Very interesting article based on interview with Webber

[Badger 2,405]

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11709/11578660/norwich-top-of-the-table-stuart-webber-explains-how-it-happened

 

[Norwich R Us 59]

Very interesting article, great to see we are Klopps 2nd team...! Would not be bad if we became the go to club for Liverpool to send their youngsters.

[Bill 1,788]

A good read and very informative.

Does confirm what was stated from the beginning so on that there is not much surprise.

What is intersting is how disjointed the club had become. As with most other clubs (outside of the top six or so) pretty much every scrap on money was thrown at keeping up - and I therefore suspect a number of contracts and fees were not good value (ahem).

I suspect what we have now is a club working to the same end with the same direction and purpose.  What didn't fit has been removed/replaced. And it seems than Webber has a much free-er hand than he would have at a bigger club, hence his being here.

The future both on and off looks very promising, and in very good hands(Hans?).

[Bill 1,788]

2 minutes ago, Norwich R Us said:

Very interesting article, great to see we are Klopps 2nd team...! Would not be bad if we became the go to club for Liverpool to send their youngsters.

To a fellow PL club ?

[Ian 1,129]

Good article, thanks for the link.

[BobLoz3 492]

Like the way that Klose is referred to as 'Timmo Klose' in this article! 😂

[ron obvious 1,499]

I think we're well out of clutter now!

 

[Hucks6 169]

And I must confess I wanted Webber and Farke out at beginning of season.Hey what do I know

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

1 hour ago, Bill said:

A good read and very informative.

Does confirm what was stated from the beginning so on that there is not much surprise.

What is intersting is how disjointed the club had become. As with most other clubs (outside of the top six or so) pretty much every scrap on money was thrown at keeping up - and I therefore suspect a number of contracts and fees were not good value (ahem).

I suspect what we have now is a club working to the same end with the same direction and purpose.  What didn't fit has been removed/replaced. And it seems than Webber has a much free-er hand than he would have at a bigger club, hence his being here.

The future both on and off looks very promising, and in very good hands(Hans?).

I am sure that is true. It was the stated policy. And I think it is fair to say one approved of by the vast majority of posters here. I don't remember much if any dissent. But the danger was it would involve some bad signings that would go on to hamstring us. But one point made by Webber on this surprises me:

"It is poor management that gets you into that situation because you cannot blame the Premier League - they set up the parachute payments to help you. But if you overspend beyond your parachute payment years then you get yourself in trouble like we did.

Offhand I don't believe we did that. I think whatever we spent in the Neil promotion season was covered by parachute payments, and probably later what we spent in the first season back down.

At which point, even though we had another season of PPs due, we made a conscious decision not to try to spend our way back and started to slim the wage bill. So I don't see that we kept on spending once the PPs had run out. We actually stopped a season before then. If he means we had some hefty contracts that we couldn't get rid of that is true, but we certainly didn't carry on recklessly overspending, as other clubs have done.

[lappinitup 629]

Thanks for that Badger, a good read.

I particularly liked this bit.......

"Daniel has been outstanding with the young boys," says Webber. "It is about having a coach who will give them the opportunity and make them better. You have to have someone who will put his trust in them. There is some real talent there and more to come."

Makes you proud seeing our own youngsters making good. Exciting times.

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,424]

An excellent article. Thanks for finding it Badger. 

[king canary 7,578]

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

I am sure that is true. It was the stated policy. And I think it is fair to say one approved of by the vast majority of posters here. I don't remember much if any dissent. But the danger was it would involve some bad signings that would go on to hamstring us. But one point made by Webber on this surprises me:

"It is poor management that gets you into that situation because you cannot blame the Premier League - they set up the parachute payments to help you. But if you overspend beyond your parachute payment years then you get yourself in trouble like we did.

Offhand I don't believe we did that. I think whatever we spent in the Neil promotion season was covered by parachute payments, and probably later what we spent in the first season back down.

At which point, even though we had another season of PPs due, we made a conscious decision not to try to spend our way back and started to slim the wage bill. So I don't see that we kept on spending once the PPs had run out. We actually stopped a season before then. If he means we had some hefty contracts that we couldn't get rid of that is true, but we certainly didn't carry on recklessly overspending, as other clubs have done.

I wonder if he's talking about the lengths of some of the contracts handed out.

Naismith, Klose, Pinto and Jarvis all had deals that ran past the end of any parachute payments we have had.

[Woodman 92]

I'm sure he is King, and it's a good job we had Maddison, both Murphys and Pritchard as assets to sell.  

Realistically, we don't have any big wage earners left under contract at the end of this season, assuming Oliveira goes and the others are released. I'd like to see Timm stay, but as most are saying, that might depend on what division we're in.

[Woodman 92]

oh, and to back up something I said about NCFC flying under the radar and not getting media recognition, suddenly there's a positive NCFC article on Sky on the week when we're one of the live matches...

[BobLoz3 492]

1 minute ago, Woodman said:

oh, and to back up something I said about NCFC flying under the radar and not getting media recognition, suddenly there's a positive NCFC article on Sky on the week when we're one of the live matches...

It almost beggars belief that they'd go and whip up a story when attempting to promote one of their live games 😉

[GenerationA47 747]

1 hour ago, lappinitup said:

Makes you proud seeing our own youngsters making good. Exciting times.

And all the more to come, thanks in part to the continued slow decline of our neighbours. (Hence the best regional talent hopefully sticking to the category A academy)

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

44 minutes ago, king canary said:

I wonder if he's talking about the lengths of some of the contracts handed out.

Naismith, Klose, Pinto and Jarvis all had deals that ran past the end of any parachute payments we have had.

I think he may well be, but there is a difference between that and what many non-NCFC readers of the piece will assume, that we carried on spendng money we didn't have on new deals.

And it is easy to criticise those old deals now, but I imagine under the circumstances at the time, where Naismith and Klose particularly were brought in during that January to try to keep us up, their agents were in such a strong bargaining position we had to offer what we did.

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

It benefits Webber for him to be very critical of the club before his arrival, makes his work look all the better in relation. 

The club did ‘roll the dice’ in the January of the relegation season and it didn’t pay off. It was a calculated risk and they probably thought even if the club were relegated they could get some of the money for Naismith et al back. 

They club weren’t wrong to spend the money, it was just spent on the wrong players. 

[nutty nigel 7,509]

Huge dollops of hindsight with these criticisms. At the time one of the big moans was that we weren't gambling enough.

[Woodman 92]

Yep, I'll freely admit that I was excited and impressed when I heard that the club would be signing an experienced Scottish attacking midfielder with a wealth of Premiership experience in the prime of his career, who had just scored a hat-trick against one of the Premiership big boys.

Turns out he didn't quite match the profile...and we're still paying the price.

 

[splendidrush 700]

It was interesting to see how many players were looking for the out door once we were relegated, I know their agents played a part but some were less than complimentary and you get the feeling that the whole culture of the Club needed a revamp. 

[Sussexyellow 55]

1 hour ago, Woodman said:

Yep, I'll freely admit that I was excited and impressed when I heard that the club would be signing an experienced Scottish attacking midfielder with a wealth of Premiership experience in the prime of his career, who had just scored a hat-trick against one of the Premiership big boys.

Turns out he didn't quite match the profile...and we're still paying the price.

 

The problem is that he was no longer making the Everton starting eleven the season we signed him, and from recollection that hat trick was the sum total of his league goals for Everton that season. So whilst he should have been in the prime of his career he certainly was not in the form of his career.

None of which excuses the fact that having signed he could have put his shoulder to the wheel a lot more to help the cause of his new employer. Form is one thing, attitude and application another.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

3 hours ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

It benefits Webber for him to be very critical of the club before his arrival, makes his work look all the better in relation. 

The club did ‘roll the dice’ in the January of the relegation season and it didn’t pay off. It was a calculated risk and they probably thought even if the club were relegated they could get some of the money for Naismith et al back. 

They club weren’t wrong to spend the money, it was just spent on the wrong players. 

Yes. It is hardly for the first time. The problem is that a few posters here seize on what he says about how the club was run in the past and treat it as absolute truth rather than part-truth/part self-serving spin.

[nutty nigel 7,509]

49 minutes ago, Sussexyellow said:

The problem is that he was no longer making the Everton starting eleven the season we signed him, and from recollection that hat trick was the sum total of his league goals for Everton that season. So whilst he should have been in the prime of his career he certainly was not in the form of his career.

None of which excuses the fact that having signed he could have put his shoulder to the wheel a lot more to help the cause of his new employer. Form is one thing, attitude and application another.

To be fair I don't think there was anything wrong with his attitude. He was always a team player and the youngsters respected him. 

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

Yes. It is hardly for the first time. The problem is that a few posters here seize on what he says about how the club was run in the past and treat it as absolute truth rather than part-truth/part self-serving spin.

Norwich was hardly the worst run club in the world and the management had to make the tough decisions of investing in the immediate (i.e the playing squad) or investing in the future (i.e. facilities). 

It is a tough choice for any club and Norwich sometimes erred on the side of the immediate without too much thought of the future (understandably as the immediate at the time was staying/getting back into the Prem). 

Obviously Norwich would have been better placed putting all the the Naismith fee and wages into Colney, but had they done that at the time a huge number of fans would have screamed ‘if you invested that money in the squad, Norwich would have avoided relegation’. 

Luckily some money was going to the future with the signing of Maddison and much lower key at the time Jamal and Max. 

The life of a football club. 

[Badger 2,405]

1 hour ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

Norwich was hardly the worst run club in the world and the management had to make the tough decisions of investing in the immediate (i.e the playing squad) or investing in the future (i.e. facilities). 

Current consumption or future investment is a problem we all have to face! Spenders or savers! 😀

 

[Van wink 2,994]

Its a very enjoyable read, thanks for posting.

"I think supporters lost belief in the club. Where are we going? What's our identity?"

Webber even asked that question of those at the club and could not get an answer. "The club didn't really have one beyond the colour of the shirt.""

Made me smile.

[Ramrod 258]

It was obvious to many that Norwich City was being poorly run AT THE TIME! 

Hughton was the wrong manager to take over a side built by Lambert. We never had the players to suit. 

Neil Adams did great work and Alex Neil rode the coat tails but how well was NA supported? 

Alex Neil was probably an authoritarian but that isn't enough to get the best out of people. He gave the impression of never knowing his best side or how to affect a game beyond plan A. 

Add in some terrible signings, square pegs in round holes and a squad missing either a centre half or striker. 

Note, this season no January signings are necessary. It is the worst time to do business. This year, for the first time since Lambert was manager the signings were done before the season started. 

Finally, why did we continue to sign the same type of midfielder with Naismith being the last straw (don't tell me he is a striker)? Money down the drain. Meanwhile,  the challenging Madison was sent to Scotland. 

Any side that succeeds is greater than the sum of its parts. Our current side certainly is. Webber has brought professional common sense back to Carrow Road. 

Anyone who says the failings were not apparent before is either daft or disingenuous. 

[nutty nigel 7,509]

But all this is the cyclical nature of football clubs as pointed out by David McNally the last time everyone was this happy. And anyone who thinks what's happening now will see everyone this happy in ten years time should probably look back ten years, not just for our club, but every club.

[Nuff Said 5,089]

11 hours ago, Ramrod said:

It was obvious to many that Norwich City was being poorly run AT THE TIME! 

Hughton was the wrong manager to take over a side built by Lambert. We never had the players to suit. 

Neil Adams did great work and Alex Neil rode the coat tails but how well was NA supported? 

Alex Neil was probably an authoritarian but that isn't enough to get the best out of people. He gave the impression of never knowing his best side or how to affect a game beyond plan A. 

Add in some terrible signings, square pegs in round holes and a squad missing either a centre half or striker. 

Note, this season no January signings are necessary. It is the worst time to do business. This year, for the first time since Lambert was manager the signings were done before the season started. 

Finally, why did we continue to sign the same type of midfielder with Naismith being the last straw (don't tell me he is a striker)? Money down the drain. Meanwhile,  the challenging Madison was sent to Scotland. 

Any side that succeeds is greater than the sum of its parts. Our current side certainly is. Webber has brought professional common sense back to Carrow Road. 

Anyone who says the failings were not apparent before is either daft or disingenuous. 

The power of hindsight.