My take on Worthington

[Chunky Norwich 0]

Hello there. Long time reader of these message boards (and I mean years!) but I''ve never really felt the inclination to post on them, mainly because I used to post on the Canaries message board a long time ago but it all got bogged down by personal abuse and schoolchildren. However all the talk flying around between the KTFers and the ''Worthless'' brigade has been really interesting and I can no longer resist putting my thoughts in. And my thoughts are that Worthington is not the greatest manager this club has ever had and has never been that great even in his heyday. I''m sure all the KTFers are thinking me mad and rubbing their hands with glee at shooting me down but here are a few points:

1) When Worthington took over he transformed us from relegation battlers to Play-Off finalists. This is true but don''t forget that Worthington took over from Hamilton who is probably the most inept manager in the game and could probably relegate Arsenal if he became manager tomorrow. And what was the name of the Assistant Manager all the way through Hamilton''s relegation battling time?

2) Worthington was very lucky on the injury front. Walker and Rioch''s times were both constantly blighted by all the best players at the club being injured. I remember in Rioch''s second season, Bellamy, Eadie, O'' Neill and Mulryne (who at that time was held in the same regard as Safri is now) were out for basically the entire season. Worthington has never really had any bad injuries to contend with - and I mean very important players out for a very long time.

3) Worthington actually inherited a fairly good team. If you look at the side that got us into the Play-Offs, Roberts, Green, Mackay, Kenton, McVeigh, Mulryne, Holt and Fleming were already at the club to the best of my knowledge. Not sure about Drury. The players Worthington added were mostly bit-parters (with the exception of Neilsen who promptly became awful the second we properly signed him) which leads me to the next point...

4) Worthington in his first proper season had a phenomenal amount of money to spend by Norwich standards thanks to ITV Digital. I''m probably not spot-on but I''m sure he spent close to £2m on Libbra, Emblem, Rivers, Easton and Chrichton in the Summer alone. No-one else has ever that those resources and Rioch left the club due to lack of funds.

5) Yes we got into the Play-offs which I still look on with a lot of happiness but remember that we sneaked in on the last day of the season having scored one more goal all campaign than Burnley. I take my hat off for winning the First Division RIP but I think it has more to do with Huckerby, McKenzie and Svensson blasting our way through. Yes Worthy bought them but if his one season of attacking, fluent, passing football worked a charm, why not persist with it rather than sticking to defensive workhorse players now?

6) Far too defensive. Our back line stands on the 6-yard line, the midfield four stands on the 18-yard line and the strikers lurk wide on the wings. I still maintain we sat off far too much against Birmingham in the Play-Off Final and was probably the least surprising goal I''ve ever seen us concede. Sutch for McVeigh anyone? Our full-backs are the defend, defend, defend kind who rarely leave their own half and our wingers are normally very defensive converted central midfielders or full-backs like Marney, Brennan, Hughes, Bentley (to a certain extent), Easton and even Holt. Huckerby I would rather have upfront.

7) Worthington signs a lot of players who he then never really plays and has blazing rows or personal problems with. Keith Briggs, Mark Rivers, Marc Libbra all spring to mind. Safri only really started playing over half-way through last season as another example. And if the KTFers say "Well he was right not to play them because they were rubbish", who signed them? What happened to Mackay, Forbes etc?

8) The whole playing players out of position thing. We need a new right midfielder? Simple. We buy a striker and convert him to a winger. Or stick a left back in central midfield. Or play a central midfielder as a rightback. Why can''t we buy a right midfielder? Recent sides at Carrow Road; Preston got Sedgwick from Rotherham and Burnley bought Elliot from Bournemouth, both for a pittance, and they looked all right.

Plenty more to say (I''ve had it bottled up for a while) but I''ve already gone on for far too long. Cheers for getting this far and I''d appreciate some nice non-name-calling responses. Oh and I''m still Norwich through and through and will be to the day I die.

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

" our wingers are normally very defensive converted central midfielders or full-backs "

or strikers mate.  I agree with most of what you have written here.  why he cant sign a proper wide midfielder is beyond me.

[Mello Yello 2,273]

Mr/Ms ? Forbes, an excellent and honest post! You need to contribute a lot more on this forum, not because it is a balanced critique of Nigel...........but, because it is a true and honest reflection of the man''s ''Managerial Qualities''. I am not a persistant ''Worthy Basher'' I just personally think it''s time for a change (for the many reasons you''ve stated). Everything in your post is correct, and sadly and no doubt, the ''Pro Manager Brigade'' will be loading their muskets and ready to take aim with: "But he got us promoted, bought Deano, the Play-offs and we were the Champions of 2004! "Where''s yer loyalty to the Club yer heathen! Muppet, Scummer or fair weather fan" they''ll scream......Through a ''yeller & green'' welder''s mask!

He is not a Premiership manager........and I hate to say it, but he is too rosy/cosy with our major shareholder''s!  Any other club would have waved ''Bye Bye!'' to him long ago.  OTBC ;~)

 

[Huddy 0]

Well said.

He''s had luck its run out and sack him is my view. Etuhu, brennan, robinson, thorne, Mlj are all either wasters, there for ther cash or past it.

[A Load of Squit 5,112]

So what you''re saying is that everything that has happened since NW became manager is down to luck and being better then the previous bloke.

[gazzathegreat 0]

An excellent post Forbes 17, please continue to post.  No doubt you will get the usual "You can''t be a real supporter/fickle/go and support Chelsea" etc etc which is brought up everytime anyone dares to criticise (or merely point out their opinion, fact or not).  I, for one, would like to read a lot more posts from you.  I am a Worthy Outer, but have to admit, some on here who are for him staying are able to reason their arguments without resorting to personal attack.  I guess that is what you found happening on the official site? 

[0peteddMMyyyy0Falseen-USTrue 0]

No it is another person rightlypointing out Worthy is a rubbish manager who got lucky who refuses to learn by his mistakes which he still makes in the transfer market see Etuhu, time you woke up and smelt the coffee.

[YankeeCanary 0]

Welcome to the message board Forbes17. You write very well and in a way that will contribute to the quality improvement required on this board. Given that it has taken you until now to write my guess would be you will not be posting frequently. I cannot comment on your specific points because I do not attend games ( that does not usually prevent me as many will attest to ). However, if you are so persuaded to initiate another thread ( which I will participate in ), I would be interested in your thoughts as to what you believe Norwich City''s 5 year plan was when Nigel Worthington became manager, where we are at versus that plan, if our club has the financial means and Board commitment required to provide Norwich City with sustained participation in the Premiership.

p.s: Many young posters participating on this message board can sometimes be forgiven for their "young" responses ( they will improve with time ). However, I do not believe "A load of squit" to be a young poster and it is, therefore, disappointing to see such a foolish, brief summation from that corner to a very well articulated post from Forbes17. It comes across as insulting.

[A Load of Squit 5,112]

From Yankee Canary.

"p.s: Many young posters participating on this message board can sometimes be forgiven for their "young" responses ( they will improve with time ). However, I do not believe "A load of squit" to be a young poster and it is, therefore, disappointing to see such a foolish, brief summation from that corner to a very well articulated post from Forbes17. It comes across as insulting."

I find it insulting that point 3 contradicts point 1 in the original post and none of you WO''s could take your blinkers off long enough to notice.

[Huddy 0]

[quote user="A load of squit"]So what you''re saying is that everything that has happened since NW became manager is down to luck and being better then the previous bloke.[/quote]

He took us up and did well then, when we had the biggest spending power in the leahue. unfortunately since then its been a desire. His signings in the build up to the prem were awful, he didnt buy a striker untill its too late, plays players out of positions, releases players for  no reason (crow, eddy, mackay), falls out with players, and says the samething after every game.

[ZLF 271]

Load of squit we are all guilty of blinkered views and neither the wo nor ktf groups have a greater claim on that ability or title!  IMO points 1 & 3 are in no way duplicates of each other and they could even be be mutually exclusive.   As always the truth is usually somewhere in the middle

Point one relates to the incompetence of the pevious manager to lead his team and point three recognizes the potential of the squad hamilton had built.  Hamilton was sacked for not using that squad to their best potential.

The reason why Worthy progressed was, as the new man in charge, he had an impact in inspiring a jaded set of players that the previous manager could no longer get to perform to their full potential.    

Looking at the end of the Hamilton era highlights many similarities with citys current situation - decent set of players failing to perform to theoir potential.   Where you and I differ Loads of is that you want to persevere with worthy and I want a new manager to take our current set of players to a level above where they are currently performing;  Worthy did that with Hamiltons squad; there is no reason why history should not be repeated.

Your view is no less valid than mine and I am happy to respect that - please give the same courtsey. 

[YankeeCanary 0]

Squit, I said your first response to the initiator of this thread was insulting. Having read your second post, however, I don''t think that''s your problem...you just don''t think clearly. Point 3 from Forbes does not contradict Point 1. Forbes17 is simply saying that some good players existed under Hamilton but the manager was not getting the best out of them. Worthington improved that situation. How is that a contradiction? Incidentally, my post had nothing to do with Worthy out or in. Some of you pro-Worthy people really do seem to be paranoic. It was simply saying that your initial response to Forbes17 was something less than it could have been. As a matter of fact, if you felt that he contradicted himself you could have said that ( even if it''s innaccurate ). I''m sure Forbes was just looking for reasonable responses.

[Chunky Norwich 0]

Oh wow! Can I say a big thanks to all the nice replies - very flattering! Obviously I''m not at all opposed to people disagreeing with one another (in fact that''s part of the joy of football) or me but, like I said, years ago the official site got really bogged down with very personal abuse and people prattling on about minibusses all the bloody time! In response to the guy who was asking about Worthy''s five-year-plan (sorry that I can''t remember your name) I would say a big well done to Worthington up to this year. He ''came in'' - I still must reiterate that he was Assistant Manager to the Blarneymeister - and cleared out a lot of dead wood (er which he sanctioned to sign). He then did a really good job but with the money and good luck on the injury front. It doesn''t take a genius to work out that if you''re winning games with players out of position or negative tactics, then it papers over the cracks nicely. I don''t think this is being fickle, it''s just common sense. I also don''t expect to win games all the time; I was watching games week-in and week-out when we were really awful. If we''ve gone out, put in a lot of effort and simply lost to a better side then that''s absolutely fine but it''s the lack of passion, lack of communication and playing with too many square pegs in round holes. At one game this season HALF our outfield players were loanees (Davenport, Etuhu, Robinson, Wright and Marney) but I forget which one and against Preston we had almost half the squad playing out of position, although aruguable in some cases. Fulham to me was a glorious example of our lack of motivation which was not the case when Worthington ''arrived'' and the players all started playing better (then some rewarded for it by being booted out of the club). In my very humble opinion, Worthington is a good coach and does well on the training field but is a hopeless manager at a tactical and money-spending level (and develops mysterious and long-lasting grudges). Over the Summer we were favourites to go back up and we didn''t really buy anyone decent, just a bunch of cloggers. Dave Jones goes to Cardiff who have no money and are overwhelming favourites to go down and gets in Koumas, Mulryne, Kevin Cooper, Purse and quite a few other decent players. Why couldn''t we? I always remember seeing an interview with Mike Newell quite a while ago and he said that football management was fairly easy; all you do is pass the ball well and attack and you''ll give anyone a game. It hasn''t surprised me in the least that Luton are doing well. There appears to be a very negative and defeatist attitude at this club (Fulham away again). In my ideal situation, Worthington should not be ''fired'' but kept on as a coach, because I think we could still use his coaching skills and it would be a nice thank you, and someone new brought in as manager who will play attacking, passing football and make intelligent and ambitious transfers. Hope this helps and once again thanks for all the nice comments!

[A Load of Squit 5,112]

[quote user="ZippersLeftFoot"]

Load of squit we are all guilty of blinkered views and neither the wo nor ktf groups have a greater claim on that ability or title!  IMO points 1 & 3 are in no way duplicates of each other and they could even be be mutually exclusive.   As always the truth is usually somewhere in the middle

Point one relates to the incompetence of the pevious manager to lead his team and point three recognizes the potential of the squad hamilton had built.  Hamilton was sacked for not using that squad to their best potential.

The reason why Worthy progressed was, as the new man in charge, he had an impact in inspiring a jaded set of players that the previous manager could no longer get to perform to their full potential.    

Looking at the end of the Hamilton era highlights many similarities with citys current situation - decent set of players failing to perform to theoir potential.   Where you and I differ Loads of is that you want to persevere with worthy and I want a new manager to take our current set of players to a level above where they are currently performing;  Worthy did that with Hamiltons squad; there is no reason why history should not be repeated.

Your view is no less valid than mine and I am happy to respect that - please give the same courtsey. 

[/quote]

You are as guilty as the first post of rewriting history. Please don''t use opinion as if it were fact as in your third paragraph.

 

 

 

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

[quote user="A load of squit"]

From Yankee Canary.

"p.s: Many young posters participating on this message board can sometimes be forgiven for their "young" responses ( they will improve with time ). However, I do not believe "A load of squit" to be a young poster and it is, therefore, disappointing to see such a foolish, brief summation from that corner to a very well articulated post from Forbes17. It comes across as insulting."

I find it insulting that point 3 contradicts point 1 in the original post and none of you WO''s could take your blinkers off long enough to notice.

[/quote]

SQUIT whose got the blinkers on???  i bet you rate hughes too!!!!  and Etuhu and Jarrett!!! 

their rubbish and on more money than Malcky, Iwan and Holt was on when they played their hearts out for this club!!

I will forgive hughes for being useless cos at least he works but Etuhu and Jarrett have been lazy sods YES lazy frikkin wastes of space.TRIPE with no talent.  Get the blinkers off and watch the matches buddy. you take safri out of the midfield and we have no midfield.  how much money have we sent down the crapper on these poor players??

I tell ya pre season i said time and time again on wrath that a midfield of Hughes and Safri was not gonna be good enough, little did i realise how bad the backup was gonna be

LATEST RANT OVER   [;)] lol i wish worthy would sign at least a little tiny bit of quality over january

 

[lucky green trainers 0]

i''d agree with alot of what you''ve said forbes17. 

Alot of people I talk too, still want worthy out though.its fair to say worthy and the prudence with ambition board have taken the club forward in the last five years, and after a cruddy start this season city are again playing  well and  winning games.  if worthy is anything, he is stubborn and a fighter - he could well have been 30 mins away from the sack at crewe, but city have bounced back well.  make no mistake, he''s here until the end of the season.

[A Load of Squit 5,112]

[quote user="Paul Rankin"][quote user="A load of squit"]

From Yankee Canary.

"p.s: Many young posters participating on this message board can sometimes be forgiven for their "young" responses ( they will improve with time ). However, I do not believe "A load of squit" to be a young poster and it is, therefore, disappointing to see such a foolish, brief summation from that corner to a very well articulated post from Forbes17. It comes across as insulting."

I find it insulting that point 3 contradicts point 1 in the original post and none of you WO''s could take your blinkers off long enough to notice.

[/quote]

SQUIT whose got the blinkers on???  i bet you rate hughes too!!!!  and Etuhu and Jarrett!!! 

their rubbish and on more money than Malcky, Iwan and Holt was on when they played their hearts out for this club!!

I will forgive hughes for being useless cos at least he works but Etuhu and Jarrett have been lazy sods YES lazy frikkin wastes of space.TRIPE with no talent.  Get the blinkers off and watch the matches buddy. you take safri out of the midfield and we have no midfield.  how much money have we sent down the crapper on these poor players??

I tell ya pre season i said time and time again on wrath that a midfield of Hughes and Safri was not gonna be good enough, little did i realise how bad the backup was gonna be

LATEST RANT OVER   [;)] lol i wish worthy would sign at least a little tiny bit of quality over january

 

[/quote]

I''ve never commented on individual players, if you feel that you have to put words in my mouth to make yourself feel vindicated then so be it.

Once again you people are reporting opinion as if it were fact and I believe that is wrong, when someone does post the facts you just ignore it and continue with your player X and player Y are crap posts and that is why you have no credibility.

 

[Andy OTBC 0]

Best post I''ve read in ages. Spot on.

Particularly like the bit about how promotion was more to do with Hucks and co than Worthington (even if he did sign them - look at who he was trying to sign before he got them) and why he didn''t continue playing attacking football as we had so much success with it.

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

ok squit i will not mention certain players again - to be honest it is unnessecary as anybody who goes to the matches can make thir own mind up and it aint difficult to see who is a quality player and who isnt. Who works hard and who is lazy.

I am just so peeved that from a position of being favorites worthy has wasted our cash in a variety of ways culminating in one of the worst players I have seen at carrow road these last few years meandering around the pitch for a couple of months then draining our coffers of half a million pounds!!!

I will not whinge about hughes or etuhu again.

cheers

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

[quote user="A load of squit"][quote user="ZippersLeftFoot"]

Load of squit we are all guilty of blinkered views and neither the wo nor ktf groups have a greater claim on that ability or title!  IMO points 1 & 3 are in no way duplicates of each other and they could even be be mutually exclusive.   As always the truth is usually somewhere in the middle

Point one relates to the incompetence of the pevious manager to lead his team and point three recognizes the potential of the squad hamilton had built.  Hamilton was sacked for not using that squad to their best potential.

The reason why Worthy progressed was, as the new man in charge, he had an impact in inspiring a jaded set of players that the previous manager could no longer get to perform to their full potential.    

Looking at the end of the Hamilton era highlights many similarities with citys current situation - decent set of players failing to perform to theoir potential.   Where you and I differ Loads of is that you want to persevere with worthy and I want a new manager to take our current set of players to a level above where they are currently performing;  Worthy did that with Hamiltons squad; there is no reason why history should not be repeated.

Your view is no less valid than mine and I am happy to respect that - please give the same courtsey. 

[/quote]

You are as guilty as the first post of rewriting history. Please don''t use opinion as if it were fact as in your third paragraph.

[/quote]

you are an idiot squit...  read Iwans book to find out exactly what the players thought of hamilton - they had had enough. they wanted him out because he was useless.  how jaded do you reckon that may have made them...

And the first poster was absolutely right we had some very good players at the club (as well as crappers like walsh derveld and de waard) people like nedergaard, mcveigh and malky whom did not get a game under Hamilton even though he signed them.

these are not opinions well yes they are they were the players opinions, Roberts Fleming etc.  They actually went to hamilton and told him to quit.

read the book mate - it makes some quite interesting comments about worthy and his favorites too.  And some of his baffling decisions at times.

And the first poster is absolutely right why the hell is there no right midfielder at the club?

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

Did Iwans book cost him his place at Carrow Road?

Was it really Hamilton who signed Malky?

 

[A Load of Squit 5,112]

I''ve read Iwans book and I believe he gives several examples of how NW is a consensus manager.

The first post goes like this;

We achieved this but it was because of that, every example given does not give the manager any credit which must be rewriting history.

If you had your way (i.e. if Iwan was treated the way you want to treat the current signings) after a poor start Iwan wouldn''t have had a brilliant career at Norwich, you would''ve got rid .  

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

im sorry squit but Iwan had opotential - he had always scored goals and been good at other clubs.  My problem with these signings is that you can see the trouble coming.

Edworthy is a better player than colin and Louis Jean.  he would have been cheaper than the 2 and he new the team.

Svenny did a great job in the 1st division, and was a good lad.  Why replace him with another ageing striker.

Hughes and Etuhu were players failing to do a good job at the clubs they were at, disliked by there own fans for in case 1) having not much ability and in case 2) going missing for most of the season. And we spent 1 million pounds on them. We are norwich -that is a shed load of money for us!!!

Unfortunatly we played good attacking football in getting promoted - now we are back to the long ball dross for most of this season.  he is failing to get the best from Ashton, and his concerns about work ethic are getting to ludicrious proportions where i doubt any skillfull player will turn up at norwich until he has left.  At the end of this season mcveigh will be gone ashton will be gone hucks will be a year older and the team will be full of donkeys.

I give worthy a lot of credit for getting us promoted.  He worked the board well signing crapper hammond who barely played forcing their hand and signed up the best norwich player in the last couple of years (Hucks).  more astute purchases in Svenny and Mckenzie followed and promotion was brilliant.

I dont think the signing of players for the prem were to bad either.  I still cant forget the sell malky for a pittance and replace him with a 5''8" left back and try to replace him with a 5''10"! right back (Primus)

[ZLF 271]

[quote user="A load of squit"]

You are as guilty as the first post of rewriting history. Please don''t use opinion as if it were fact as in your third paragraph.

[/quote]

I cant see how my third paragraph is opinion to be honest.  Worthy took over from a 5 match losing streak of hamiltons and immediately turned the clubs fortunes around  with that same core set of players .  Worthy made the same set of players compete and perform which they clearly had not been doing and kept us safe from what was a real threat of relegation - that is fact and in the record book and one that I have neither written nor re-written.

My 4th paragrph is more opinion led but again if you break down the first sentence of it do we have decent set of players (imo yes) and are we underacheiving (so far again imo yes) so I suggest (again an opnion but on the basis of the point being made and the answers to theprevious two  questions I suggest quite sound, unless you think we are either performing well or have a poor squad) that there are some similarities.  A key difference between the two managers is that there is not any evidence that there is a split between the manager and players (but I cant necessarily recall being much public evidence during Hamiltons time either).

My key point was responding  to your feeling insulted that the inital posts 1st & 3rd points contradict ed each other - I (and subsequentlyl others) have pointed out that it is your interpretation that needs to be more open minded - not everyone elses.

 

OTBC