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ben catchpole

Norwich supporters

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Why is it that such a large percentage of us seem to have no patience? I know the team have to perform to a certain extent to lift the crowd but the atmosphere at home hasn''t been brilliant this season. We''ve got to get behind the team and the management. If not the players will really start to feel the pressure and will be frightened to recieve the ball incase of making a mistake. We were all on top of the world during the promotion season and we all need to stick together to ensure it happens again this time around. 

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Because (from my perspective at least) it''s not just about this season. It''s about the dreadful performance last season, and the things we have noticed that are wrong that have been wrong for quite some time.

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Could it be that we saw problems,CB and CM especially last season, and feel that nothing has been done to improve the quality of the squad, which is even smaller than last year. We had an academy player on the bench recently, becuse of a few injuries. The Reserve team is a re-named Academy team!

Added to the disappointment of not very inspiring acquisitions, comes a set of poor performances. We may be wrong to connect the two, and it could be that when the new players have fully settled in we shall see a lot more from them.

Support, cheer, shout as hard as you like, but it''s difficult to feel confident when so many players are underperforming and some do not even seem committed!

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Is it not obvious that a large number of the moaners are probably quite new fans.During the mid 70s to 2000 Norwich core fan base at home stood @ around 14000.Away we often numbered in the low 100s.I would think that the vast numbers of negative views are therefore from those people who were not around in the days before 24/7 Sky news the internet and instant reaction to every word the manager utters.All the new "fans" and moaners should remember who we are.i.e A nice, over achieving club from the back of beyond .  

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You are right that the Reserve Team should be remaned the Academy Team but I notice they appear to be one of the same the youngsters at Norwich appear to play an awful lot of football.

 

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Have we been impatient or have we been patient so far?   Clearly it all depends on your point of view and both are valid.

If you assume that the issues have all happened since the beginning of August then yes we have been impatient.

However many of the core problems (poor defencive structure, midfield tactically sitting too depend and failing to dominate a game, stuggling to play hux on a flank without exposing the defence) are issue that dogged us for the majority of last season.  The issues are clearly addressable, certainly within a year and with a close season where a suitable change in tactics, coaching sessions and/or additional personnel could have been drafted in as part of the solution.     From the performances on this pitch none of these issues have been tackled - and that IS a sign of poor management whichever way you look at it (ignoring it, not spotting it, or being unsuccessful at making any changes work).  The defence appears untouched with only straights swaps with both helveg and eddy wanting to leave and relatively inexperienced, certainly when exposed to a defence already having trouble organising itself.  Wht colin must think coming from the structured and cultured football of PSV and the eriediv. god only knows. 

However on top of this old problems we have discovered new ones.  Despite a superb finish to the season which included goals for galore and beating good sides the confidence has disproportionately drained out of the players following the Fulham result and is clearly visible in leons performances etc.  The midfield has been significantly weakened by the loss of Jonson, Francis and Bentle who were all significantly better players than the replacements of Hughes, Jarrett & Marney. 

Add in injuries (Drury, hughes, jarrett, thorne), failure to sign enough replacements (3 central midfielders to last the season when two are prone to bookings (hughes & Safri) and the best one likely to be off (rightly so) to the ACN for 6 weeks and worthys reluctance to play him during Rhamadan is folly of the highest order) and Ashtons loss of focus Stuart Pearce starts to stalk you and suddenly we find our selves in a far worse place. 

So I can also understand the argument that actually we have been very patient with Worthy, that this is not a knee jerk reaction to a 4 week problem but the culmination of unaddressed issues from 12 months ago. 

However , with the possible exception of Ashton, every one of these eventualities should have been planned for by the management team but does not appear to have been done so.  I find that inexcusable.

I am all for stability in the managment team; in the long term it always works best.  It is in the managements hands to turn it around by addressing these mainly on the pitches at colney.  I am prepared to give them another 4-6 games to see some improvements in the fundamentals - even if we are still losing but starting to get the basics right that will be enough.  However if the rot looks to have set then a change will be inevitable.   My patience is just about intact with worthy (clearly not so on some specifics) but it is getting painfully thin.

As fans we have only a little part to play over the next half a dozen games; simply to roar the team on on match days - what we post one here is mainly an irrelevant form of stress management that many american would pay hundreds of dollars to get off their chest at a psychiarists...  

OTBC

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Talk is cheap, 3 wins on the trot, seems unlikely by the time it happens any chance of promotion maty well have evaporated.  Lets sit back do nothing and keep our fingers crossed it will turn out nice in the end.

In all honesty can you see Nigel coming good ?

 

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[quote]Is it not obvious that a large number of the moaners are probably quite new fans.During the mid 70s to 2000 Norwich core fan base at home stood @ around 14000.Away we often numbered in the low 100s.I ...[/quote]

No its not the case that the moaners are quite new fans. In fact i''d say its probably the opposite. The fans with the mian gripes are the ones who have been watching City for years, know a bit about their football and have been able to see the quite obvious deficiencies in our squad and performances for a long time now.

I am one of the 14,000 you talk of and I would class myself as one of the biggest moaners at the moment. I still go to the games and support the team whilst they are on the pitch but I have spent a lot of time and money following this club over the last 20 yers or so and I reserve the right to moan a bit when I see things going so badly wrong.

And just for the record I won''t stop moaning because we beat Plymouth. Watford or Ipswich unless I start to see some kind of distinct improvement in the performances. They are 3 poor sides who we should beat. My grip is not about the results its the manner they have come about in and the underlying reasons behind them.

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[quote]Is it not obvious that a large number of the moaners are probably quite new fans.During the mid 70s to 2000 Norwich core fan base at home stood @ around 14000.Away we often numbered in the low 100s.I ...[/quote]

New "Fans"????  What a riduculous comment!  If you bother to take any interest there is a wide varience in age and length of support on the board.  Besides that though, are you suggesting that there is no room for children to grow up to be City fans?  Or are you suggesting that unless you were one of the 14,000 from the seventies that you are not welcome at Carrow Road?  I blame the board personally, what do they think they are doing trying to fill the ground and generate extra revenue?  The idiots.

I have been a Norwich City supporter for 25 years but that does not make me blind to their inadequcies on the pitch, nor does it make me a better supporter than a 15 year old!

It appears to me that a lot of "Old", "Hardcore", "Loyal" fans need accept that just because someone wasn''t at the Grimsby away match in 1929, which we lost 25-0, while still singing their heart in snow and sub-zero tempratures that they are not "Better Fans"

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I agree with ZippersLeftFoot that this board is largely a form of therapy. I for one need it given the trauma of last season, the problems of this, the big gap until the next game and the fact that work is trying to get me to Latvia on the date of the Plymouth game!

I think people should feel free to express their views here. My worry is when it spills over into the ground which I think it is and is contributing to the problems we have. I understand why this is, we have all been battered by losing so much last year but it is a cycle we need to break as much as the players. Around me, there is now almost constant complaining and several people greeted Doherty coming on against Leeds with calls for him to play for the opposition (as if this is funny?!?). I want us to all get behind the team because I think it might help us beat Plymouth.

I don''t think Mark B is right to say that all the moaners are new fans. I guess that new and old have varying views on this. Anyway, I am not sure that old fans are any more important than new ones are they?

Finally, I agree that we should keep a historical sense of balance. If you look at all years since 1888, Norwich rank 61st out of all teams which puts us on average somewhere in League 1! Before you completely dismiss those figures, it has a certain other team 79th!!!

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Its difficult to argue with the points ZLF makes, I might not agree with all he says but he is constructive in his criticism and based on fact.

but some other ''fans'' on this board have become hysterical, throwing stupid accusations around. The sort of comments that REALLY wind me up are;

- Worthy is not going to add to the squad size because he stupidly thinks we have enough players (shown to be wrong by recent comments from the club, but obviously wrong anyway!)

- Worthy couldn''t be bothered to try and sign players over the summer (!)

- Worthy and the board didn''t try to stay in the Premiership because they had given up hope before last season even started

- Worthy chooses the team based on his friendship with players not on their skill (and this is being trotted out after he dropped his ''son'' Drury last season!)

- Worthy has lost the dressing room (based on what facts? Looks like the players are sticking up for him if you ask me!)

- The board is lying we didn''t really try and sign Jeffers

- Worthy only got us promoted because he was lucky (this one REALLY makes me angry!)

The people who make those sorts of comments aren''t what I call fans, sometimes you think reading these boards that we have become infested by scummers acting as Norwich fans. I welcome constructive criticism like ZLF''s, but not the unthinking hysteria we see from some others. When do the schools go back?

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Here we go again....
 
I think that the main problem at the moment as so many other posters have put it is that there was obviously a problem last season - and that has not, apparently, been picked up on this season...
 
It''s frustration that''s bubbling away - and before you ask - yes I was one of the 14000 and yes I''ve been there at the away games as one of the 100''s....ad nauseam.....

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I think that if we had been in our current situation  four or five years back the moaning would have been comparatively lighter as it would have been just below the norm.

But as we had such a great year in our promotion year and then a glamour season last year , our expectations have risen to the heights so that now any position out of the top three is regarded as unacceptable. 

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Thats right. Were second from bottom. It must be the supporters fault. Of course it is. Why arent the fans singing and dancing in the stands? after all, the football on show is fantastic, and the results speak for themselves. As for ''Over-achieving''. Thats possibly the most stupid comment ive ever read on this board.

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I realize I need to learn new meanings of words to participate on these boards:

Perceptive - comments I agree with

Stupid - comments I disagree with

Charlie''s Dad Where I think you are wrong is that you imply that we as fans can only respond to the exploits of the team but I think there are plenty of examples of fans actively inspiring a struggling team and intimidating the opposition. I remember the Celtic fans when they came to Carrow Road for a testimonial - and also the Portsmouth fans singing ''we are going to win 6-5'' when getting beaten 5-0 by Arsenal.

In general, I don''t like discussions where people imply that one kind of supporter is more genuine than another (whatever the criteria - length of support, attending matches, staying to the end of games, supporting the manager when things are going wrong, calling for change etc. etc.). I think all of us care about the team and support in different ways. All I know is that it is much tougher supporting a team when things are going badly but that unless we are a player, manager, coach or have bucketloads of cash, it is probably all we can actually do in practice to make a difference.

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I agree: constructive criticism good, mindless ranting bad. Getting things off your chest on this board good, booing the team at the ground bad. Maintaining some consistency in your views good (hi ZLF), changing with the wind bad (hi Wiz).

But, the thing that''s really annoyed me reading this board so far this season is a developing big-club mentality from some posters. The comment that we should beat Plymouth, Watford and Ipswich because they''re all poor sides typifies this.

This is probably the most competitive football league in the world. There are no bad teams in it - everyone is well organised, professional and tough to beat. Obviously we''re not playing well and there are loads of things to complain about. But last year we were hugely irritated by fans of Newcastle, Spurs etc (and Lawrenson) assuming that their teams were going to thrash us. We complained that we were not getting any respect, not being taken seriously. And we were right to find this patronising and insulting.

And yet some of us are becoming like this, assuming that we should thrash Crewe and Stoke despite the fact that we''ve tried to construct a brand new midfield and that we have a pretty sizeable injury crisis. When Worthy''s head is on the block, people start talking about Gradi as if we have a right to march in in and take a manager who''s been at his club for over 1000 games. I''ve still never forgiven Everton for taking Walker from us, and I''d hate to support a club like that.

So keep complaining, keep ranting and feel free to do so whether you''ve been a fan of the club for 50 years or 50 days. But let''s please never become a Simon Jordan or West Ham-style club claiming we should be walking this division.

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[quote]I agree: constructive criticism good, mindless ranting bad. Getting things off your chest on this board good, booing the team at the ground bad. Maintaining some consistency in your views good (hi ZLF...[/quote]


Actually RobertinManilla, might I ask what you expected the results to be for the first six games of this season?

Expectations have unfortunately been raised as a result of the "success" of the last two years - Champions in 2003/04, into the Premiership through 2004/05. That''s irrespective of what some supporters have identified as weaknesses in the team - ZLF, has been consistent in his analysis of what he perceives is wrong.

So it''s no surprise to me that some posters are a little unhappy here about the start to the season.

Reading the forum during the summer months there were several posters who already had City pencilled in as 2005/06 Champions. As you rightly point out this division is harder to get out of than many people think.

The over-riding question though is where has it all gone wrong? Is it simply that existing problems that were papered over in 2003/04 and 2004/05 have finally come home to roost? A dispassionate analysis of the team''s play over the six games this season would be appreciated by those of us who can''t get to watch the games - and I emphasise dispassionate analysis.

...

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I think supporters can be generalised into 2 categories, of which a fair few fall into both:

 

1 - Those who remember how it was when Nigel took over, and look at what he''s achieved since taking over.

2 - Those who have been watching us play recently, watching some absolute dire football in some parts, and paying alot of money to watch. With the players we have we should be better.

I am one of those from the first category, do I want to return to those days of 5-1 and 6-1 humblings at port vale and grimsby?!!. No. But i''m am also swaying to "we are playing absolute rubbish, and have done for a while"

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Morph, I can only comment on the home games, but our performances have been workman-like at best. We seem to have two routes of attack (a) loft it up to the front two and hope that they can control it and bring others into play, or (b) give it to Hucks and hope he can perform miracles. Apart from Safri, everyone wants to get shot of the ball as quickly as possible, there''s no passing or patience in midfield. And if we do get the ball to feet around the opposition penalty area, there''s no flair or quality to create a scoring chance; teams just string 5 or 6 players along the penalty area and invite us to break them down, which we can''t - Crewe did this to excellent effect, for example. Our movement is woeful and our one-touch passing inept. In short, there''s no guile or imagination and, more worryingly, the players appear to have no confidence or self-belief. As Robbo007 says, with the players we have, we should be doing a whole lot better.   

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Is it not obvious that a large number of the moaners are probably quite new fans.During the mid 70s to 2000 Norwich core fan base at home stood @ around 14000.Away we often numbered in the low 100s.I would think that the vast numbers of negative views are therefore from those people who were not around in the days before 24/7 Sky news the internet and instant reaction to every word the manager utters..
 
Quite new fans... I go back before the 1970s...  and have seen them all come and go ... worthington has done well, BUT So did Saunders.. Bond...Brown .. Stringer and Walker.. but they all came to end of what they could achieve and were or moved on... And that time is approaching again..   

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Im quite happy to entertain views that dont necesarily co-incide with mine. i.e that Doherty should be first choice at this point in time, or that jarrett is a useful midfielder, or that its a good thing for the team that huckerby is suspended. Let me quantify my idea of stupidity. Its when somebody call Norwich City a ''little club from the back - end of beyond'' and accuses them of OVER ACHIEVING !!! If what we are doing this season is overachieving then i must be going mad as i dont think looking up at brighton stoke crewe ippo hull plymouth and so on ad nauseum is any kind of achievement.... unless your''e a Barnet fan.

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