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Just now, Jim Smith said:

Well we won the Milk Cup Nutty in 85 (admittedly mid 80's but second half) but I also said "compete" at the top level and I would say finishing 3rd, 4th and 5th and qualifying for Europe plus reaching 2 FA Cup semi finals counts as competing at the top level. 

Not quite top level jimbo,  we did quite well for a few years there, then along   came  the Premier League and all the hype that goes with it. Blackburn being bankrolled to the title etc. Have you any idea how much liverpool have net spent over the last 30 years just to be at the top, once. Or Plucky Leicester.....they didnt even make a champions league spot this season. Some of their fans will be crying for more money I bet. Its a money vacuum , a bubble.  Get real, the Club is. Ill happily admit im wrong if we are not in all round better shape at the end of webbers tenure than we were at the start of it. Like I said Patience Jimbo, patience.

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7 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

1988 14th

1989 4th

1990 10th

1991 15th

1992 18th (good job there were still 22)

1993 3rd

You cling on to a couple of seasons, maybe three, in our whole history to judge every other. You are destined to die a very miserable and dissatisfied man.

I would class 3 top 5 finishes and 4 top 10 finishes in 7 seasons (with really only one of those being a relegation scare) plus a couple of FA Cup semi finals was a pretty decent run and counts as competing at the top level. Whilst i think we all accept that top 4 is a bit of a stretch these days regardless of owners I don;t see why we could not compete in the way Leicester, Wolves or Burnley have managed to do in recent seasons with a bit more financial clout and a bit more ambition rather than just tamely shrug our shoulders and retreat back to the championship every time we get promoted (usually with nothing to show for it in terms fo ground improvements either).

 

 

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3 minutes ago, wcorkcanary said:

Not quite top level jimbo,  we did quite well for a few years there, then along   came  the Premier League and all the hype that goes with it. Blackburn being bankrolled to the title etc. Have you any idea how much liverpool have net spent over the last 30 years just to be at the top, once. Or Plucky Leicester.....they didnt even make a champions league spot this season. Some of their fans will be crying for more money I bet. Its a money vacuum , a bubble.  Get real, the Club is. Ill happily admit im wrong if we are not in all round better shape at the end of webbers tenure than we were at the start of it. Like I said Patience Jimbo, patience.

We may well be in all round better shape at the end of his tenure but to be "in better shape" or to have a "healthy bank balance" is not my primary aim for my football club. I'm not saying its not a small consolation but I really want to see us try to do more if we ever get up there again. 

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4 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

I would class 3 top 5 finishes and 4 top 10 finishes in 7 seasons (with really only one of those being a relegation scare) plus a couple of FA Cup semi finals was a pretty decent run and counts as competing at the top level. Whilst i think we all accept that top 4 is a bit of a stretch these days regardless of owners I don;t see why we could not compete in the way Leicester, Wolves or Burnley have managed to do in recent seasons with a bit more financial clout and a bit more ambition rather than just tamely shrug our shoulders and retreat back to the championship every time we get promoted (usually with nothing to show for it in terms fo ground improvements either).

 

 

With our 3rd, 4th and 5th where do you think we would stand in a national league comprising of club's three best ever finishes?

So now you've down  graded to 4 top ten finishes in 7 seasons.Would that rank better?  (Even though if it was now we'd have been relegated and never finished 3rd).

 

Edited by nutty nigel

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9 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

With our 3rd, 4th and 5th where do you think we would stand in a national league comprising of club's three best ever finishes?

So now you've down  graded to 4 top ten finishes in 7 seasons.Would that rank better?  (Even though if it was now we'd have been relegated and never finished 3rd).

 

What are you banging on about?

I simply said that many fans would like to compete again at the top level like we did during that period. I'm not talking about some sort of "national league" or whatever. I have no doubt you will come back and point to the fact that Blackpool or Preston won the league 50 years ago or whatever so have just as much right to claim they should be competing at the top level but that's not really relevant to whether or not we should aspire to do better than we do when we get to the premier league or indeed whether we could do if we had more financial clout. 

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13 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

With our 3rd, 4th and 5th where do you think we would stand in a national league comprising of club's three best ever finishes?

So now you've down  graded to 4 top ten finishes in 7 seasons.Would that rank better?  (Even though if it was now we'd have been relegated and never finished 3rd).

 

Hope that’s clear for everyone.

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5 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

What are you banging on about?

I simply said that many fans would like to compete again at the top level like we did during that period. I'm not talking about some sort of "national league" or whatever. I have no doubt you will come back and point to the fact that Blackpool or Preston won the league 50 years ago or whatever so have just as much right to claim they should be competing at the top level but that's not really relevant to whether or not we should aspire to do better than we do when we get to the premier league or indeed whether we could do if we had more financial clout. 

That's not what I'm saying.

However we were only competitive at the top level in 92/93. The very first season of the PL. By 95/96 we were struggling to stay in the second tier.

I would rather judge each season by how much I enjoyed it. Last season would be in the top half dozen since 1967. This season I've definitely enjoyed the least since 1967. Who knows what next season will bring. 

Did you enjoy finishing 18th in 1992 more than finishing 21st last season?

And try not to get too angry Jimbo. It's not good for you. I want you to be around to enjoy the next lot of good times.👍

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37 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

We may well be in all round better shape at the end of his tenure but to be "in better shape" or to have a "healthy bank balance" is not my primary aim for my football club. I'm not saying its not a small consolation but I really want to see us try to do more if we ever get up there again. 

I didnt mention bank balance, I credited you with the savvy to know what 'all round better shape' is. My mistake. Until we have the dosh, we dont have it.  I agree, money does help, which is why we are not throwing it around .  I wont revisit the investor debate. Same as I never , ever say ' if only,'. I'm a realist chap, not a dreamer or a revisionist, they say ' slow and steady wins the race', you could say ' depends on how long the race is'. You tell me, how long is the race?

Edited by wcorkcanary

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3 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Or perhaps just fans who want to see their football team compete and win things at the highest level. Like we did for a while in the late 80's and early 90's.

There was a fan on Canary Call on Saturday who was basically saying he wouldn't want to see us taken over by someone as wealthy as the Man City owners and win the league having bought expensive players because that's not what Norwich are about. I find that staggering, absolutely staggering.

The "cult" seem to have turned the object of our club into some kind of community project rather than to actually win honours and compete at the highest level we can.

 

I agree that it smacks of "little Norwich" to not want to compete at the top, but it's equally staggering that people don't want to look at what a great position the club is in. Players worth £150m plus all on long contracts, highly rated young players already brought in and all in an environment in which many clubs could face firesales just to keep going (which we are in a position to take advantage of). It isn't too bad is it?

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The total lack of ambition, as evidenced by the majority of posters on this message board, demonstrates why the club’s strategy is subject to such little scrutiny.

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21 minutes ago, Mr.Carrow said:

I agree that it smacks of "little Norwich" to not want to compete at the top, but it's equally staggering that people don't want to look at what a great position the club is in. Players worth £150m plus all on long contracts, highly rated young players already brought in and all in an environment in which many clubs could face firesales just to keep going (which we are in a position to take advantage of). It isn't too bad is it?

Where do you get that from then?

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9 minutes ago, Highland Canary said:

The total lack of ambition, as evidenced by the majority of posters on this message board, demonstrates why the club’s strategy is subject to such little scrutiny.

The total lack of understanding, as evidenced by the majority of posts by this poster, demonstrates why the clubs strategy does not include listening to him.

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11 minutes ago, Highland Canary said:

The total lack of ambition, as evidenced by the majority of posters on this message board, demonstrates why the club’s strategy is subject to such little scrutiny.

In many respects I think you're right. It is quite simply incredible that having lost the last TEN league games scoring precisely one goal and conceding 24!!, the manager seems to be under absolutely no pressure whatsoever. In fact his immediate 'boss' has come out and said (to all intents and purposes) that 'he has a job for life'. At no other club would this farcical state of affairs be tolerated. 

Many (if not 'most') fans simply 'pay up, turn up and shut up' and that is exactly what The Stowmarket Two expect of them.   

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1 minute ago, yellowrider120 said:

Where do you get that from then?

What would you estimate to be the combined value of Krul, Aarons, Lewis, Buendia, Pukki, Godfrey, Idah and Cantwell? Maybe with Coronavirus the valuations have taken a bit of a hit, but £150m was pretty realistic beforehand.

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2 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

In many respects I think you're right. It is quite simply incredible that having lost the last TEN league games scoring precisely one goal and conceding 24!!, the manager seems to be under absolutely no pressure whatsoever. In fact his immediate 'boss' has come out and said (to all intents and purposes) that 'he has a job for life'. At no other club would this farcical state of affairs be tolerated. 

Many (if not 'most') fans simply 'pay up, turn up and shut up' and that is exactly what The Stowmarket Two expect of them.   

👍👍👍

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3 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Or perhaps just fans who want to see their football team compete and win things at the highest level. Like we did for a while in the late 80's and early 90's.

There was a fan on Canary Call on Saturday who was basically saying he wouldn't want to see us taken over by someone as wealthy as the Man City owners and win the league having bought expensive players because that's not what Norwich are about. I find that staggering, absolutely staggering.

The "cult" seem to have turned the object of our club into some kind of community project rather than to actually win honours and compete at the highest level we can.

 

Spot on Jim, and you are absolutely right to make the assumption that this fan’s attitude is widely shared because Canary Call is noted for its fan participants being wise individuals who are totally clued into the  financial realities of football and whose opinions are always sensible and very definitely never normal-for-Norfolk silly...

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40 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

In many respects I think you're right. It is quite simply incredible that having lost the last TEN league games scoring precisely one goal and conceding 24!!, the manager seems to be under absolutely no pressure whatsoever. In fact his immediate 'boss' has come out and said (to all intents and purposes) that 'he has a job for life'. At no other club would this farcical state of affairs be tolerated. 

Many (if not 'most') fans simply 'pay up, turn up and shut up' and that is exactly what The Stowmarket Two expect of them.   

Maybe it's because it's not farcical at all, but part of a strategy to ensure the club's long-term future? We've got a ton of talented kids who came through our Academy and contributed to us getting to the PL in the first place when the likes of you were saying we were doomed for League One. Most fans pay up, turn up and support the team they have paid good money to support.

On the flipside: if the ground had been full and we'd have put in those performances and results, there's no way the fans would have meekly 'shut up' and shuffled out, they would have made their discontent heard, because obviously those performances were bloody awful.

Let's see what state the club's in this time next year, when the effects of coronavirus and closed stadia really start to kick in. I would wager that we'll have a great deal more continuity with our self-sufficient project than the clubs who have wealthy investors injecting cash to try to circumvent FFP.

Maybe, just maybe, the owners' disgust at the ever-increasing greed in the game might actually prove our salvation? After the apocalyptic events of the past six months, that bubble is closer than ever to going 'pop'. We've insulated ourself against that by making ourselves internally and externally debt free, with plenty of saleable assets who have been brought up playing 'the Norwich way'.

If you can't derive any sense of comfort out of any of that, I genuinely don't understand why you bother following the club.

 

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4 hours ago, Surfer said:

If we had only pushed the boat out and bought a couple more players we could have won the EPL. We could have won one or more FA Cups too, and probably a few more seasons of Euro football. But we didn’t have the money then, and Liverpool screws up Europe. The playing field is massively more distorted now, so did we miss our best opportunities back then - I would have to say yes. 

Wouldn’t go that far. But I sincerely believe that if Gunny had not got injured then we would/could have become an established premiership team. We went down at the worst time and never really recovered 

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15 hours ago, lharman7 said:

Some people get it, you obviously don't DCB.

Webber said way before the season started we wouldn't put the club under financial insecurity. 

We are now financially way better off for it.

The plan is working!

he's a binner - he usually crawls out to post anti Norwich City stuff when he thinks things offer him a chance

take no notice - but make sure any charity box is chained up

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I think the critics on this thread need to hold fire at least until this next season has passed. Only then we will see how well our approach to this season has paid off.

Our strategy to the premier league this season has been a risk, but an unfamiliar kind of risk. We have sacrificed (possible) short-term success, to secure long-term financial stability which will hopefully bring with it longer-term success too. I don't think it is fair to point blame when we are only just passed the 'sacrificial' stage of our strategy.

It seems the only acceptable type of risk perceived by some is the sacrifice of long-term stability for short-term gains. But we have only just managed to rid ourselves of our own past failings to this end.

Now, as promising new signings roll in, with a clear focus on the future and without any Naismith sized holes to plug up, it is giving me newfound confidence that we have made the correct approach and will bounce back well this coming season.

Nobody can be proven right or wrong right now, so let's see where this puts us come the end of the season before anyone says 'I told you so'! But I'll have my post drafted and ready to go..

Edited by Hank shoots Skyler
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20 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

If we do not finish in the top 6 it will be an utter failure next season. In fact anything other than top 2 is a failure. 

I would certainly agree with the first sentence. I would emphasise though that the time to judge this is towards the end of the season - not just after a few games.

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14 hours ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

Wouldn’t go that far. But I sincerely believe that if Gunny had not got injured then we would/could have become an established premiership team. We went down at the worst time and never really recovered 

I think that you might be right, but to my mind it shows the narrow margins that exist in football. It is a high risk game - hence imho,the need for financial caution so that you are prepared for ups and downs in fortune.

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19 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

What did we win in the late 80s and early 90s?

 

Stretch it to 87 though and we won the old second division, oh how I wish  we could have success like that again........

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I think ambition is a word that should be added to, ****, ****, ****, fanny etc as it is a meaningless word. It was meaningless when the board said prudence with ambition. And it is now every time a poster says we don't have any.

Taking risks is not ambitious. Borrowing massive amounts of money to give to greedy players and agents is not ambition.

Ambition is a desire to work hard for an achievement. It doesn't mean do anything at all costs, even if you are told the opposite, to reach that achievement.

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