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Dean Coneys boots

Not unlucky. Not clever.

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Two common claims need squashing because neither are true. 

1. we have been unlucky. I don’t agree. Certainly a few unlucky moments but everyone gets those. Bottom line; we are losing even when we play well. This suggests a lack of quality to compete and a lack of depth in the squad. 

Not unlucky then but ill equipped and this comes down to the risible spend in the summer. Shameful lack of investment meant we were doomed to struggle before a ball was kicked. 
 

2. Our new Webberlution is working. No it isn’t. Certainly a better vision than in recent years by building up youth talent but that wasn’t difficult. however one season of promotion, arguably a season of over achievement, doesn’t prove a work of overall genius. 

And it is very hard to see how we improve from here. By once again looking the gift horse in the mouth and failing to invest wisely the board have ensured any progress is halted. Go down, which now seems all but guaranteed, and we will lose the best of our team and be left with those unable to compete at this level. 

A squandered season then when once more the board have failed to make us competitive at this level. Another opportunity to establish ourselves fast vanishing. 

Not unlucky then nor wiser than most, as teams like Sheff Utd are proving, but frustrated by underinvestment and now reaping the harvest of a very poor summer spend 
 

 

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"building up youth talent but that wasn't difficult"

Couldn't read past that. If it's so easy to build up youth talent then I'm guessing every club in the Championship / similarly sized club has just as many young players worth the same or more as ours?

Oh sorry, just read the last sentence. Sheff Utd are now the club to beat the current club with. Oh for the days when it was Charlton.

 

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I’m guessing your concept of “investing” involves sticking a quid in a fruit machine, or a tenner on a horse?

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You clearly need a lesson in how to read then, because my point wasn’t that building up youth is easy but that having a better vision than in recent years wasn’t difficult. 

Nor did I say we should emulate sheff Utd. I merely stated that the way they went about their business this season has proved more successful than the way we did - to show our vision isn’t as clever as many wish us to believe 

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2 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

I’m guessing your concept of “investing” involves sticking a quid in a fruit machine, or a tenner on a horse?

I'm guessing lower than that. A fiver in a stripper's pants.

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Just now, Dean Coneys boots said:

You clearly need a lesson in how to read then, because my point wasn’t that building up youth is easy but that having a better vision than in recent years wasn’t difficult. 

Nor did I say we should emulate sheff Utd. I merely stated that the way they went about their business this season has proved more successful than the way we did - to show our vision isn’t as clever as many wish us to believe 

It must be hard for you being such a unappreciated genuis.

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3 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

Nor did I say we should emulate sheff Utd. I merely stated that the way they went about their business this season has proved more successful than the way we did - to show our vision isn’t as clever as many wish us to believe 

Yes it has been, but that's because they have more money to invest. I'm not disputing that we could/should have done a better job of strengthening the squad, but they spent north of £40m on players, which we were never going to be able to do.

 
 
 
 
 
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17 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

2. Our new Webberlution is working. No it isn’t. Certainly a better vision than in recent years by building up youth talent but that wasn’t difficult. however one season of promotion, arguably a season of over achievement, doesn’t prove a work of overall genius. 

So you won't praise him because he might balls it up in the future? We have achieved what we set out to achieve sooner than we expected to achieve it; looking at the squad, we probably got promoted a year too early. Can we not just wait and see what happens next season rather than pre-empting future failure?

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18 minutes ago, hogesar said:

"building up youth talent but that wasn't difficult"

Couldn't read past that. If it's so easy to build up youth talent then I'm guessing every club in the Championship / similarly sized club has just as many young players worth the same or more as ours?

Oh sorry, just read the last sentence. Sheff Utd are now the club to beat the current club with. Oh for the days when it was Charlton.

 

Spot on the money, I literally stopped reading after that. Webber has been a breath of fresh air and modernised this stagnant club. After our U18 success, there seemed to be little interest in developing youth. The fact that we won the championship and look very healthy in the youth department is a testament to everything Webber is doing, whilst getting very little help from the board. Good on the bloke and a huge credit to the scouting team.

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This is the problem. Apparently Webber isn't successful, but the fact we got promoted and won the league last season IS success. Which the OP now doesn't recognise. Which is extremely odd because he was one of a group of posters who said that under our owners we didn't stand a chance of being competitive in the Championship.

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I do recognise it. And it isn't Webber I would criticise as much as those behind him. 

 But as to judging the revolution- nothing has been achieved yet that we haven't already achieved before. Success at Norwich, moving to the next level, is establishing ourselves in the Premiership. And this has been the very worst attempt at it. Look at the table. 

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He came here in 2017. Cleared out the deadwood. Steadied the ship. Assembled one of the cheapest teams we've had. Got us promotion ,playing some of the best football we've seen, in 2019. I think that is pretty bloody impressive.

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Webber, as with Farke, is open to critique and deserves some criticism for the business of the past summer where he's missed far more than he's hit.

The overall changes he seems to have implemented though far outweigh the negatives and I'm much more comfortable and confident with him in post than our previous set ups.

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6 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

I do recognise it. And it isn't Webber I would criticise as much as those behind him. 

 But as to judging the revolution- nothing has been achieved yet that we haven't already achieved before. Success at Norwich, moving to the next level, is establishing ourselves in the Premiership. And this has been the very worst attempt at it. Look at the table. 

Well, you'd better get used to it because that simply doesn't exist for a club our size. Not really, anyway. You can trick yourself into thinking you're established by staying up for 3 or 4 years but that's all it is.

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Just now, king canary said:

Webber, as with Farke, is open to critique and deserves some criticism for the business of the past summer where he's missed far more than he's hit.

The overall changes he seems to have implemented though far outweigh the negatives and I'm much more comfortable and confident with him in post than our previous set ups.

A fair post. Much as I love Webber, we've seen very little value from the collective transfers of Fahrmann, Amadou, Roberts and Drmic.

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Let’s be frank this season has been a disaster when you look back at the Hughton era with fondness then you know we have problems 

the self funding model can’t work and it’s time for a proper debate about where the clubs goes from here

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Agree entirely with King Canary's summary. I am a fan of Webber and Farke. I simply find it very frustrating that they have been thrown under the bus somewhat by the derisory spend in the summer. It was like asking someone to buy a decent and reliable family car for £300. I am not calling for either of them to go. I am asking serious questions regarding the level of ambition the board shows. Too many give them an easy pass for sentimental reasons. And I have said for some time that I think they are holding the club back these days, even though they saved us in the past. What this season has shown very clearly is that they are bygones of a different era. A board who wish to run the club on a national/local level in an era of global investment. It isn't working and, in terms of finances, we are falling down the ladder very fast. It is all well and good courting investment - but they want it without relinquishing control. And yet they cannot keep us competitive long term I fear without selling off the best talent and hoping for the best. That isn't a long term strategy to bring lasting success. Maintain it and prepare to wave goodbye to Farke, Webber, Buendia, Aarons et al... which is tragic because last summer was a perfect time to add four decent players and cement a mid table finish to cement a place in this division. Instead we are looking at relegation, sales and then a new four year plan no doubt. 

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3 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

...What this season has shown very clearly is that they are bygones of a different era. A board who wish to run the club on a national/local level in an era of global investment. It isn't working and, in terms of finances, we are falling down the ladder very fast. ...

It isn’t working to you because you won’t look beyond the end of your nose.
 

Did it work last season? If we go down, reinvest, carry on picking up underrated players and combine them with astutely chosen academy products and come back up again stronger than this season, will it be working again?

 

The point is that this is a long-term plan. Any particular point on the plan may not look like the desired goal, but that doesn’t mean at the higher level that it isn’t working.
 

I completely understand that there are no guarantees if we go down, but IMHO we are much, much better prepared than in previous years.

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4 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

It isn’t working to you because you won’t look beyond the end of your nose.
 

Did it work last season? If we go down, reinvest, carry on picking up underrated players and combine them with astutely chosen academy products and come back up again stronger than this season, will it be working again?

 

The point is that this is a long-term plan. Any particular point on the plan may not look like the desired goal, but that doesn’t mean at the higher level that it isn’t working.
 

I completely understand that there are no guarantees if we go down, but IMHO we are much, much better prepared than in previous years.

Quite possible we could be very competitive next season but to do what if promotion came calling ? Is that when we would see adequate investment or just cross our fingers again ?

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If we go down we would more likely than not see our best talent leave and then discover that other teams in the Champs are still outspending us. Then we would be back to square one. My question to those who seem to think relegation is no big deal is this. How does that help us move forwards? What guarantees we can bounce back when many have not? What happens if we dont? 

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6 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

If we go down we would more likely than not see our best talent leave and then discover that other teams in the Champs are still outspending us. Then we would be back to square one. My question to those who seem to think relegation is no big deal is this. How does that help us move forwards? What guarantees we can bounce back when many have not? What happens if we dont? 

Teams in the champs were well, well outspending us last season. What's your point?

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59 minutes ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

Spot on the money, I literally stopped reading after that. Webber has been a breath of fresh air and modernised this stagnant club. After our U18 success, there seemed to be little interest in developing youth. The fact that we won the championship and look very healthy in the youth department is a testament to everything Webber is doing, whilst getting very little help from the board. Good on the bloke and a huge credit to the scouting team.

This ignores the fact that all of the "youth" talent currently in our first team were "developed" in the period subsequent to that U18 success and before Webber arrived. Most were brought in by Broughton under the previous acedemy regime. Fair enough Farke may have put them in the first team and given them a chance but it will not be possible to judge the effectiveness or otherwise of the changes that have been made to the academy for a few years yet.

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Even though we are routed to the bottom of the league, i think this is the strongest senior management team we could hope for.

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59 minutes ago, hogesar said:

This is the problem. Apparently Webber isn't successful, but the fact we got promoted and won the league last season IS success. Which the OP now doesn't recognise. Which is extremely odd because he was one of a group of posters who said that under our owners we didn't stand a chance of being competitive in the Championship.

Promotion from the championship is an achievement and one to be highly commended (especially in the context it was achieved) but in the longer term success would be sustaining a place in the premier league and maybe winning a cup competition. 

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5 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

If we go down we would more likely than not see our best talent leave and then discover that other teams in the Champs are still outspending us. Then we would be back to square one. My question to those who seem to think relegation is no big deal is this. How does that help us move forwards? What guarantees we can bounce back when many have not? What happens if we dont? 

We find ourselves still in the Championship with money in the bank , no debt and a healthy cashflow.

We haven't had much luck while in the Premiership - eg we dropped out just as the Sky money came in. I'd say we'd have fared better last year, when there were some basket cases in the Prem. This season the Prem looks to be a stronger division.

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12 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

If we go down we would more likely than not see our best talent leave and then discover that other teams in the Champs are still outspending us. Then we would be back to square one. My question to those who seem to think relegation is no big deal is this. How does that help us move forwards? What guarantees we can bounce back when many have not? What happens if we dont? 

You're such a ray of sunshine aren't you DCB.  Before you go to bed at night do you ask yourself if the world is going to be obliterated by an asteroid tomorrow or whether aliens hellbent on destroying mankind are currently travelling to planet earth? 

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50 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Well, you'd better get used to it because that simply doesn't exist for a club our size. Not really, anyway. You can trick yourself into thinking you're established by staying up for 3 or 4 years but that's all it is.

But think what you can do with 3 or 4 years of top flight football if you use the money wisely (unlike us last time). Bournemouth, Palace, Watford, Leicester, Wolves, West Ham - these clubs have been transformed long term by taking their opportunities, even if they may go down at some point. We on the other hand have this never ending cycle of up and down which makes building anything extremely difficult because we are constantly having to adjust our budget year on year.

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I can understand your frustration DCB but I really do not get writing Norwich City FC off next season before a ball is kicked.

It was suggested that Daniel Farke and his rag, tag and bobtail squad of kids and 3rd/4th tier Germans would get us relegated but of course that did not happen.

As far as "established" in the Premier League is concerned what does that even mean? (how many seasons do you survive to become established). 

I have always been of the opinion that the club should have spent more than it did  in the summer, but i admit to having no idea how much to spend and on who without it being something of a gamble and putting the club in a poor financial state, spending more may have given us more of a chance, who knows, that will always be a subject of discussion and opinion rather than fact.......

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52 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Well, you'd better get used to it because that simply doesn't exist for a club our size. Not really, anyway. You can trick yourself into thinking you're established by staying up for 3 or 4 years but that's all it is.

To stay in the top league even for two seasons seems well beyond us let alone 3 or 4; things have changed so much money wise in the top league even since the Lambert days.

OTBC

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