One on the chin!

[lucky green trainers 0]

the headline boards have been chirping ''worthy from zero to hero''  -  that''s overstating the acheivement in many people''s eyes.  in this topsy turvey season, it wouldn''t be mad to suggest we could lose 5 on the trot, not that i want that to happen  - but we''ve lost safs and robbo for a month who IMO are city''s best centre midfield pairing - having dicated play against soton, our best display of the season.foley would have been better served keeping his mouth shut until seasons end, that''s when we''ll all know just how well worthy and his staff have done.to my mind, last weeks debacle against PNE was ''business as usual for worthy''  playing a half fit robbo - who worsens his injury and was hospitialised and now is out for at least a month - and playing charlton when he should have been at home with his feet up watching tv.did he learn nothing from playing holt when clearly he wasn''t right last season?

[YankeeCanary 0]

A1canary, call me what you will, but with respect to how long I''ve been a fan, I supported the club regularly ( home and away ) when they wallowed in the third division, more than half a century ago. I saw the kind of managers that did not work then, and what was required to move us up a grade. I also saw the kind of manager it took to build a cohesive unit showing improvement year on year. As managers go, there have been better and there have been worse than Nigel Worthington. However, in my opinion, he is not of the calibre that can move us up a level and achieve asustained Premiership fight on the Norwich budget. That feat will take someone who has more smarts, tenaciousness and man management skills than Nigel has. Has the club improved during the past five years? I''ll leave that judgement to those of you who are closest to it but, from afar, it appears the facilities have improved, the board is stable and reasonably well-liked by all ( most of us would say we do not want a "Portsmouth situation" on our hands ), but the management and coaching has brought us at best, full circle and certainly, at the very least, causing a significant divide between many loyal fans. I am absolutely convinced that if Norwich are to achieve what I said in my previous post, i.e. get into the Premiership with a squad that knows how to compete, it will not be with Nigel Worthington at the helm. Any other commentary is superfluous. 

[a1canary 0]

I don''t recall calling you anything - not personal anyway - unless you

mean patronising. That''s your manner i''m referring to and the tone of

your posts.  You''ve done it again here. You need to add two small

words to the start of your last sentence. "To" and "me".

I''m sure you''ve been a fan for many a year - i was being fasceacious in

light of your seeming memory loss over the state of the club in 2000.

This has come up before, the whole "worthy has taken us backwards"

stuff and i thought, perhaps wrongly, that the majority felt that

wasn''t the case.

You conveniently seperate the "facilities" (which i take you include

the stadium in) from the rest of the operation that is the club. You

can''t do that. Without NW''s achievements on the pitch, the improvements

off it would never have happened. And without the facilities now, we

wouldn''t enjoy the highest average attendance in the league and the

ability to buy and pay the wages of some of the best players outside

the premiership. Obviously with a bit of help from her upstairs too,

but she wouldn''t do that if the club was an economic basket case. It''s

very easy to do too much off the pitch and not enough on it (e.g. chase

era, ipswich - 30,000 plus stadium, 30% empty, debts so large that

attendence levels can only just sustain them). Lets not also forget

that half the stadium was soon to be declared unsafe and the pitch

declared unfit to play on when he took over. All this taken care of,

and all because the team moved forward in huge strides since he took

over. Now if you still insist on looking only at the team''s situation

right now, in isolation from the rest of the club (which seems

strangely at odd with your "bigger picture" outlook), and the fact that

it is experiencing an undoubted blip, then let me remind you of the

squad NW inherited:

Iwan

Roberts

Chris

Llewellyn

Lee

Marshall

Adrian

Forbes

Darren

Kenton

Gaetano

Giallanza

Phil

Mulryne

Fernand

Derveld

Jim Whitley

Tony Cottee

Darel

Russell

Paul

McVeigh

Zema Abbey

Malky

Mackay

Steen

Nedergaard

Alex Notman

Brian

McGovern

Danny Gay

Andy

Marshall

Daryl Sutch

Robert

Green

Adrian

Coote

Paul

Dalglish

Jean Yves

De Blasiis

Craig

Fleming

Matt

Jackson

Cedric

Anselin

Raymond De

Waard

Not counting those that he kept on, it reads like

a who''s who of our worst ever players! It just needs peter grant and

keith scott to be complete! Imagine inheriting that squad today. I know

the standard has improved now but even today it would be a one way

ticket to division 3!

Do you really think this is where we''ve come full circle to?

[YankeeCanary 0]

Thank you for the list, and yes, I do think we''ve come full circle. Your list contains some dead wood but players such as Marshall/Green, Needergard, Forbes, Jackson, Fleming, Kenton, Russell, McVeigh, Mackay, Abbey ( IMO unfortunate circumstances ) provided at least as good a nucleus then as the current list does. In some ways, with respect to commitment and dedication, better. Further, as has been pointed out by others ad infinitem, Worthington has enjoyed the luxury of more money at his disposal than many of his predecessors to get to this point. That''s why we''ve got Huckerby and Ashton but, if they are not serviced or become demotivated on occasions ( as they have done ) where are we? Full circle...that''s where. 

[0ridgemanddMMyyyy0Falseen-USTrue 0]

The reason we were relegated was poor management not injuries. Favourites were played week after week. Helveg was fit to captain Denmark but not considered fit enough to play for Norwich. Henderson was brought on as a substitute whilst Bentley was left on the bench. Saffri was not considered ready to play until half way through the season. Mackay was sold without a ready replacement being available. Shackell was ignored for most of the season.

I''m sorry but I wanted Worthington out last season with his little Norwich attitude and we are lucky to be here - nothing has changed except that I am even more determined to see him go and Foleys comments make me even more determined.

Still 2000 tickets available for a cup tie with a premiership club speaks volumes to me.

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

Rob Green

Matt Jackson      Craig Fleming     Malky Mackay     Darren Kenton 

Steen Nedergaard    Phil Mulryne     Darel Russell      Paul McVeigh

Iwan Roberts Zema Abbey

Subs
Lee Marshall
Alex Notman/ Giallanza
Chris Llewellyn
Adrian Forbes/Ancelin
Agent Marshall

That aint terrible - it shows how bad a job Hamilton if that lot were heading towards relegation.  Also remember Hamilton was looking to sign holt just before he was kicked out. add him and we are a left back short of a decent team

[Canary Poirot 1]

It never ceases to amaze me - the fans are quite happy to dish out the abuse, the name calling, the criticism, but as soon as it is aimed back at them, they simply cannot accept it! They have to fire back with more insults and harsh words.

Reminds me of something I read the other night on a Nottingham Forest story. The Forest team were getting pulled all over the pitch in a recent match, the fans were unleashing some unbelievable abuse at the players and manager, who all just have to take it (as professionals), then Forest score. Megson turned around and called them (add explicit of your choice) and the fans couldn''t take it! They had to haul more abuse back. They simply cannot except they might be wrong! 

Why can''t you all be real men (methaphorically speaking for the female posters), and take it on the chin! The boys have done very well in the last month results wise (bar Preston home) against most of the wise polar views expressed on this board - many of these posters now run with the very real risk of ending the season with egg on their faces if we do indeed make the play-offs, and actually win them - however unlikely that may seem!

So come on then posters - be men for a change - take some criticism - admit you can be wrong from time to time! Yes we haven''t been playing great, but one bad result after a pretty amazing turn around and to be within touching distance of the play-offs just shows we are certainly not going to be in League 1 next season as many have been saying. Things have been poor, but things are improving.

I fully expect fellow posters to not to accept my post and hurl abuse at me - prove me wrong!

[Mook 0]

Yeah, sorry A1, love your posts and all but you''ve kinda shot yourself in the foot there.

How I would love to be able to name a team with a fully fit and firing Holt, Mulryne, Steeno, McVeigh, Roberts, Kenton, Russell, Malky, Jackson, Lee Marshall, Fleming, De Blassis (a very underrated player IMO) and Judas or Greeno.

And even then, players like Giallanza, Abbey and Notman looked promising before the cruciate jinx started to strike, Forbes and Llewellyn were useful youngsters (although definitely not first team material) and Anselin was .... well, weird. And dare I say it, Sutch tried his hardest.

Yes, all the rest were godawful, but it don''t take a genius to work that out. IMO he HAS added quality but with a LARGE amount of misdemeanours in there too to balance the act.

In short, I honestly reckon a fair few managers could have come in with that group of players and done a pretty good job.

[John Boubepo 0]

Pick the best 11 from that [2000] list and I reckon at least half our present squad would struggle to get a run out

[Branston Pickle 3,657]

[quote user="YankeeCanary"]

Thank you for the list, and yes, I do think we''ve come full circle. Your list contains some dead wood but players such as Marshall/Green, Needergard, Forbes, Jackson, Fleming, Kenton, Russell, McVeigh, Mackay, Abbey ( IMO unfortunate circumstances ) provided at least as good a nucleus then as the current list does. In some ways, with respect to commitment and dedication, better. Further, as has been pointed out by others ad infinitem, Worthington has enjoyed the luxury of more money at his disposal than many of his predecessors to get to this point. That''s why we''ve got Huckerby and Ashton but, if they are not serviced or become demotivated on occasions ( as they have done ) where are we? Full circle...that''s where. 

[/quote]

Sorry, but this does seem to be one of the rather more deluded posts I''ve read - the only place we were going with the side Worthy inherited was into the lower leagues. 

I stopped coming on here and posting from the sheer boredom of reading the same "everything Norwich does is rubbish" type Posts every day, but have returned recently to see if there is any interesting transfer news in the offing - this there is, but I see that sadly not a lot else has changed.

I have to say that there are several people on here who seem to have gone into a downward spiral of seeing conspiracy theories at every opportunity, slating the club whatever it does (not long ago everyone was clamouring to sign Etuhu, now he seems to have been the biggest mistake ever without being given a chance), taking rumour as cast iron certainty (recent eg''s: we''re signing Fowler/Gray, or selling just about anyone) and wearing extremely rose coloured spectacles (we were a great side when Worthy took over), and it is extremely sad that people feel this way.

I am neither a Worthy in or Worthy out person, I can see both sides, but one thing does spring to mind - in the days when Worthy took over there was no way we could have foreseen being in playoffs and then the Prem within a few seasons, so he surely has to have some credit for that. Also, the money he''s had to spend has largely been the result of that ''success'' he''s brought - so why the hell shouldn''t/wouldn''t he have used it (and a large proportion of it on Ashton and Huckerby, who no one would argue were poor signings, together with Doc, Drury, Leon, Sven, Saf etc etc)?  Of course he has made duff signings too, but there is not one manager who doesn''t make mistakes (Burley, who many now think is a footballing God, bought Finidi George, ffs).  Just think - it was only this time 2 seasons ago that we pulled off the miracle signing of Huckerby and everyone was lauding him for it....it just seems rather bizarre to me how suddenly many can''t see any of this now.

[Buncey 1]

I don''t know if you value my opinion highly but I agree with yankee canary. I see the same shocking lack of tactics and cohesion i saw 5 years ago under hamilton. The only difference is we have the quality players who can turn matches for us now e.g. ashton, safri, huckerby etc. The fact is in the Preston game thye defended strongly and we had no idea what we were doing and just fell back to the killer worthington tactic of defending so dead that 11 men are in the box all the time. A lack of strength in the players shows a lack in strength of the coaching staff.

[a1canary 0]

WHAT? WHAT? Forgive me but i''ve just come back from the pub and read this and i''m shocked!
Marshall? Forbes? sicknote Abbey? Have you completely lost your mind? Look at the WHOLE squad then, and look at it now. How can you say it''s no better? You''re insane! You have finally lost it!
I''VE lost it!

You really must have been too far away for too long to be able to make a proper comparison. I used to watch these players regularly from 1996-2001, mostly away from home in the north west, rarely a happy hunting ground, and they were truly, truly, abysmally shocking. If you think we can sometimes be a soft touch now, back then we were the softest touch in the league. I wonder how we ever stayed in it. It must only be because they were better at home, but not much. Given both squads are fully fit, Nedergaard i''d take. Jackson maybe, although his arrival in Wigan''s team conincided with their blip in form. Kenton? Well that presents us with a nice mini comparison from the two squads doesn''t it and i watched it live - Ashton V Kenton. That was just embarrassing for the latter. There are three others i''d have. Oh but look, we already have them!

But we''re not picking and choosing. We''re comparing the two squads and there''s just no way... God, i still can''t believe you''re actually saying this! Pick a team, not including those we''ve already got (or are you going to somehow blame the manager for keeping the players you''d like to put in your "class of 2000"?). Then pick a team from a fully fit 2005 squad. Look at them and ask yourself which one would win. Ask yourself which one would finish higher in the league. And if you''d STILL go with the class of 2000... well, i would noramlly say i can respect other opinions but this is pushing it!

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

Rob Green - Championship

Matt Jackson  - premiership

Craig Fleming -Championship

Malky Mackay Championship

Darren Kenton  Championship

Steen Nedergaard Retired maybe

Phil Mulryne     Championship

Darel Russell      Championship

Paul McVeigh   Championship

Iwan Roberts Retired

Zema Abbey No Idea

Om sorry but the above team was not that bad a1 and infact forms the nucleus of the team that made the play offs just add Gray Holt for russell, Adam Drury and David Neilson on loan.  The fact that tahat side was nearly relegated by hamilton shows how bad a manager he is.