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TeemuVanBasten

Is there a loss of support for the project?

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1 minute ago, Herman said:

It got us here in the first place didn't it and it helped fund a whole new team, so to say it doesn't work after 5 games is absolute nonsense.

I'm saying it after almost 50 top flight games, of which we've lost the last 15 and hold an 11% win rate.

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The clubs model is not compatible with the EPL and the owners are completely exposed. Once the parachute money goes, that's game over. 

I want Farke gone, but the club would struggle to find a good coach to work with such a system and tepid owners. 

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7 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Watfords net spend is very low over past 10 years, they weren't bankrolled. 

And Delia is worth ten times the amount the Brentford owner is worth (he's only worth a few million). 

This is a good point. But to be honest what's really the difference between Delias worth and that of Brentford? In footballing terms the result is owners that can't really put anything in, both clubs need to be self funding.

I think it's easy to look at Brenford right now with envy but we need to remember it took them years of being nearly men in the championship, having to sell their talent etc before they eventually made it. Even then it took a playoff final to do so. 

I think the reality is for teams like Brentford and ourselves it's always going to be a tough ask staying in the division for any length of time. Just look at Bournemouths Premierleague net transfer spends under Eddie Howe for their Premierleague seasons.

19/20: -£20 Million

18/19: -£69 Million

17/18: -£34 Million

16/17: -£17 Million

15/16: -£54 Million

11 minutes ago, Michael Starr said:

The project doesn't work in the billionaire club house that is the Premier League. It just doesn't work. We're proving it.

It seems to work in terms of getting us into the house. Just not staying there. Without owners like those of Leicesters, what can we do?

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1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

Spot on. 

Ah. So Ajer is definitely better than Kabak? Who we may end up paying more for than the price of Ajer, which kind of means you and DCB are the opposite of spot on.

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It's not the first time Farke has started the season slowly. Yesterday was a big step in the wrong direction, but Farke needs a few more games at least to try to get a tune out of these signings. Let's see where we're at after the Brighton game.

As for the project itself, that must not change. Anyone who has been to Colney in the last few months will testify how massively our infrastructure has improved, and the players we're producing through the Academy are only going to improve as the fruits of our off-field labour are harvested.

It may be that Farke's tactical style proves insubstantial for survival in the PL, but he is ultimately expendable (much as I love him). Until such time as we have very wealthy owners, the project is absolutely the best manifestation of this club I can envisage.

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12 hours ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

It's not though. Why do you think that? Do you genuinely believe there are only two approaches and two styles of football? 

In the context of staying in the premier league without pumping in millions and millions? Yes I do. And even Burnley won't stay there forever. 

 

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9 minutes ago, Michael Starr said:

I'm saying it after almost 50 top flight games, of which we've lost the last 15 and hold an 11% win rate.

Stop using the last Prem stay to bolster your argument. It's irrelevant. It's two different teams with a whole season apart. The first season was at the beginning of the project. It moved us forward but fell far too short.This is the next stage of the project. Now Farke has been given a knife. Whether it's a butter or steak knife is to be seen.

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16 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Ah. So Ajer is definitely better than Kabak? Who we may end up paying more for than the price of Ajer, which kind of means you and DCB are the opposite of spot on.

He’s definitely not worse that Kabak, they own him outright and he’s already helped win them 8 points. They got him in early enough to integrate him into the side, fully fit. Kabak may or may not come good but yesterday was not a great start. 

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13 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

I can't help but feel that we're a bit of a confused and conflicted fan base at the minute.

But I thought people were always clear that the project involved us investing heavily in youth development and associated facilities, bringing through players and then selling them to ensure the club is self-funded. 

Most of you were on board with that?

The problem is, that isn't compatible with also being a well drilled route one side like Burnley is it. You don't sell a Ben Godfrey for £25m by telling him to hit long balls to big target men, bypassing the midfield in the process. You have to produce players who can play.

So we could play the Dyche (or Hodgson at Palace) way, but that doesn't enable a conveyor belt of footballing talent does it?

Is it Farke who needs to be called into question? He's expected to bring through young players who can play football. Is it actually the project which needs to be questioned? 

I don't see how this 'project' is compatible with the football needed to stay up. 

I don’t want to fall into the “why aren’t we?”  trap but I would say Brentford show a project can work at this level we’re just not executing it right.

I was reminded again of Toney’s move to Brentford. A year on look at him now he’s fit right in. They had many near misses getting to the prem, made massive profits on players, built a stadium, but look like all those foundations will help now.

Our foundations don’t look solid at all. 

D293732D-9110-4221-8872-3B7BD5D65C65.jpeg

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As I have said earlier if balancing the books is the number one priority (the self sufficient model if you like) then the club will never take a risk on buying one or two quality players and we will be reliant on loanees and assorted second string European club players who fancy getting Premier league on their CV. 

We bought into the plan and the consequence is that we will never be a sustainable PL club. The fact that it makes us pointless in both meanings of the word  as some pundits are saying is hard on fans and it is difficult to see where the future lies - a bit like Groundhog Day.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Herman said:

Five games in and I'm already tired of this revisionistic claptrap. A few weeks ago everyone was happy with our signings. Yes, we were all gutted about seeing Emi going, but he wanted to leave and his sale funded a large chunk of a new team. We got the types of players everyone was calling for and I didn't see anyone complaining. Even DCB, the most misery laden horses **** of the lot, wrote a well done note.

Now it is unproven cheap gambles. Get lost.

I've been consistent throughout. I thought selling Emi was a huge mistake and I said so at the time. Calling me "revisionistic" (sic), because of your interpretation of the general consensus is a bit of a stretch. 

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3 hours ago, Herman said:

Stop using the last Prem stay to bolster your argument. It's irrelevant. It's two different teams with a whole season apart. The first season was at the beginning of the project. It moved us forward but fell far too short.This is the next stage of the project. Now Farke has been given a knife. Whether it's a butter or steak knife is to be seen.

It’s not irrelevant given it’s the same management team and largely similar tactics and style- also many of the same players such as rupp and Maclean who look every bit as out muscled this time as last. 
 

So fair to point out the changes but not entirely irrelevant as you suggest 

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16 hours ago, ROBFLECK said:

I'm emotional and angry, so it's difficult to give a level headed answer tbh. But I'm so sick of this, I wouldn't care if we hoofed it up top for a season and managed to stay up or at least win a game. This stinks and I wouldn't even want another promotion if I knew in advance that it would be another humiliating ride like this! I hope we get it sorted but I'm afraid DF is not the man to do it any more... I've got respect for him, but tactically he's just not cutting it at this level.

I have only been in Norwich 5 years and have felt proud to support our club, but right now I am really embarrassed. We sell Emi and suddenly there is no fluid interaction between players which was vital last season to our creativity and success. Too many new players with little or preparation is not helping and the football played a shadow of what everyone applauded last season. 

I am not convinced DF is capable of sustaining PL football and if things aren't good by Xmas big questions have to be asked of his capability. I am ashamed how the football world are laughing at us, and having made the step up and spent £50m, I really think we should make every effort to stay up. It's imperative. 

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16 hours ago, Kenny Foggo said:

The project..deary me. Try winning some points... if Farke can't do it find someone who can. Sick of winning the championship and looking like mugs in the top flight. Not acceptable.

Totally agree

 

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25 minutes ago, The Bunny said:

I've been consistent throughout. I thought selling Emi was a huge mistake and I said so at the time. Calling me "revisionistic" (sic), because of your interpretation of the general consensus is a bit of a stretch. 

In that case how would you have funded filling all the gaps in the squad that undoubtedly existed, given that it was selling Buendia that helped us bring in the nine new players?

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29 minutes ago, The Bunny said:

I've been consistent throughout. I thought selling Emi was a huge mistake and I said so at the time. Calling me "revisionistic" (sic), because of your interpretation of the general consensus is a bit of a stretch. 

Emi stated he wanted to leave so how can you refuse letting someone go when they don't want to stay? I can't see we had a choice

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3 hours ago, WD40 said:

I don’t want to fall into the “why aren’t we?”  trap but I would say Brentford show a project can work at this level we’re just not executing it right.

I was reminded again of Toney’s move to Brentford. A year on look at him now he’s fit right in. They had many near misses getting to the prem, made massive profits on players, built a stadium, but look like all those foundations will help now.

Our foundations don’t look solid at all. 

D293732D-9110-4221-8872-3B7BD5D65C65.jpeg

Exactly Right !

Brentford are the Best team to Compare us with 

in Fact i would say we have a Better Squad 

But watching them so Far they have shown no respect to other teams and are playing some Nice Football and getting results 

So proof it can be done at this level with lesser players if you get the Tactics Right 

Sadly if Our bad  Run continues it must be down to Farke 

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1 minute ago, PurpleCanary said:

In that case how would you have funded filling all the gaps in the squad that undoubtedly existed, given that it was selling Buendia that helped us bring in the nine new players?

Clearly some of those players were brought in to replace Buendia, so obviously we wouldn’t need to bring in 9.

And I assume you’re aware there’s 100m+ TV money from going up. Obviously not all of that is available immediately, and increased wages count against it, but it’s not like the net budget was zero.

To answer the question: I would have prioritised a like for like Skipp replacement, then improving the defence, in that order.

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6 minutes ago, Harry53 said:

Emi stated he wanted to leave so how can you refuse letting someone go when they don't want to stay? I can't see we had a choice

It’s a fallacy (one stated on here often) that you have to let a player under contract leave if they want to.

See Harry Kane/David Levy for a recent example

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9 hours ago, The Bunny said:

Clearly some of those players were brought in to replace Buendia, so obviously we wouldn’t need to bring in 9.

And I assume you’re aware there’s 100m+ TV money from going up. Obviously not all of that is available immediately, and increased wages count against it, but it’s not like the net budget was zero.

To answer the question: I would have prioritised a like for like Skipp replacement, then improving the defence, in that order.

Well in that case let's agree we had to bring in at least seven, since, good player though Buendia was, it hardly needed more than two players to fill the gap left by his skills. Given that, I am struggling to see how we could have filled all the other glaring gaps if we didn't have the £33m from Buendia's departure.

But I suggest the only real answer will be provided by the accounts for this season. My guess/prediction is that if we stay up, and have to pay staying-up bonuses, then we will fall only just side or other of breaking even.

If we get relegated and don't have to pay such bonuses then we might make a profit in the very few millions. Either way, I am confident  the accounts won't show that we had many millions we did  not spend.

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“The Project”? For a Club to be self sustaining it has to buy cheap talent, develop that talent and then sell on that talent. This leaves behind a number of time serving journeyman with no ambition, doing as little as possible to get that pay packet and not get injured. The kind of player who has little commitment or incentive to put in a graft.  The kind who will not sprint back to cover a breakthrough but will jog back. The kind who passes square or backwards at every possible opportunity rather than run with the ball. Somewhere there has to be a leader who inspires, a motivator of men, a man of vision to get these weaker players to perform. Farke?  A head coach who admonishes his own fans to show more backing to the players and yet gives them so , so little to cheer? I watched the Saturday performance and felt that I was being mugged. Something has to change and change before we have another direct relegation back to the Championship.

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3 minutes ago, kenfoggo said:

“The Project”? For a Club to be self sustaining it has to buy cheap talent, develop that talent and then sell on that talent. This leaves behind a number of time serving journeyman with no ambition, doing as little as possible to get that pay packet and not get injured. The kind of player who has little commitment or incentive to put in a graft.  The kind who will not sprint back to cover a breakthrough but will jog back. The kind who passes square or backwards at every possible opportunity rather than run with the ball. Somewhere there has to be a leader who inspires, a motivator of men, a man of vision to get these weaker players to perform. Farke?  A head coach who admonishes his own fans to show more backing to the players and yet gives them so , so little to cheer? I watched the Saturday performance and felt that I was being mugged. Something has to change and change before we have another direct relegation back to the Championship.

No.

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35 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

No.

An excellent ,intelligent, reasoned and well thought out response Purple. Like NCFC ‘s performance, just not good enough, embarrassing, a joke. How much longer do you suggest we give Farke? Until Christmas? Until Easter? Until relegation?  What evidence in the Watford game did you see that would give you any confidence or reassurance that an improvement with this current set up is possible? 

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16 hours ago, Wonarso said:

In the context of staying in the premier league without pumping in millions and millions? Yes I do. And even Burnley won't stay there forever. 

 

You can play pressing football, long ball, you can go old school with wingers and two strikers, you can go all Hughton and stick 9 men behind the ball and play for free kicks, you can play like Leeds who stretch the play as much as possible etc. 

In the contexts of staying in this league it's about playing a style that gives us (the inferior team) an advantage against better opponents. 

Pressing, direct or fast counter attacking football would all move the odds closer to our favor without stifling us or requiring us to abandon our principals by playing like an Allardyce team.

I'm not going to insult you by insinuating that you genuinely believe that in the PL you can only either play like 2008 Barca or Stoke under Pulis so why is that the strawman argument you and other fans keep bringing up? 

 

We make the pitch small, play lots of short passes, we attack slowly, when we lose the ball we trot back with no urgency, we don't defend set pieces well and seem to have nothing clever lined up on ours, we pass back  instead of taking a man on, we stand off and don't tackle etc. This is the literal polar opposite of what every other bottom 12 PL team does,. We could and should address these issues and it wouldn't mean switching to a Sam Allardyce way of playing. It would be a departure from Farkeball, but it would be nothing like the dross Hughton served up that you lot are imagining. 

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1 hour ago, kenfoggo said:

An excellent ,intelligent, reasoned and well thought out response Purple. Like NCFC ‘s performance, just not good enough, embarrassing, a joke. How much longer do you suggest we give Farke? Until Christmas? Until Easter? Until relegation?  What evidence in the Watford game did you see that would give you any confidence or reassurance that an improvement with this current set up is possible? 

Yes, it was succinct. As to that question, hard to say since the last game I  saw played by Norwich City in the Premier League was beating Leicester City 1-0 in February 2020. Which is in part why I tend to express views on the club's long-term prospects (which I believe are generally good) while steering clear of talking about short-term stuff. I try to leave that to fair-minded posters who have actually seen games.

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3 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

Well in that case let's agree we had to bring in at least seven, since, good player though Buendia was, it hardly needed more than two players to fill the gap left by his skills. Given that, I am struggling to see how we could have filled all the other glaring gaps if we didn't have the £33m from Buendia's departure.

But I suggest the only real answer will be provided by the accounts for this season. My guess/prediction is that if we stay up, and have to pay staying-up bonuses, then we will fall only just side or other of breaking even.

If we get relegated and don't have to pay such bonuses then we might make a profit in the very few millions. Either way, I am confident  the accounts won't show that we had many millions we did  not spend.

*Did* we fill all the glaring gaps with the money spent? I think at best, the jury is out. The early signs suggest probably not. All we know for sure right now is we lost a proven PL attacker, and probably our best player. 

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17 hours ago, Harry53 said:

Emi stated he wanted to leave so how can you refuse letting someone go when they don't want to stay? I can't see we had a choice

Course you can. This “his agents made it clear he was leaving” is nonsense. We also don’t help ourselves by making it clear we are a “selling club” so often. But then this is old ground so let’s not go there.

currently I am also a bit confused at what Farke is playing at with Cantwell. The formation change doesn’t suit him, he was generally quite integral to our attacking flow and he’s probably wiping millions off his transfer value which is surprising given we will no doubt be told we have to sell him in January.

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17 hours ago, norfolkngood said:

Exactly Right !

Brentford are the Best team to Compare us with 

in Fact i would say we have a Better Squad 

But watching them so Far they have shown no respect to other teams and are playing some Nice Football and getting results 

So proof it can be done at this level with lesser players if you get the Tactics Right 

Sadly if Our bad  Run continues it must be down to Farke 

They are defensively sound and targeted their two main (and earliest) signings to make them even more so. Strategy wise their approach has been streets ahead of our confused approach although I do think we have signed some good players some of whom will certainly come good. 

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We improved the squad but we did not improve the starting XI - having chosen to sell our best player to finance the window. In hindsight this was suicidal because we had already lost our second best player in skipp. 
 

We also signed not to be competitive now but to sell on in the future - that is the model. Fine but you can’t then be surprised when physicality is lacking because young up and coming players, especially wingers, tend to be out muscled by older bigger men. 
 

finally we enjoy playing like Man City in the champs- and it works - but it fails miserably in the Premiership. Because the actual Man City’s are better at it - and the others, though less skilful are massive units, so they just bully us off the ball. 

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On 18/09/2021 at 20:22, TeemuVanBasten said:

I can't help but feel that we're a bit of a confused and conflicted fan base at the minute.

But I thought people were always clear that the project involved us investing heavily in youth development and associated facilities, bringing through players and then selling them to ensure the club is self-funded. 

Most of you were on board with that?

The problem is, that isn't compatible with also being a well drilled route one side like Burnley is it. You don't sell a Ben Godfrey for £25m by telling him to hit long balls to big target men, bypassing the midfield in the process. You have to produce players who can play.

So we could play the Dyche (or Hodgson at Palace) way, but that doesn't enable a conveyor belt of footballing talent does it?

Is it Farke who needs to be called into question? He's expected to bring through young players who can play football. Is it actually the project which needs to be questioned? 

I don't see how this 'project' is compatible with the football needed to stay up. 

Our club objective is to be a top 26 team and we are. We don’t have a rich owner who can buy ready made players so we have to be creative and develop to sell. The only way we’re going to go that is by playing Farkeball.  That will mean losing a fair bit at this level but once the players acclimatise, we’ll start to pick up points. The big question is, will it be in time for us to survive this season?  I hope so. 

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