The ‘Project’..?!?

[yellow_belly 227]

Ok, I know that this is being briefly discussed on another post but...

Being ‘simple’, what is the actual project?

I believe FeedTheWolf summed up the plan on another thread, but it would be great to fully understand it.

1. As far I can see the ‘Project’ is just a mission statement eg. “Ideally we'd be top 20 but how we see it is to aim to be a top 26 club.” (Zoe Ward) The PL has 20 teams. Obviously 18,19, 20 get relegated. So we would love to be a yo-yo team, at best?!?

(Zoe Ward manages Norwich City Football Club’s Football Administration function which includes Club Secretarial, Player Liaison, First Team and Academy Operations... and is married to Stuart Webber)

2. Stuart Webber (The Director of Football & husband of Zoe Ward). Will leave in 2022. One would assume that ZW would leave at this point as well. SW will help find his successor. Would Ben Kensell also leave at this point? The three ‘manage‘ the Club on a day to day basis. Thus this would leave a big hole in the daily running of the club.

3. Delia (Aged 79) and MWJ (nearly Aged 79) plan to “hand the reigns” to their nephew, Tom Smith. TS a was a civil servant for a decade and  then “set up” a photography business. Not much is know how well this business traded for the couple of years. One may assume that he is not a man of means, or success; but again I may be proved wrong.

4. DF (our head coach) has been rewarded a couple of years extension on promotion (rightly). He was a ‘Cheap punt’ given his experience and did wonderfully last year. This successful year is sandwiched between two disappointing years. He has never been given / trusted with transfer funds. He has been found wanting this year and is on course for a record low points tally in this league.

5. To be self sufficient. Buy / play young players, and 🤞sell them on for a profit. Repeat.

So what is the plan / strategy? Is it to be debt free to allow Tim Smith an attractive club to sell? To Yo-yo (yay/boo/yay repeat - never dull). However, it would take a lot to be a dull position (mid table in the championship) or relegated as we were a few years ago with ‘Rodant’/ Gunn..?

Happy to be educated...

[Canary Wundaboy 1,423]

"The Project" is a veil designed to hide the fact that our owners cannot invest in the club and therefore we cannot compete. "The Project" is to buy young and cheap, and hope that we can gain some moderate success (but not too much, as we don't want the fans to get too excited and demand that we spend some money to compete properly) and sell off some of the better young players to keep the club running without any additional investment required.

"The Project" is designed to do one, simple thing: Keep the club afloat in Delia's hands so she can hand it off to her penniless nephew. It makes absolutely zero sense from a competitive view (you have to buy better players to compete at higher levels) or from a business view (to grow, businesses need investment, you speculate to accumulate), but it will keep the (for some reason, easily placated) Norwich fanbase relatively happy until she can hand the club over without too much discontent from the terraces.

Of course, if everything falls apart next season, then we'll see just how much the fans are really behind it.

[yellow_belly 227]

That’s what I think. But I often read that others believe that we have this amazing master plan. To me it is just good marketing.  Surely every club says we want to do this and be this, give us lots of time and we will achieve this but be mindful that their will be plenty of ups and downs along the journey. They you go I just wrote a football plan haha

Edited July 6, 2020 by yellow_belly

[king canary 8,758]

The project itself is both fine and actually not that unusual- as discussed on another thread Southampton are currently doing something similar.

The issue is that any project such as this will need to involve taking some form of calculated risks and gambles, something we refused to do this season. 

With your questions- I'd imagine Kieran Scott would be much more likely than Kensell to take over Webber's role if we promoted from within as it is a football role rather than finance/administration which is where BK's experience lies. I don't think it follows that Ward would leave if Webber did though- didn't she work here before he did?

 

[Herman 11,136]

I'm behind it. I think it is a great idea to be self sufficient and be able to rely on ourselves rather than someone else's money. I think some are so stuck in the "throw money at it" type of mentality that it is hard to accept change.

[king canary 8,758]

1 minute ago, Herman said:

I'm behind it. I think it is a great idea to be self sufficient and be able to rely on ourselves rather than someone else's money. I think some are so stuck in the "throw money at it" type of mentality that it is hard to accept change.

Some may be.

Others, I think, see the need sometimes to speculate to accumulate so to speak. 

[yellow_belly 227]

4 minutes ago, Herman said:

I'm behind it. I think it is a great idea to be self sufficient and be able to rely on ourselves rather than someone else's money. I think some are so stuck in the "throw money at it" type of mentality that it is hard to accept change.

I think it is brilliant to be self sufficient... I really really do!!. I am sure Crewe were for many years! Find players, develop players, sell players repeat. They played good football, had a long term manager, everyone liked their brand of football and ...played in lowly divisions.

But what is the actual plan, Herman? You haven’t actually  explained this...

Edited July 6, 2020 by yellow_belly

[Herman 11,136]

1 minute ago, king canary said:

Some may be.

Others, I think, see the need sometimes to speculate to accumulate so to speak. 

That's what we are doing with players like Madison and Godfrey, for example, and some of the other signings we have made.

[yellow_belly 227]

4 minutes ago, king canary said:

Some may be.

Others, I think, see the need sometimes to speculate to accumulate so to speak. 

Most people, not just on football, take calculated ‘risks’.

Buying a house with a mortgage (debt) is speculating that you can be employed to repay it, that you like the house, that it will go up in value when you want to sell etc 

[king canary 8,758]

Just now, Herman said:

That's what we are doing with players like Madison and Godfrey, for example, and some of the other signings we have made.

Yes but you have to scale that upwards at some point if you want to stay in the top division.

[hogesar 10,768]

Just now, Herman said:

That's what we are doing with players like Madison and Godfrey, for example, and some of the other signings we have made.

And some we are yet to make. Fair to say we didn't do it this season in either window though - not directly for the first team anyway.

[Canary Wundaboy 1,423]

1 minute ago, Herman said:

That's what we are doing with players like Madison and Godfrey, for example, and some of the other signings we have made.

It's great that we had Maddison to sell. It's fantastic that we could stop the club by going under by taking the money for him. It was crushing that we had to sell one of the best players I've ever seen in a City shirt because it was the only way to plug a financial black hole, and we sold him for as much as our owners are worth, total. It's sad that instead of having an exciting young player like Maddison at the club, building a competitive team around him to challenge for silverware etc, we had to sell him just to balance the books.

[yellow_belly 227]

1 minute ago, Herman said:

That's what we are doing with players like Madison and Godfrey, for example, and some of the other signings we have made.

I read it that we need to, sometimes speculate eg take a risk and spend Some actual money and buy a ‘quality / established’ player that COULD improve the first team rather than buy a Promising league one or League 2 player and sell them on for lots of money.

[yellow_belly 227]

I miss Madison. He was brilliant and really exciting.

[Mason 47 1,926]

12 minutes ago, king canary said:

The project itself is both fine and actually not that unusual- as discussed on another thread Southampton are currently doing something similar.

The issue is that any project such as this will need to involve taking some form of calculated risks and gambles, something we refused to do this season. 

With your questions- I'd imagine Kieran Scott would be much more likely than Kensell to take over Webber's role if we promoted from within as it is a football role rather than finance/administration which is where BK's experience lies. I don't think it follows that Ward would leave if Webber did though- didn't she work here before he did?

 

We gambled this year IMO that securing the players we already had and adding a few backups might see us through. It didn't work and I think Webber and Farke got taught a lesson in what was required.

I'd expect a very different focus of purchases from here on out 

[Herman 11,136]

1 minute ago, king canary said:

Yes but you have to scale that upwards at some point if you want to stay in the top division.

I don't disagree but you have to say we are only at the early stages of this. We haven't accumulated enough to pay off debts and buy higher quality players. We probably need another yo to this yo before we can say how well it is working. It's long term so we are going to have to get the hump for a while yet.

[yellow_belly 227]

2 minutes ago, Herman said:

I don't disagree but you have to say we are only at the early stages of this. We haven't accumulated enough to pay off debts and buy higher quality players. We probably need another yo to this yo before we can say how well it is working. It's long term so we are going to have to get the hump for a while yet.

But what is the plan? To keep yo-yo ing? We have no actual right to yo-yo!

[Bill 1,788]

I believe it also means the club will move to a new stadium at the show ground which will allow students to lease back peppercorns that they have developed 

 

ps apologies if I am not daft enough to take your obvious troll seriously, Mr Yellow Smelly 🤪

[nutty nigel 7,902]

If only we'd only been relegated once. We wouldn't have all these worries then.

[canarydan23 4,762]

1 minute ago, yellow_belly said:

But what is the plan? To keep yo-yo ing? We have no actual right to yo-yo!

I suspect the plan is to bank the parachute payments, sell a handful of our promising youngsters for big, big cash, bank the vast majority of that too, buy in cheaper replacements and hope that the squad that remains and the additions are enough to get us back into the Premier League. Then we start the 2021/22 campaign in a position to not only splash some serious cash in the transfer market, but to splash some cash safe in the knowledge that if we do get relegated once again, the future of the club is not in jeopardy. Basically, we will go down and still be among the top 26 clubs in the country. We won't go down and be like Hull, Sunderland, Stoke et al.

That's what the top 26 thing is all about in my eyes, and it's a perfectly reasonable approach to running a club of our size and stature. 

[yellow_belly 227]

9 minutes ago, Bill said:

I believe it also means the club will move to a new stadium at the show ground which will allow students to lease back peppercorns that they have developed 

 

ps apologies if I am not daft enough to take your obvious troll seriously, Mr Yellow Smelly 🤪

Why am I a troll to ask what the plan is? I don’t really understand it?

Why would students want to live near to Carrow road when the university and NUA is quite a distance away, and accommodation is a) built & b ) closer. Seems a rather daft plan. But I appreciate your credentials as a successful property developer. 
 

ps Ben Kensell mentioned at that Accounts briefing; that we have purchased two parcels of land adjacent to ground (to presumably help with the extension of the city stand!) Perhaps this is needed for the student bike shed 🤷‍♂️

Edited July 6, 2020 by yellow_belly

[canarydan23 4,762]

Just now, nutty nigel said:

If only we'd only been relegated once. We wouldn't have all these worries then.

Yeah, I love these numpties who keep going on about how we're the most relegated team from the Premier League. Take your head out of your backside and realise that there are dozens and dozens and dozens of clubs who would absolutely love that accolade.

[king canary 8,758]

4 minutes ago, Mason 47 said:

We gambled this year IMO that securing the players we already had and adding a few backups might see us through. It didn't work and I think Webber and Farke got taught a lesson in what was required.

I'd expect a very different focus of purchases from here on out 

That's fair.

I think with 20/20 hindsight we went in the wrong direction on pretty much every point this past summer.

1- Giving contracts to plays who hadn't proved they can cut it at a higher level (sidenote, I wonder if this might make some players harder to shift).

2- Going down the loan route to try and add quality.

3- Randomly finding £15m down the back of the sofa on the last day of the transfer window but still being unable to use it

[ricardo 8,034]

7 minutes ago, Bill said:

I believe it also means the club will move to a new stadium at the show ground which will allow students to lease back peppercorns that they have developed 

 

ps apologies if I am not daft enough to take your obvious troll seriously, Mr Yellow Smelly 🤪

Are they building it on the Bacon Lettuce and Tomato Triangle?

[yellow_belly 227]

Just now, king canary said:

That's fair.

I think with 20/20 hindsight we went in the wrong direction on pretty much every point this past summer.

1- Giving contracts to plays who hadn't proved they can cut it at a higher level (sidenote, I wonder if this might make some players harder to shift).

2- Going down the loan route to try and add quality.

3- Randomly finding £15m down the back of the sofa on the last day of the transfer window but still being unable to use it

But where is the money? We needed to furlough staff very quickly because we had no money?! Again this makes little sense to me. (Again happy to be educated rather than being called a troll)

[Mason 47 1,926]

Just now, king canary said:

That's fair.

I think with 20/20 hindsight we went in the wrong direction on pretty much every point this past summer.

1- Giving contracts to plays who hadn't proved they can cut it at a higher level (sidenote, I wonder if this might make some players harder to shift).

2- Going down the loan route to try and add quality.

3- Randomly finding £15m down the back of the sofa on the last day of the transfer window but still being unable to use it

Yep, hard agree. They had an idea, tried, it didn't work- I also think we dropped a lot of money on contracts for players we thought would be in high demand who have since shown they aren't quite top-level ready. The bright side for me is Webber wouldn't go on quoting Matthew Syed without keen interest in working back over his own mistakes.

I think we will have a much hardier, stronger side at the start of next year who can play football (but maybe not quite as technically proficient as the current incumbents) 

[Alex Moss 2,167]

4 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

It's great that we had Maddison to sell. It's fantastic that we could stop the club by going under by taking the money for him. It was crushing that we had to sell one of the best players I've ever seen in a City shirt because it was the only way to plug a financial black hole, and we sold him for as much as our owners are worth, total. It's sad that instead of having an exciting young player like Maddison at the club, building a competitive team around him to challenge for silverware etc, we had to sell him just to balance the books.

It’s not that simple, CW.

We wouldn’t have kept Maddison even if we didn’t have to balance the books. And most certainly not long enough to build this European cup winning team around him.

I’ve said it before, but I honestly believe some of you really do think there’s a list as long as here to the Middle East of rich investors queuing up to buy our club. Well where are they? Growing on trees? Kid yourself it would never get out but trust me, if the big boys seriously came calling it would be very hard to keep it completely hidden from the media etc, not in this day and age. The way you just talk like we have a divine right over 100’s of other clubs around Europe to gain some super rich wealthy owners is just unreal, and to be honest with you, is fantasy talk in the nicest possible way. This may come as a complete shock to you but I too would like to see someone come here with a sh1tload of money (though I would also like to see the clubs best interests at heart though because I actually care about it - it’s not our ‘plaything’, it’s got to be here for future generations too - see Wigan).

Regardless, I really don’t get why everyone has this idea that we’re such an interesting proposition for such people. Why on earth should we be?

[PurpleCanary 6,387]

45 minutes ago, yellow_belly said:

Ok, I know that this is being briefly discussed on another post but...

Being ‘simple’, what is the actual project?

I believe FeedTheWolf summed up the plan on another thread, but it would be great to fully understand it.

1. As far I can see the ‘Project’ is just a mission statement eg. “Ideally we'd be top 20 but how we see it is to aim to be a top 26 club.” (Zoe Ward) The PL has 20 teams. Obviously 18,19, 20 get relegated. So we would love to be a yo-yo team, at best?!?

(Zoe Ward manages Norwich City Football Club’s Football Administration function which includes Club Secretarial, Player Liaison, First Team and Academy Operations... and is married to Stuart Webber)

2. Stuart Webber (The Director of Football & husband of Zoe Ward). Will leave in 2022. One would assume that ZW would leave at this point as well. SW will help find his successor. Would Ben Kensell also leave at this point? The three ‘manage‘ the Club on a day to day basis. Thus this would leave a big hole in the daily running of the club.

3. Delia (Aged 79) and MWJ (nearly Aged 79) plan to “hand the reigns” to their nephew, Tom Smith. TS a was a civil servant for a decade and  then “set up” a photography business. Not much is know how well this business traded for the couple of years. One may assume that he is not a man of means, or success; but again I may be proved wrong.

4. DF (our head coach) has been rewarded a couple of years extension on promotion (rightly). He was a ‘Cheap punt’ given his experience and did wonderfully last year. This successful year is sandwiched between two disappointing years. He has never been given / trusted with transfer funds. He has been found wanting this year and is on course for a record low points tally in this league.

5. To be self sufficient. Buy / play young players, and 🤞sell them on for a profit. Repeat.

So what is the plan / strategy? Is it to be debt free to allow Tim Smith an attractive club to sell? To Yo-yo (yay/boo/yay repeat - never dull). However, it would take a lot to be a dull position (mid table in the championship) or relegated as we were a few years ago with ‘Rodant’/ Gunn..?

Happy to be educated...

Is this an eyesight test? I know the health service is short of money but...

[yellow_belly 227]

I guess it doesn’t matter too much where we play, who we play, what league we play in... given that we may not be able to actually watch much live football given the coronavirus circulating around. 🤷‍♂️

[Mason 47 1,926]

3 minutes ago, yellow_belly said:

But where is the money? We needed to furlough staff very quickly because we had no money?! Again this makes little sense to me. (Again happy to be educated rather than being called a troll)

We had money but using it to fully pay all staff in an unprecedented international pandemic with no money coming in would probably have hamstrung the club for years to come. IMO we acted well within our rights and there would have been nobody chucking us a spare couple million after the dust settles because we were good ol' bors.

Webber is exactly the type of leader you want during this sort of situation. We did what was best for Norwich City.