If ever the board needs to keep it's nerve.......

[iron_stan 0]

[quote user="Lessingham Canary"]even the chants of "Neil sort it out" were muted.[/quote]

the chant of "you dont know what youre doing" could be heard loud and clear above the qpr fans for quite some time in the second half

[Lessingham Canary 99]

93Vintage

I think Alex Neil''s inexperience is showing here.

Regarding my point about his aiming for success over quality, I think AN has gambled a lot on buying older players like Naismith and trying to keep the squad together at the expense of harmony over wages etc. What he''s tried to do hasn''t necessarily been for the club''s long term good.

Despite the club pledging a large degree of loyalty, he''s not used this to build. Instead he''s gambled, it''s gone wrong and there is friction amongst players which he doesn''t have experience in handling. We''re keeping a few players here against their will because the cupboard is relatively bare in terms of younger deputies able to step up.

Hindsight is wonderful, but he should have perhaps played the percentages and not gone overboard in buying (or getting in loanees) for the short term when we got promoted, especially when we had a squad that was already in need of freshening up with the next generation of Howsons, Ruddys and Martins.

The board (and football board) could have played a role in guiding AN, but they didn''t because they didn''t have a strategy and left most of the decisions up to AN and his back room team

Totally agree 93, looked to bring in experience to keep us in the prem, but after lots of rejection in the market place we / he was guilty of panic buying, and Hindsight is of course the best sight of all.

However, keep doing what you have been doing and you will keep getting the same results.

[morty 0]

There are no easy answers here.Yes, this is a results based business, and Alex Neil is running out of time. The single best outcome is that Alex Neil turns this around, but it is looking less and less likely.But what next?The core of the issue is that we awarded contracts to players that really didn''t deserve them, and we couldn''t afford to clear them out after we were relegated. Sacking Alex Neil will not change that. What it will do is cost us a lot of money, that we can scarcely afford.And as I mentioned in another thread, we can''t really rock up to another club and demand they give us their manager. I genuinely think that a new manager won''t get much more out of the players that we have.

[morty 0]

[quote user="iron_stan"][quote user="Lessingham Canary"]even the chants of "Neil sort it out" were muted.[/quote]

the chant of "you dont know what youre doing" could be heard loud and clear above the qpr fans for quite some time in the second half[/quote]You sure about that?

[Lessingham Canary 99]

Morty wrote;

"And as I mentioned in another thread, we can''t really rock up to another club and demand they give us their manager. I genuinely think that a new manager won''t get much more out of the players that we have."

All depends on how the board want to measure this season, and what they will be happy with come next May, in August i certainly picked up the vibe that all believed this was our best chance to get back up to the PL, and that was our aim, has it changed ?

The chances are if we want to change the manager then its going to cost us, as will have to approach another club, unless we go for a big Sam (doubt we could afford him anyway, his signing on fee will be more than most clubs compo), personally would love us to go after Mark Warburton.

Want to change the outcome ? have to do something different.

[Mello Yello 2,291]

Is one''s die-hard political affiliation, nepotism, cronyism and personal religious belief - the successful and ultimately correct way to run a football club?.......What happens if your current Club Chairman and CEO don''t quite agree with this supposed proven philosophy?.......Strictly speaking, that is........and football is actually, a bit of a TOMbola......isn''t it ?

[morty 0]

[quote user="Lessingham Canary"]Morty wrote;

"And as I mentioned in another thread, we can''t really rock up to another club and demand they give us their manager. I genuinely think that a new manager won''t get much more out of the players that we have."

All depends on how the board want to measure this season, and what they will be happy with come next May, in August i certainly picked up the vibe that all believed this was our best chance to get back up to the PL, and that was our aim, has it changed ?

The chances are if we want to change the manager then its going to cost us, as will have to approach another club, unless we go for a big Sam (doubt we could afford him anyway, his signing on fee will be more than most clubs compo), personally would love us to go after Mark Warburton.

Want to change the outcome ? have to do something different.[/quote]Well none of us knows what will happen next May, do we?We can just be smart after the fact.

[Hoola Han Solo 448]

I''d been defending Neil strongly until recently but he''s lost me. We have not performed for weeks. We cannot defend. Some of this is down to the players, but it''s the managers job to get the best out of these players. He''s not. I''m not convinced he can change a game either. With the transfer window just round the corner, it might be time for a change and someone to bring their own players, even if just a quick fix to get us out of this rut.

[Lessingham Canary 99]

Well none of us knows what will happen next May, do we?

We can just be smart after the fact.

Indeed, we can also get a feeling for what we see/ believe is happening now and how its shaping up.

Usually consider myself a happy clapper, and even yesterday at 2-0 i believed we had enough quality to beat a very ordinary team, but unfortunately we didn''t start to play until 20 minutes or so before the end, that was disappointing. Would have hoped the manager could have changed it at half time.

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="Indy"]I love it, LDC on his normal wind up........

The guys spent more money than Hughton, doesn''t play 25million pounds worth of his players, signed Andrue for a million, did he actually play a senior game for us? His win ratio since promotion is as bad as Adams and he''s lost as a tactical manager having no man management skills as lot of players want out.

I agree AN now reflects the clubs set up, comfortable to tread water were we are, stagnation in the championship is regarded as success by our pensioners.[/quote]

No. Not a wind up.  I''ve been consistent on managers since Gunn.  You keep them and let them have the time to work through problems and longer term issues.   I hoped Gunn and a NCFC oriented management team would be a long term thing, with succession from within.  I hoped Lambert would be a long term thing. I hoped Hughton would be - and think he should have been - a long term manager.  I hoped the renewed NCFC oriented thing under Adams would be the Gunn scenario that actually worked - and I hope AN will be the long term manager.  I don''t believe fans know best, I don''t believe I know best, but I know that in most things in life, stability is the key to success. Fans belly ache and moan when things are bad, but it is only a month ago we won 7 out of 8.  I know there are issues and problems, but really, a lot of the complaines on here are guesswork, like "team not playing for the manager".  That is a nice easy thing to say, but not borne out by yesterday''s second half performance.  Most laughable is the notion that other teams are worse than us and that we should be winning every week.  Every club in this division is capable of putting good strong competitve team out, even if their squad isn''t as big or as good as ours - and at the moment they all think we are beatable and that, psychologically, is one of our biggest hurdles - to get the team back to being a strong unit and being harder to beat - and AN is quite capable of doing that and building from there.Granted, he has to get things better asap, but swapping managers is not going to necessarily make things better.  I don''t agree that a  manager has to be a short term thing and needs to be refreshed every year or two.   We are the envy of many clubs in the way we are run - if we manage to keep a manager like Burnely have and let him manage through good times and bad, then we may just be the club we all want it to be.

[morty 0]

[quote user="Lessingham Canary"]Well none of us knows what will happen next May, do we?

We can just be smart after the fact.

Indeed, we can also get a feeling for what we see/ believe is happening now and how its shaping up.

Usually consider myself a happy clapper, and even yesterday at 2-0 i believed we had enough quality to beat a very ordinary team, but unfortunately we didn''t start to play until 20 minutes or so before the end, that was disappointing. Would have hoped the manager could have changed it at half time.[/quote]Changed what exactly? Smuggled another player on?I''m not burying my head in the sand, or pretending nothing is wrong, but going down to ten after a minute really is never going to be ideal for any manager. Basically everything he had as a game plan was ripped up a minute into the game.QPR were bang average, even with our defensive calamities, if we had kept 11 on the pitch, I believe we would have beaten them.

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,749]

....it is odd though that when you''re down to 10 men for 89 mins , you wouldnt attempt to spread the load by using all 3 substitutions?.

As it was we only used 2......even if he didnt want to freshen the side up earlier than he did,as with a couple more occasions recently when we''ve been losing, why even in the last 4 mins of injury time wouldnt Neil have used his 3rd sub by throwing Lafferty up front to attempt to get an equalizer??

[morty 0]

[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]....it is odd though that when you''re down to 10 men for 89 mins , you wouldnt attempt to spread the load by using all 3 substitutions?.

As it was we only used 2......even if he didnt want to freshen the side up earlier than he did,as with a couple more occasions recently when we''ve been losing, why even in the last 4 mins of injury time wouldnt Neil have used his 3rd sub by throwing Lafferty up front to attempt to get an equalizer??[/quote]For about the millionth time, Lafferty is not the answer.....

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

[quote user="morty"][quote user="Lessingham Canary"]Well none of us knows what will happen next May, do we?

We can just be smart after the fact.

Indeed, we can also get a feeling for what we see/ believe is happening now and how its shaping up.

Usually consider myself a happy clapper, and even yesterday at 2-0 i believed we had enough quality to beat a very ordinary team, but unfortunately we didn''t start to play until 20 minutes or so before the end, that was disappointing. Would have hoped the manager could have changed it at half time.[/quote]Changed what exactly? Smuggled another player on?I''m not burying my head in the sand, or pretending nothing is wrong, but going down to ten after a minute really is never going to be ideal for any manager. Basically everything he had as a game plan was ripped up a minute into the game.QPR were bang average, even with our defensive calamities, if we had kept 11 on the pitch, I believe we would have beaten them. [/quote]Margins between victory and defeat can be very small at the best of times, but losing a player after a minute essentially means that every remaining outfield player will have to cover 10% more ground over the course of the match to plug that gap - that''s a ridiculous ask. You clearly have to adapt your strategy to try and minimise this disparity.I wasn''t there yesterday, but it sounded to me like that''s what happened. Another defeat and poor performance at Derby next week will put Neil on the precipice, but the circumstances around yesterday shouldn''t precipitate a knee-jerk reaction. Not like there would be one anyway, mind, as the board will take some persuasion to shift Neil irrespective.

[hogesar 9,666]

Lafferty isn''t an answer as a main striker for a team wanting promotion but he has certainly earned the right to come on for 10 minutes particularly when we''re losing and his pure size gives us an opportunity to punt long balls and actually apply some pressure

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,749]

[quote user="morty"][quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]....it is odd though that when you''re down to 10 men for 89 mins , you wouldnt attempt to spread the load by using all 3 substitutions?.

As it was we only used 2......even if he didnt want to freshen the side up earlier than he did,as with a couple more occasions recently when we''ve been losing, why even in the last 4 mins of injury time wouldnt Neil have used his 3rd sub by throwing Lafferty up front to attempt to get an equalizer??[/quote]For about the millionth time, Lafferty is not the answer.....[/quote]

are you foolish?

I''m not suggesting he is......but in yesterday''s situation, when we''re a goal down and the board goes up with 4 mins injury time and we still have a sub left to use.....why wouldnt we throw on another body into the box to try and make something happen??

.

but then I suppose you just read what you want to read to suit an agenda and trot an old line out....

[TIL 1010 4,743]

You are of course right Morty about Lafferty but a quick look shows he has made the match day squad i think 15 times now this season so what does that say about our striking options and our ability to sign a prolific striker to help Jerome ?

[morty 0]

[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"][quote user="morty"][quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]....it is odd though that when you''re down to 10 men for 89 mins , you wouldnt attempt to spread the load by using all 3 substitutions?.

As it was we only used 2......even if he didnt want to freshen the side up earlier than he did,as with a couple more occasions recently when we''ve been losing, why even in the last 4 mins of injury time wouldnt Neil have used his 3rd sub by throwing Lafferty up front to attempt to get an equalizer??[/quote]For about the millionth time, Lafferty is not the answer.....[/quote]

are you foolish?

I''m not suggesting he is......but in yesterday''s situation, when we''re a goal down and the board goes up with 4 mins injury time and we still have a sub left to use.....why wouldnt we throw on another body into the box to try and make something happen??

.

but then I suppose you just read what you want to read to suit an agenda and trot an old line out....[/quote]You have a very simplistic view of football management.Pretty sure most managers do not make decisions based on "I''ll try this, whats the worst that could happen?"So who would you have taken off to accommodate golden boy Lafferty?

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,749]

....it really is pavlov''s dog with some people when the name "Lafferty" is mentioned...

...why couldnt we ,in the last few mins of injury time have gone 3 at the back .....Bassong was thrown up front in injury time as it was....so why not bring on an actual striker???

[Highland Canary 76]

The calls for Neil to sort it out were only muted yesterday. Arguably, the most significant feeling in the crowd was that of resignation. Resignation of same old. Regination with the board. Resignation that our PL chance has gone. Resignation of a generation back in the chumps. Oh for Warnock, Lambert or Bruce now. Only Allardyce left who might yet turn it round. But our ambition, sadly, does not match such an acquisition.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,219]

Developing a coherent philosophy, Company structure, consistent coaching methodology throughout all club age groups, a pattern of play is indeed highly desirable.

Any pretence that Managers have magic dust should be dispensed with.

The zeitgeist is for Managers to be the lightning rod for all success and all ills. Alex Ferguson must statistically have possessed greater quantities of managerial magic dust than any other, so it is worth noting that he very nearly lost his job at Manachester United after a fairly tepid, fallow opening period.

If magic dust was an instant remedy powder that can be liberally and immediately sprinkled, that historical fact alone should debunk the theory.

Alex Neil provided the club with one of its greatest days. He achieved a historically significant promotion. He won the Manager of the month a few games ago.

Expectations have changed and so be it. The wider question for the board is what they have. A learning legacy builder or a busted flush.

Whichever the answer, cast aside notions of magic dust.

There was a similar situation a couple of years ago. It was at Norwich. Alex Neil performed a miracle in those circumstances.

So was he gifted or is it simply change that created the result? This raises two questions:

Why did Manchester United keep Alex Ferguson?

and/or

Why aren''t QPR top?

Parma

[king canary 7,605]

@parma

Thats an awful lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

[morty 0]

[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]....it really is pavlov''s dog with some people when the name "Lafferty" is mentioned...

...why couldnt we ,in the last few mins of injury time have gone 3 at the back .....Bassong was thrown up front in injury time as it was....so why not bring on an actual striker???[/quote]Whenever I see the name "Lafferty" typed here I hear a Canary caller saying "Well he couldn''t do no worse, could he?"

[The Bristol Nest 513]

Parma said "However starting slowly and accelerating to this position would have inevitably been treated differently to the current poor run which sees a somewhat autistic repetitiveness to events, approaches and remedies. "

This is the deciding factor for me. Alex appears to be stubborn in his approach rather than learning on the job.

[Baywing 0]

FFS I know we are a funny bunch out here in Norfook.....

Terrified of change and confortable with the status quo most of the time....

But really some of the shite written on this thread is beyond belief....

I too am not a strong belivere in knee jerk reactions and constantly changing the manager BUT this guy is clearly out of his depth and isnt learning anything.

Exactly what do you expect to happen if we ''give him time'' and talking of time even a broken clock gets it right twice a day !!

Yesterday was a prime example of his lack of understanding and yet another guess !

Big calls dropping Cam and Wes and clearly didnt work

Yes a sending off after a minute changes the context of the game but a few points to note

1...the incident came about because we again let a long ball to the far post go virtually unchallenged (nothing new)

2....The first goal came about from a corner again no challenge at the far post or indeed the front post where the guy finished unchallenged (nothing new nothing learnt)

3....at half time, 2 goals down away from home and faced with the prospect of another 45 minutes with 10 men the only thing you mustn''t do is NOTHING and yet that is exactly what Alex Neil choose to do !!

Its a tricky one do you try and get something out of the game or shut up shop and write it off damage limitation ?

Personally I think you give instructions to 3 key players to give it ago you still have a standard back 4 and 2 holding midfielders.....surely the instruction is to get the ball forward from the back as quickly as possible and get Jacob,Nelson and Naismith running their arses off chasing every lost cause (problem is 2 of that 3 are lazy bastards at the best of times) you then have options on 60 minutes if the said 3 have run themselves into the ground, change them and introduce some fresh legs extra pace.....yes Cam would have worked like a dog as usual, as to could have Lafferty and Josh......if in the meantime you had conceded then fine call it a day shut up shop.

What we actually saw was a typical AN response do nothing and see what happens until the 75th minute...at which point we were thrown a lifeline by a team not used to protecting a lead and with little idea how to defend (they did a norwich....got deeper and deeper and invited us on) and just for the record the change was a typical like for like swap, one on one off !

Big cam won a ball in the air on the edge of the box (and remember a mere 5 minutes earlier we were actually celebrating getting into their box with a good old sing song as we do as Norridge fans....we got in the box, we got in the box, we''re Norwich City and we got in the box)

Anyway at this point 2-1 down with 12 minutes on the clock and the home side looking gittery what should you do ?

Well certainly not what Alex choose and wait another 10 minutes before deciding to do anything !!

Surely at that point its shit or bust ? and given that 9 of the team have played with 10 men for the entire game its obvious...

You chuck Josh for his pace and Laffs for his height on the pitch and just bombard their bloody box.....

They looked vulnerable and weak, the crowd were quiet and it was there for the taking.....but no we got Josh for Naismith for the final 3 minutes

Did the crowd make their frustration known.....well there were certainly elements that broke into renditions of your getting sacked in the morning, you dont know what youre doing, Alex sort it out, Delia sort it out.....did it carry momentum throughout the stand? No, but those that choose not to chant certainly felt the same way even if not prepared to vent it at the time.

The discussions afterwards on the tube and trains back to Norfook left me with no doubt the general consensus is that his time is up.....

Dont get me wrong no one is happy about that.... and as Norridge fans that watch week in week out travelling thousands of miles a year spending bucket loads of money doing so we are indeed entitled to be part of the decision making process...

We accept defeats and are even conditioned to it to a degree we travel more in hope than expectation most weeks.....and if we have seen a team give it there best and simply come up short against better opposition we smile, unite and prepare to go again.

What we are getting at the moment and again for 75 minutes yesterday is a team going through the motions with little or no self belief, shirking tackles, not chasing lost balls, not challenging or fighting for 50''50s looking at each other expecting them to have the answer !

Well it simply isnt good enough....week in week out we hear AN and the chosen player of the week face the media saying we need to work harder, stay together blah blah blah

That boat has sailed......time for change is NOW !

[hogesar 9,666]

I think with 4 minutes added time not making an attacking sub is nonsensical. I don''t even rate Lafferty but it''s another player they have to mark and cause confusion. If not him then Pritchard? If you''re throwing Bassong forward why not an actual striker?

[Rogue Baboon 0]

Is that now 2 games in a row where we have lost, yet only used 2 subs and left attacking players o the bench?

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,749]

....indeed.....you want to believe that the manager has done everything in his power to retrieve something out of the game, and I dont believe he did......exactly the same thing happened in the home defeat vs Preston.

Take a defender off, bring on a striker....many managers would, Lambert certainly did in his time here, you''re already losing, yes you may get caught on the break but its a low risk, high reward substitution.....I just dont see any reason as to why a manager wouldn''t?

[FCC 76]

Sadly, none of the players have as much resting on results as the manager does. I was disappointed with the Leeds line-up, but yesterday he had to make changes and I was happy with the team before kick off.

I expect Brady, Klose, Olsson and others to want away in January whoever is manager. This may be no bad thing for us, but is Alex capable of identifying (and the Board able to deliver) the players we will need to replace?

Alex''s signings so far have not been great, and that will be the gamble of his remaining in post. The players have let the Club, Fans, and Manager down - but Alex is responsible. We need more "Scrappers" and no more "Prima Donnas" in January.

I think a lot of this team want away and aren''t giving close to 100%, but I am convinced Alex is. If he survives until January he needs to turn up a Holt, a Huckerby, or a Roberts - a player who gives everything, every game - but that is not going to be easy.

[GJP 79]

He lost "it" at Newcastle a year ago and has never got it back.

You could tell by the fairly tame effort to avoid relegation the fire had gone out and it has never looked like he can light it again.