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Essjayo

What point would you say was the beginning of the End?

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I think letting Malky go before the Premier League season had even kicked off was a massive mistake.  Malky was probably the only true leader and voice we had on the pitch. He''s sorley missed.  Then this summer we made too many changes in playing personnel, add to that the lack of creative tactics, and we''re stuffed.  Literally.

Be glad to hear other opinions.

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of some terrible decisions.

Even when he wasnt getting in the team at west ham Alan Pardew would always mention Dressing room leaders and his name was always being mentioned.

And replacing him with 5''8" Simon Charlton.....  Then the in no way premiership player Ginger Pele...

Also playing holt so much in the prem - Anybody could see he was NOT a premiership player when fully fit - let alone carrying an injury

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not being given enough money at the start of the prem season. relegation last season has affected everyone and I''m not sure if Nigel has the energy and ideas in him to re-motivate the players. People say about worthy being new to the prem, but he never showed any signs of learning or changing his approach.

 

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I don''t think it was any one thing but a complation of bad decisions, terrible tactics. wrong player choices.  perhaps not having a bigger enough tool box,  and not learning fast enough  think tactics what were successful one season could be used the next. This season  all of the above and not having anything in reserve for sauch times as these..

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I think there are many points you could identify, the Fulham game, Worthy not picking his best 11 in the Prem until April.  For me though our biggest mistake was the way we went about our transfer dealings in the summer. 

Worthy clearly had an A and B transfer list, with the purchase of targets on list A dependant on finances from the sale of Francis or another player.  Instead of giving Worthy money to spend the board waited for offers on Francis and Worthy was forced (in the mean time) to look at the players on list B who were simply not good enough.  When players such as Hooze, Louis Jean, Thorne and Jarrett arrived I saw them all as squad players only and not additions to the first team.  Ultimately the Francis sale came too late in the day to actually spend any of the money as other clubs were, understandably not prepared to let players leave 3 days before the season started and we were left with squad with less quality and less quantity.

The club really made a big mistake in not wanting to spend any money before player sales in the sense that before the season started we could have had our pick of the best of the players outside the Premiership.  Come January we are not such an attractive prospect and we now have to worry more over who we lose than who we could buy.

There was also no real urgency over bringing in players.  The club were continually telling us that things don’t happen till X month or Y month and in the end the transfer deadline appeared to take the club by surprise!  Ever since then we have been busy trying to find loan players to replace players that should have been replaced before the season started and ideally in time to play pre season

Other than these issues. Worthington''s apparent lack of understanding than any squad needs more than 4 midfielders and preferably two specialised wide players and you begin to get a picture of why what should have been a successful season has turned out so far to be a huge disappointment.

Here ends the rant.

 

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Yep malky was the start for me.  Wigan are flying because they

bought two 6 foot experienced prem defenders, and added a proven prem

goalscorer to the squad and added francis of course - its not rocket

science. For city, too much prudence, not enough ambition from the

board - not buying crouch at start of prem season. Playing the doc up

front at start of season said it all - didn''t give svensson or helveg

enough of a chance early on. Not getting 2 decent central defenders of

prem standard. Persevering too long with fleming all year in the prem

and the start of this season, playing holt for too long - he only got

dropped when admitted to hospital with a life threatening illness.

etc.etc.etc

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For me I realised worthy was out of his depth when he dropped Helveg after two games and made him learn the pace of the prem from the bench.  Then I realised he had no faith in footballing ability but loved effort above all else.  The peserverance with eddy, holt and flem were the catalysts for our doom as all three were out of their depth despite trying manfully to play at a level beyond them - and that is worthys failure in a nutshell for me.  Drop them earlier adn we wouldhave got the two extra points we needed to avoid the drop.

Iwan and Malky were the right decisions at the time - Flem was more consistent and better suited to the prem game - Malky bless him would have floundered more and Charlie was proven prem class - but let down by being partnered with a finger pointing over bearing player out of depth.   Height in te prem was not key - we did not lose goals because of height but poor positional play and pace and malky would have struggled with that even more than Flem.

 OTBC

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I agree with your assessment zip, but malky, charlie and flem do not

fit the bill as experienced prem central defenders. Both charlie (left

back) & flem stood off and were too slow last year.  We were

relegated because we conceded too many goals.

Defence this year is better for me in doc/dav combo, but the midfield

in front has given them little protection this season and have been the

main  problem for us conceding.

the sudden departure of malky and the manner of it didn''t show worthy

in a good light for me, and yeah malky would have been too slow for the

prem, but he would have got close to attackers and used all his tricks

to stop them playing.

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Totally disagree re : Malky. He would not have been up to it in the Prem - too slow and poor positional sense.Note that Pardew also dispensed with him as soon as West Ham came up so he obviously concurred with Worthy''s opinion.Great championship defender , just not a Prem player.

Beginning of the end for me was definitely Fulham , I think the players and management involved still haven''t really recovered from it and this has just spread throughout the playing staff that have joined us since the Summer.

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[quote user="lucky green trainers"]Yep malky was the start for me.  Wigan are flying because they bought two 6 foot experienced prem defenders, and added a proven prem goalscorer to the squad and added francis of course - its not rocket science. For city, too much prudence, not enough ambition from the board - not buying crouch at start of prem season. Playing the doc up front at start of season said it all - didn''t give svensson or helveg enough of a chance early on. Not getting 2 decent central defenders of prem standard. Persevering too long with fleming all year in the prem and the start of this season, playing holt for too long - he only got dropped when admitted to hospital with a life threatening illness. etc.etc.etc
[/quote]

I agree with all of that.

Could have had our pick of the best younger players in Div1 and some Prem reserves at that time, with an eye to the longer term and actually building a team...players like Davenport in effect.  Investment in quality over quantity...

Could also have looked to integrate them slowly, without losing the team spirit and understanding obviously built up from the promotion season 

The first game against Palace was a classic example of too many new players being brought in all at once, consequently losing a lot of cohesion and understanding...I left that game thinking that the team that had ended the season before would actually have beaten them fairly comfortably

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    Not signing Crouch was the start of the rot for me. From then on all the signals sent out were that the Premiership season was a token effort only. I mean, Doherty starting up front for several games, Jarvis starting on right wing at Middlesborough, the Holt debacle....The lessons were then spectacularly proved not to have been learned in the close season-spending weeks quibling over a few 100k for Andy Hughes whilst better players were being snapped up by our rivals,starting the season with 18 outfield Pro`s when Worthy had stated he needed 5 more players than last season to cover for inevitable injuries, Charlton starting the season in central midfield.....Farcical is too kind a word.

    In the accounts Doncaster whined on about what a "huge risk"it was to spend money on a player these days so i can only surmise that the `plan` for this season was not to take any risks,try to scrape by with what we had and try to patch up any problems with loans. How inspiring. Well Mr.Doncaster and other board members, you have now discovered the inherent risk in not taking risks in football ie.,a sense of drift,a crisis of confidence throughout the club and no real belief that the people at the top have any clue how to get back to the top flight. Still we keep being told we are only `little Norwich` (with the highest gates in the league and 16th highest in the country) so maybe all this is to be expected? At least the board have their wholly owned subsiduary property development company `Kerrison Holdings` to take their minds off the current problems eh?

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Fulham on the last day. If we''d won that day, who knows where we could be right now but on the coach home that night, I knew it would never be the same again for Worthy. A fresh start should have been then to avoid this awful mess which has been all the more depressing as it seemed wholly predictable to me.

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For me it was .....

1. Not being able to win a game for around 11 prem games. Having to

wear RED shorts under your clothes to help us beat Southampton!!!

2. Not  KNOWING how to beat a team away from home, which has carried on this year.

3. We won the Champ in 2003/4 from our excellent home record of 20 wins

3 draws and 2 loses. We only won about 8 - 11 away I think.

FOR ME ITS BEEN THE AWAY FORM ALL ALONG. WE JUST A HAD A GOOD SPELL

WITH HUCKERBY AND CROUCH/ HARPER IN 2003/04 WHICH WON US THE TITLE.

NOBODY KNEW HOW TO PLAY AGAINST HUCKS PACE.

They all do now!

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[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

 Still we keep being told we are only `little Norwich` [/quote]

"little" is usually a term saved for those in the bottom 2 leagues of football.. the minnows as it were.. good to see the board are getting practice in early then... those 26,000 gates will be 10,000 in league 1 next season. enjoy the lost season Ticket revenue then Board members.

 just tell me how we will finish the repayments of the new stand? surely its cheaper to sack worthy then it is to end up like Bury?

jas :)

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A million quid for Mattias Jonson, the biggest waste of money since Dean Coney.

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Definately: telling Roberts he didn''t have a place in the club in the Prem season.

Losing Malky.

Letting Crichton go.

Three big club characters. Come Christmas we were playing youth team players due to injuries.

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I mentioned the other day that I thought letting Malky go a week before

the premiership season began was the start.  Ok, Malky probably

wasn''t the best defender in the league, maybe not even in the team, but

he could drive the defence and was a real leader on the field. 

Look at how Greeno suffered trying to organise defenders once Malky had

gone.  Greeno''s a great shot-stopper but a great keeper is able to

highlight players on a dangerous run or where cover might be needed -

that''s the role that Malky filled for him and we didn''t have anyone to

step in.

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Stuart I could not agree more. It wasn''t just that Malky went but it was indicative of the way that Worthy "guessed" that players were not good enough (look at the team that beat Reading during Easter 04 that effectively put us up... how many are left?) in the same way that he guessed some players were....

Wigan, West Ham and further back Charlton kept their team largely intact. The Team spirit was maintained. Worthy, however, rewarded many of his successful players by showing them the door. Terrible man management.

This has now manifested itself in answering all of  his problems with loan players. Not Huckerby-style loan players (who by the way was available because of huge financial problems at Forest) but players who cant actually get in their teams.

This has gone on for two years. The morale at Colney is crap. Not just the players but the Academy Staff too.Worthy rules the academy with a rod of iron. And now it has come back to haunt him.

Look at Edworthy. A great player in the Nationwide, great character at Colney. Asked for a bit more money and fell out with Worthy. Three full backs later and he still hasnt been replaced. What a cock up.

Great post Stuart.

 

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[quote user="GPB"]

Wigan, West Ham and further back Charlton kept their team largely intact. The Team spirit was maintained. Worthy, however, rewarded many of his successful players by showing them the door. Terrible man management.

[/quote]

I think a microcosm of that was the first game of the prem season versus Palace, where we played like the team of strangers we were, the team that finished as Champions, would have beaten Palace that day, got the first win out of the way some 2/3 months earlier than we did, and who knows what would have happened from there on.

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