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Canary Poirot

It's time Norwich sorted out a transfer strategy - before we sign more dross on long term contracts

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It''s about time Norwich sorted out its transfer strategy once and for all. I''m sick to death of us rushing out and buying any old Championship has been that is available for a move, and then offering them a long term deal, when it is obvious to almost all fans that those players are past it, not interested, and are only here for the money.

Norwich should sort out a transfer strategy. That means idenitfying positions in the team which need strengthening at least one season in advance, and looking hard to find players to bring in to replace that position - a year in advance. Not in one week. Not a month before the season starts. But a year.

Secondly, we should only be looking to sign players under 25 years old, from League 1 and 2 teams, or from non-league. We want/need up and coming young, promising and hungry players. We should be scouring these lower divisions for young promising talent, so we spot them before they appear on tv and every manager knows who they are. The only time we move away from such a strategy is to capture a first team player/star from a Premiership side or Championship side. But such players would be our big money signings.

This strategy automatically means we don''t: sign any reserve players from Championship sides (they''re reserves because they''re has beens and never will be''s), we don''t sign any old cart horses on long deals who are here for the money and only score about 1 goal a season. We must never again sign another player who has failed in the Premiership, or struggled in the Championship. We don''t need, and we don''t want players like that. Players like Grey, Omerod, Adebola, Lisbie are all players who would add absolutely nothing to our team. They''re a complete waste of time and effort. I don''t care if they have ''Premiership'' experience. How many goals have they collectively scored at that level? Exactly.

Lets sort this mess out, and start planning our transfers. Identify our needs early, find the players we want, and make sure over the course of a season we get them. Young, hungry, promising and talented. That''s what we should be aiming for.

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I forgot to add...

We should also plan ahead for contingencies. That means, considering who we might need if we get promoted. It was clearly obvious last time we went up, there had been no forward planning, and we simply signed whoever we could get. We need to identify a year ahead, the players we need and could get given different future outcomes.

This club needs a serious overhaul of its scouting and transfer strategies. And it needs to happen fast. Before the fans lynch someone for signing another cart horse.

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"We must never again sign another player who has failed in the Premiership."

On that logic we''d never have signed Huckerby. Each transfer target has to be examined individually.

Sometimes players take a while to come good. That normally means a good long run in a settled confident team, free from injury.

However, I agree with this:

"That means idenitfying positions in the team which need strengthening at least one season in advance, and looking hard to find players to bring in to replace that position - a year in advance. Not in one week. Not a month before the season starts. But a year."

But how do we know that the management team wasn''t trying to do this? It''s not necessarily easy to bring players to East Anglia, although I''d say that this season we''ve been particularly unlucky. I''ve already written off this season. We''re going nowhere - neither up nor down. What needs to happen is that this current team needs to be freshened up with new recruits and then work at getting everything together for next season.

Your last paragraph is a goal worth aiming for, Poirot.

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Do we have any scouts at Norwich, Two have come out and complained about the setup, but what are the rest doing or is just a case of Worthy closing his eyes and sticking a pin in the rest of the championships reserve list and buying them.  I believe he had been planning to buy Ethoohoo at the beginning of the season but Everton scared him off with a £1m bid. Thats probably the same bid that was talked about for Brennan going to the toffees for £75000. Surely if they had scouted him properly they would have seen what the Preston fans were saying that he was exactly as he has turned out, rubbish.  The same goes for Hughes and many of his other signings. Use the scouts in the lower leagues and buy promising talent, such as Dury and add the odd journeyman to pass on their experience, Robinson perhaps. Unfortunately I have to agree there seems to be no strategy and Worthy just jumping for what ever he can get his hands on and fit into his narrow mould of a player.

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Problem is Poirot , that   its very hard to  define " past it  "  , also , unless we have a mind reader on the staff , who is going to know , in advance , who  is " not interested "   and who is  " only here for the money "  ......

As for identifying  what positions need  filling , a year in advance  !!    you tell me how this is going to work !    injuries , players being sold and bought  ,  losses of form ,  a whole list of  problems can arise in the course of a season ....  you would need a brain the size of Britain  to  take in all these probabilites   and possibilities , then reach the correct  solution !!

As for scouring the lower divs for  talent ,  this is already being done  by most clubs !   and the big prem clubs can employ scores of scouts   , whereas we have what , one or two ?    and not very good ones at that !    I get the impression that our scout/s   spends most of his time propping  up the bar  while he reads through the local rags  ....   little wonder , then , that Nigel  looks at this scouts " reports "   and picks a wrong-un   !!  

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That transfer stratergy sounds very much like the one inplace at Sunderland. Now not to prejudge but i dont think it has work very well!

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Before we decide on a transfer strategy I think we ought to decide on a playing strategy. Then we may be able to plan for the type of player we need, how many, what level of experience etc

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Yeah or we could buy a time machine and go forward in time and see if they''ve improved, return and not sign them if they havent.

How about holding a register of all the fans on here who are masters of hindsight and Nigel has to phone them when he''s identified a player and they say yes or no.

Maybe we start cloning all the current internationals and create a wonderteam.

 

 

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But I think both have been sorted - we saw the long ball game on Sat and we have a reputed interest in Brett Ormerod and Adebola!  Sounds like a linked strategy to me[:)][:''(][:(]

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[quote user="A load of squit"]

Yeah or we could buy a time machine and go forward in time and see if they''ve improved, return and not sign them if they havent.

How about holding a register of all the fans on here who are masters of hindsight and Nigel has to phone them when he''s identified a player and they say yes or no.

Maybe we start cloning all the current internationals and create a wonderteam.

 

 

[/quote]

no hindsight was needed to assess the abilities of Andy Hughes, Jason Jarrett (Whom missed most of Wigans promotion year) and Dickson Etuhu.  Just a decent scout and an able manager

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

Yeah or we could buy a time machine and go forward in time and see if they''ve improved, return and not sign them if they havent.

How about holding a register of all the fans on here who are masters of hindsight and Nigel has to phone them when he''s identified a player and they say yes or no.

Maybe we start cloning all the current internationals and create a wonderteam.

[/quote]

no hindsight was needed to assess the abilities of Andy Hughes, Jason Jarrett (Whom missed most of Wigans promotion year) and Dickson Etuhu.  Just a decent scout and an able manager

[/quote]

Is that why you changed your mind about Andy Hughes? And I''m very dissappointed that you haven''t discussed my other two suggestions.

 

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transfer strategy is sorted. Worthy has had more cash than any previous manager to spend. He has spent it, now he should be judged on these purchases. Keep the Ashton cash, evry club knows we have it and only a week to spend it so we will get ripped off.

If Worthy fails to get us to the play offs replace him and use the Ashton cash for the new manager to build his team.

 

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lol Dicky/Squat, well whomever he gets to look at players needs sacking like him.  as i said no hindsight was needed, if you sign a crap player you get a crap player.

and no i dont want to tell Nigel who to sign, i want nigel out of the club ASAP For NORWICH CITY FOOTBALL CLUBS SAKE

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In response Sheded - while what you say is true, that short term setbacks, such as injuries and loss of form occur, are not dealt with in my proposed strategy, it was an oversight by myself, as oppossed to my non interest in dealing with such impacts. Short term loans should be advocated as the solution to such problems, the quality of which is dependent on who is available at short notice, a matter which is out of the hands of the manager, a situation you simply have to accept.

As for another point - I was asked by one fan to forward my proposed strategy to Neil Doncaster. I will summarise his response here for all:

Where I mention Norwich should sort out a transfer strategy by identifying positions in the team which need strengthening at least one season in advance, and looking hard to find players to bring in to replace that position Neil Doncaster replied as saying: -[Neil Doncaster] your point makes two key assumptions: 1. that we do not already identify players well in advance - the reality is that we do. Our scouts are continually monitoring players who would add to our squad.  2. that we can predict the future - both in terms of injuries, form of players, sales of players - we cannot. No-one here wanted to sell Dean, in this transfer window or any other. But as soon as it became patently clear that the player did not want to be here, we had to act. It is all very well having a long-term vision, but that vision needs to be flexible enough to cope with the unexpected and unforeseeable events that football throws at you.

Mr. Doncaster largely makes the point Sheded makes, saying that the proposed long term strategy is inflexible to the short term needs - which is fair.

I then go on to make the point we should only be looking to sign players under 25 years old, from League 1 and 2 teams, or from non-league. We want/need up and coming young, promising and hungry players. We should be scouring these lower divisions for young promising talent. The only time we move away from such a strategy is to capture a first team player/star from a Premiership side or Championship side. But such players would be our big money signings. Neil Doncaster responded by saying:
[Neil Doncaster]  the reality is that, with the professionalism of scouting networks and the proliferation of information about players, virtually all players who show potential are spotted at a very early stage - usually well before they even play professional football. Hence the number of scouts who watch Academy games. These days, it is simply much harder to find ''undiscovered gems'' than once it was. And with the Academy rules on travel time, we are severly restricted in which young players we can bring in.

Again Mr Doncaster''s point is fair, and shows that basically, the highest bidder wins in the race to sign quality from the lower divisions, and that we are constrained by geography when signing acadamy players, with the FA''s rules concerning distance. 

 

I then went on to say that we should not be aiming to sign under-performing Premiership players, which was shot down by Mr Doncaster in terms of Huckerby, Crouch and Harper - although I should point out that it was fairly obvious Huckerby would be a top talent as he has a proven record at this level, and Crouch has had some success in the past at Portsmouth and QPR. Additionally I mentioned my fears at the rumours of us signing Grey, Ormerod, Adebola and Lisbie, the response to this was follows, but note - included no denial of Worthington''s interest in them, but given the timescales left in January to sign players, it would appear at first glance that they won''t be signed:

[Neil Doncaster]  i am not aware that Nigel has any interest in Grey, Ormerod, Adebola or Lisbie. But, remember that Huckerby, Crouch and Harper were all under-performing for their respective Premier League sides two years ago - each of them came in and helped propel the Club towards promotion.

Finally Mr Doncaster made the point that the club does make contingency plans to sign players in case we win promotion, and makes the point that signing young, promising hungry players is expensive.

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