome gets another 20 this year that signing would pretty much make up for the rest. Like you said we also got a good fee for Grabban and O''Neil gave us some good performances.

Lafferty, Miquel and Vadis were bad signings, luckily, with how we do deals, as they''ve barely played I''d bet we''ve only ended up paying a low basic fee for those three. I bet there were a lot of add ons in the Miquel deal in particular that we never ended up paying.

It definitely wasn''t a complete disaster, the club gave us just enough to get promoted. It does appear we''ve learned from that though and are looking for a smaller amount of quality players instead of signing a load that are no better than what we had in a pointless overhaul.

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So you are actually having a go at the manager that got Bradley Johnson in the form of his life, signed a striker that we doubled our money and signed a striker that scored 20 goals including one in the play-off final? Some people are really desperate to find any stick they can to beat the club with.

While we''re at it, should we run down every other Norwich City manager to determine the flops that affected us?

Christ almighty, what a ridiculous OP.

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NA''s signings were no worse than any other city manager. Some you win, some you lose, just ask Chris Hughton re: Wolfie!

All of those signings were decent at the time, Queller was perm as back-up and Hoisveld as a loan brought in experience to stem the flow of goals I didn''t think he played that badly either. Miguel was one for the future who never materialised, but you have to take risks in football. McGrandles and Thompson are in the same bracket, but they have plenty of promise ahead of them.

The rest, O''Neil was class, Grabban was good business, Lafferty hasn''t really had a run in the team but is decent back-up, and Jerome has been a big player for us. Vadis is the only one who has been a bit strange.

In any case, none of these affect the club today. Different manager with the chance to sign his own players.

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Apparent interest in Lafferty from Pescara Italian side just promoted to Serie A. No doubt he won''t leave until at least one of Neil''s striker targets is pulled off.

For a free transfer and back up we could do a lot worse than Anichebe from West Brom

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It was a pretty terrible transfer window- pretty much the definition of quantity over quality. We signed three centre backs yet still ended up needing to recall Bassong to make the defence decent.

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I think the OP means that Adams'' signings are still affecting the club in the sense that it may have signalled a change in attitude from quantity to "game changers", not the actual individuals per se.

I think we do have a better strategy now, and Naismith, Klose, Pritchard in particular to me do suggest a focus on fewer but better. Naismith is still dividing opinion and P hasn''t played but they are clearly players at top level clubs who should in theory strengthen the squad.

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@Tumbleweed

Yes that is what it seems like to me. One of the most noticeable aspects of that Championship season was the lineup for the play-off final contained 10 players who had been here before Adams got the managers job. So of all the signings of the summer only one had had enough of an impact to earn a starting place.

Compare that to the signings made since January- Pinto, Klose, Naismith and I''d imagine Pritchard are all players who have improved the starting XI. Rather than signing numbers that are no better than what we already possess we''ve gone after players who are better than what we have- something we need to continue by signing a striker.

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[quote user="Tumbleweed"]I think the OP means that Adams'' signings are still affecting the club in the sense that it may have signalled a change in attitude from quantity to "game changers", not the actual individuals per se.

I think we do have a better strategy now, and Naismith, Klose, Pritchard in particular to me do suggest a focus on fewer but better. Naismith is still dividing opinion and P hasn''t played but they are clearly players at top level clubs who should in theory strengthen the squad.[/quote]I agree with this, however I think the thing being overlooked is the strategy / policy which appears to have been a bit of a contingency for relegation from the Premier League - which is the signing and retention of good young hungry players with lower league experience, and continuing to loan them out.The Murphey twins. Morris. Maddison. Thompson. Toffolo. McGrandles. Godfrey.All should be in and/or around the first team squad this year. All have league experience to back them so they don''t look out of place. These guys fill the squad so there is less a reliance to go out and spunk money on old heads, or speculate on young discards from top teams. Some will even push to become first team regulars - as we''ve already seen with Jacob Murphy.I don''t think the club is getting enough credit for this policy. I think it''s smart. We''ll see how successful it''s going to be this year.Adams can take some credit for the development of at least 4 of those names.

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''''something we need to continue by signing a striker. ''''...KC

We need to sign a striker, good spot KC, i don''t think anyone else had noticed. Fair point ref play off final though.

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Indeed MT, and I am much happier seeing us try to feed younger, and often our own, talent into the team than buying in equivalents from elsewhere who may not necessarily be any better. The blend seems pretty good right now with the established pros, a smattering of younger talent and some "marquee" (well, for us) signings to add quality. I don''t know if this is by design or accident but it does seem like a solid long term plan is in place.

Contrast to the dark days of Hamilton and Roeder with all those average short term loans. I still shudder when I think of those times.

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[quote user="Highland Canary"]A disasterous appointment. We should have built the team around Lennon and Hooper.[/quote]Great post Highland, you''ve managed to put criticism of Neil Adams into proper perspective in just two short sentences. Actually you only really needed three words: "Lennon and Hooper".

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[quote user="Tumbleweed"]Indeed MT, and I am much happier seeing us try to feed younger, and often our own, talent into the team than buying in equivalents from elsewhere who may not necessarily be any better. The blend seems pretty good right now with the established pros, a smattering of younger talent and some "marquee" (well, for us) signings to add quality. I don''t know if this is by design or accident but it does seem like a solid long term plan is in place.

Contrast to the dark days of Hamilton and Roeder with all those average short term loans. I still shudder when I think of those times.[/quote][Y] [Y]

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[quote user="Highland Canary"]A disasterous appointment. We should have built the team around Lennon and Hooper.[/quote]

The post wasn''t meant so much as a target of Adams. He did well with the youth team and always cared. As one person wrote on here it was quantity over quality. I am much happier that we seem focused on difference makers now.

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