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Youre a melt

Michael Bailey's front page article.

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Not much to disagree with in it. I like Bailey and Paddy Davitt also, they''ve shown archant to have a bit of teeth this year.

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Jamie W;

Quality standards as usual, with his "you can right it off" and other grammatical atrocities.

LOL, you think as journo''s who attend every match would know it should "kick it off....." there is no hope!

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A fair and accurate assessment of the current mood and direction of travel. The board are starting to get a lot of negative press wonder if they will be banned soon ?

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Fair article to be fair.

I said, when the board stuck by AN during that terrible run they''d deserve praise for standing up against the fans for the better of the club, if we reached the playoffs and got promoted.

Since the opposite is true they deserve criticism for what is seemingly blind loyalty.

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MB seems like many of us - totally disillusioned and in a state of disbelief that nothing has been done.

I suspect he would like to say a lot more, but I think he and Paddy push it as far as they are allowed to and this level of criticism would not have been allowed if McNally was still here.

If I were Editor, I would be placing total pressure on the board at every occasion - to hell with relations with the club. Show them upon for what they are - amateurs who take the fans as mugs, week in, week out.

For me, this is way worse than the end of the Chase era. Much worse.

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It''s a powerful piece, if a bit unfocused, and wobbly on the realities of finance. It is not clear to me whether his target is Neil or the board or the owners for not having enough money, or - as I suspect - a combination thereof.At one point he  appears to be arguing the board should have spent money they didn''t have to stay up, saying our wage bill in the Premier League was always in the bottom three (actually that is not true - in the Hughton relegation season we were 17th, admittedly only one place above). The problem there is that once you overspend you have to keep on overspending, because there is a ratchet effect. You cannot secure your future with one financially dangeous season. He mentions a figure of PL revenue of 200m pounds, which seems massive, but in the context of the clubs we were trying to compete with our income was always right down around the relegation zone, and still would have been, season in, season out.He also strongly questions whether we really wanted to get straight back to the Premier League. The accounts will probably help to back up the answer to that, but the available facts strongly indicate that, on the contrary, we were trying very hard to bounce back, even to the extent of being financially unprudent - in the summer we held on to virtually all our high-earning players, we only sold Redmond for serious money and spent at least as much in players coming in, and only in the winter did we offload the likes of Brady and Olsson.In that context (and I may be missing something) I don''t understand this paragraph, which seems directly to contradict the earlier suggestion that we didn''t want promotion this season:And where everything from digging in over keeping their best players, to at least driving a painfully hard bargain when they did choose to sell, all pointed to enough members of the City boardroom being happy to accept where they find themselves now – midtable and mediocre.Still, unfocused claims like that at odds with the facts aside, Bailey''s heart is in the right place.

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I like Bailey. I like his articles. I think this one sums the mood up perfectly. Of course it''s a bit wobbly, he''s writing from the heart and the way he sees it and if you watch his videos he looks like a blue man - I''m not surprised given the shyte he has to read on that live feed every match day.

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It does sum up the mood. As mentioned trying to squeeze out an argument from a specific phrase is pointless, the piece is generally well written and the overlying message is clear.

I travel up from Bury on the train, with a diverse group of people, and I can say they all feel this way. On the train the good folk of Diss get on, filling carriages, and the general hub bub supports this view.

In the city, when we go to the Pub , the general chat supports this view, and the many many people I come across in my Norwich based working life support this view.

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I think it does echo widespread feelings among the fans, even to the extent of being pretty incoherent in parts - TBH I''ve read better posts on this messageboard.

 

I think there''s no doubt promotion was seriously the aim this season, otherwise there would have been a clearout of players like Klose, Brady, Olsson, Naismith last summer to get a squad more suitable for the Championship and get some high earners off the wage bill.  Sadly with hindsight, as Parma Ham said at the time, that would have been the better policy - but only because those players have underperformed in the Champs this season.

 

The question for me is just how long are the owners seriously willing to stick with a manager that is doing so poorly.

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[quote user="Morgan"]I like Bailey. I like his articles. I think this one sums the mood up perfectly. Of course it''s a bit wobbly, he''s writing from the heart and the way he sees it and if you watch his videos he looks like a blue man - I''m not surprised given the shyte he has to read on that live feed every match day.[/quote]That is what he says he is not doing, or not trying to do:And if anyone wants to simply right all this off as doom-mongering, as

my fully-blown meltdown into negativity following one too many treks

across the country watching unsubstantial football lacking any notable

sign of a will to win or drive to succeed, then you simply are not

taking our club’s future seriously enough.
He is putting the piece forward not as the emotional view of one fan or even an attempt to sum up the emotional mood of fans but as an analytical assessment of how things have gone wrong. I am in general agreement with the tone, but in factual and argumentative terms it does wobble quite a bit!

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[quote user="PurpleCanary"]In that context (and I may be missing something) I don''t understand this paragraph, which seems directly to contradict the earlier suggestion that we didn''t want promotion this season:

And where everything from digging in over keeping their best players, to at least driving a painfully hard bargain when they did choose to sell, all pointed to enough members of the City boardroom being happy to accept where they find themselves now – midtable and mediocre.Still, unfocused claims like that at odds with the facts aside, Bailey''s heart is in the right place.[/quote]

I think the author meant that the club were happy to keep their better players long term to the detriment of the business. Eventually there would come a time where things got stale and we would need to replace most of the squad.

Happy to play it safe rather than trade and progress (which involves risk). A good example is Ruddy who we could have sold for several million a few seasons ago. The safe option has seen us keep him until he''s past his best. He''s now worth tuppence.

The club has become risk averse in the above sense, happy to bob up and down rather than build up to something more substantial.

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[quote user="Len"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]In that context (and I may be missing something) I don''t understand this paragraph, which seems directly to contradict the earlier suggestion that we didn''t want promotion this season:

And where everything from digging in over keeping their best players, to at least driving a painfully hard bargain when they did choose to sell, all pointed to enough members of the City boardroom being happy to accept where they find themselves now – midtable and mediocre.Still, unfocused claims like that at odds with the facts aside, Bailey''s heart is in the right place.[/quote]

I think the author meant that the club were happy to keep their better players long term to the detriment of the business. Eventually there would come a time where things got stale and we would need to replace most of the squad.

Happy to play it safe rather than trade and progress (which involves risk). A good example is Ruddy who we could have sold for several million a few seasons ago. The safe option has seen us keep him until he''s past his best. He''s now worth tuppence.

The club has become risk averse in the above sense, happy to bob up and down rather than build up to something more substantial.

[/quote]

Ruddy now worth tuppence.

Something that would never had happened under Mr Chase''s watch.

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The view is widespread and unfortunately Delia is being informed as i am sure she does not read social media that it is confined to a few angry keyboard warriors on places such as this,Facebook and Twatter. Unless she starts to wake up and smell the coffee things will turn ugly unfortunately.

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[quote user="Len"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]In that context (and I may be missing something) I don''t understand this paragraph, which seems directly to contradict the earlier suggestion that we didn''t want promotion this season:

And where everything from digging in over keeping their best players, to at least driving a painfully hard bargain when they did choose to sell, all pointed to enough members of the City boardroom being happy to accept where they find themselves now – midtable and mediocre.Still, unfocused claims like that at odds with the facts aside, Bailey''s heart is in the right place.[/quote]

I think the author meant that the club were happy to keep their better players long term to the detriment of the business. Eventually there would come a time where things got stale and we would need to replace most of the squad.

Happy to play it safe rather than trade and progress (which involves risk). A good example is Ruddy who we could have sold for several million a few seasons ago. The safe option has seen us keep him until he''s past his best. He''s now worth tuppence.

The club has become risk averse in the above sense, happy to bob up and down rather than build up to something more substantial.

[/quote]But in that case he cannot also say he suspects we weren''t trying to get promoted straight back! By definition, keeping hold of the better - and high-earning - players last summer is the exact opposite of what you would do if you were settling for life in the Championship. And despite what you seem to think, it is financially the opposite of risk-averse to keep that kind of player once relegated from the Premier League. The risk-averse policy would be to sell them all and buy lower-waged players. We didn''t do that.Arguably we started to do that this winter, and will almost certainly carry on this summer. But that doesn''t alter the fact that our transfer/wages policy after relegation was geared to immediate promotion back.

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Len wrote the following post at 10/03/2017 2:51 PM:

PurpleCanary wrote:

In that context (and I may be missing something) I don''t understand this paragraph, which seems directly to contradict the earlier suggestion that we didn''t want promotion this season:

And where everything from digging in over keeping their best players, to at least driving a painfully hard bargain when they did choose to sell, all pointed to enough members of the City boardroom being happy to accept where they find themselves now – midtable and mediocre.

Still, unfocused claims like that at odds with the facts aside, Bailey''s heart is in the right place.

I think the author meant that the club were happy to keep their better players long term to the detriment of the business. Eventually there would come a time where things got stale and we would need to replace most of the squad.

Happy to play it safe rather than trade and progress (which involves risk). A good example is Ruddy who we could have sold for several million a few seasons ago. The safe option has seen us keep him until he''s past his best. He''s now worth tuppence.

The club has become risk averse in the above sense, happy to bob up and down rather than build up to something more substantial.

That''s very interesting Len, and something that I think may have more than a grain of truth . The fact that the Board is risk averse . I wonder how much the League One, near administration , situation did affect the Board. And how this affects their decision making now. Are we scared to risk the "debt free" scenario we are so proud of? Or worse , would the legacy be affected by large scale , unsuccessful spending? I think this may be a factor, and to some extent I do sympathise with Delia and Co. We sailed close to the edge around 2007-8 , after a lengthy period of struggle , and The Board simply don''t want to go back there.

(Im not sure I agree with the Ruddy thing. My understanding is that Chelsea came in for him and we increased his money/ signed a new contract to keep him - lets face it if we had sold him at the time there would have been uproar. He isn''t worth a lot now I agree but that''s more to do with his form than the Board)

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I think it''s nuanced. Certain aspects were risk averse but the board were eventually caught up in a paradox ie ended up having to go for broke. Michael Bailey seems to be a kitten getting himself tangled in a ball of wool.

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After the gifting away of Redmond it was probably as well Brady and Olsson were not similarly disposed of that point. I suspect we were unable to give some of our other players away based on their ex-PL contracts. What a total shambles

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[quote user="GPs Beard"]Len wrote the following post at 10/03/2017 2:51 PM:

PurpleCanary wrote:

In that context (and I may be missing something) I don''t understand this paragraph, which seems directly to contradict the earlier suggestion that we didn''t want promotion this season:

And where everything from digging in over keeping their best players, to at least driving a painfully hard bargain when they did choose to sell, all pointed to enough members of the City boardroom being happy to accept where they find themselves now – midtable and mediocre.

Still, unfocused claims like that at odds with the facts aside, Bailey''s heart is in the right place.

I think the author meant that the club were happy to keep their better players long term to the detriment of the business. Eventually there would come a time where things got stale and we would need to replace most of the squad.

Happy to play it safe rather than trade and progress (which involves risk). A good example is Ruddy who we could have sold for several million a few seasons ago. The safe option has seen us keep him until he''s past his best. He''s now worth tuppence.

The club has become risk averse in the above sense, happy to bob up and down rather than build up to something more substantial.

That''s very interesting Len, and something that I think may have more than a grain of truth . The fact that the Board is risk averse . I wonder how much the League One, near administration , situation did affect the Board. And how this affects their decision making now. Are we scared to risk the "debt free" scenario we are so proud of? Or worse , would the legacy be affected by large scale , unsuccessful spending? I think this may be a factor, and to some extent I do sympathise with Delia and Co. We sailed close to the edge around 2007-8 , after a lengthy period of struggle , and The Board simply don''t want to go back there.

(Im not sure I agree with the Ruddy thing. My understanding is that Chelsea came in for him and we increased his money/ signed a new contract to keep him - lets face it if we had sold him at the time there would have been uproar. He isn''t worth a lot now I agree but that''s more to do with his form than the Board)[/quote]The board have tried to rely on financial management to both keep debt free and (as often stated) to not have to sell their best players. The latter is augmented by a tendency to push the boat out as far as possible when funds allow.Both in 1996 and 2009 we got clobbered, so yes that does make the board more risk averse. But they take the idea too far and we''ve ended up getting clobbered by being stuck with several unwanted/underperforming players.We need to be losing a lot less money in order to progress. Keeping too many of our best players and spending too much on ones whom we can''t later get rid of hasn''t worked. Lots of the buys were seen as safe, and many didn''t break the bank. But in terms of wages and fees we''ve gradually built up a large liability.No amount of clever budgeting will fix our current situation because the cause of the problem is structural.

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Michael Bailey is a Norwich man born and bred and loves NCFC. His Bristol City post match video showed someone really down and at a complete loss as to where we were heading under AN and a stubborn Board refusing to get their collective heads out of the sand. Thankfully they''ve finally done so.Some time ago when we were still comfortably in the top six I asked him if he thought we''d gain promotion. His gut feeling was we wouldn''t even make the Play-Offs which, although we''d played pretty poorly all season, seemed pretty unlikely as somehow we kept winning. I think he was in a minority of one but stuck to his guns.I''m sure he gets no pleasure in almost certainly being proved right.

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