Sadly simple.

[Rhiadd 7]

While it is tempting to assign blame for the teams position and woeful performance to this point in the season, the reality, is sadly quite simple. A small market team will never be able to compete in the Premier league as presently constituted until there is a salary cap. Only when there is a level playing field can you compare managers, teams and sporting directors. Our recruitment this campaign was at best naive and at worst woefully incompetent, our managerial performance, lost and without focus which leaves the players hopelessly incapable of performing coherently regardless of how good they may or not be. There is not one reason, the whole thing is simply not good enough and   never will be as it stands, Yes, the odd time the little team will punch above it’s weight, but overwhelmingly the big picture is comfortably clear every single season. Money. If the Saudi billionaires at the top were only allowed to spend the same amount as the little guy at the bottom, then it might be possible to discuss the relative merits and talents of teams, managers, sporting directors and owners. Poverty as an excuse for bad performance is pointless and horribly unsatisfactory. It doesn’t even work as an explanation. It rings hollow because we have no way of knowing whether the overall management of the club is capable of spending more money intelligently and using the end result well, The best will always stand out, will always lead the way, talent will always triumph, but with a salary cap we might have one or two  in that category and a competitive team to celebrate every Saturday.

[Canaries north 155]

When relegated, and we will be, we get parachute payments. These are supposed to help with covering the costs incurred by buying players on increased wages and having a go. First time around we didn't buy players and banked the money. We then got the parachute money and we were one of the rich boys of the championship. I didn't hear to many complaints then. What would you have said then if we had to have the same salary as Wycombe. I agree that the premier League is a rich man's game and without the funding of a benefactor it's very tough. I just can't see anything ever changing. I just wished this season we had signed a bit of premiership experience rather than players for future sales and had a go. 

[Numan 25]

The subject of money has always been a tricky one.  In the 'olden days' Blackburn, Portsmouth, Sunderland et al all threw shed loads of cash at their teams with a varying degree of success.  Now look at them.  Smaller clubs in the EFL have done similar (obviously not in the hundreds of millions category) and ended up in the National League.  I want NCFC to win matches and to entertain me when I go to those matches.  I have been going since the 60s and have had some great times and some rubbish ones too.  The current situation is one of those rubbish times but not as bad as ending up in League 1.  Without a 'benefactor' NCFC will never be able to compete with the 'big boys' so the idea if a wage cap is good in theory, but the aforementioned 'big boys' will never go for it and neither would the PFA.  I think being a yo-yo club is where we are and this is unlikely to change under the current circumstances, with or without a change of manager.

[Petriix 3,214]

10 hours ago, Canaries north said:

When relegated, and we will be, we get parachute payments. These are supposed to help with covering the costs incurred by buying players on increased wages and having a go. First time around we didn't buy players and banked the money. We then got the parachute money and we were one of the rich boys of the championship. I didn't hear to many complaints then. What would you have said then if we had to have the same salary as Wycombe. I agree that the premier League is a rich man's game and without the funding of a benefactor it's very tough. I just can't see anything ever changing. I just wished this season we had signed a bit of premiership experience rather than players for future sales and had a go. 

What exactly do you mean by this? Do you imagine that there's an offshore bank account with £100m sitting in it?

The fact is that we've spent the money. Some of it may still be in the club's bank account, but we've committed to spending it on the agreed payments under various contracts for player purchases and salaries. It means that we won't go bankrupt when we get relegated and we won't be forced to sell anyone just to survive like we've previously done. I'm genuinely struggling to imagine what the alternative was.

Perhaps you think that we should have committed to expenditure that we couldn't sustain in the gamble that we could scrape survival, at the possible expense of ending up broke in the lower reaches of the Championship?

[Canaries north 155]

4 hours ago, Petriix said:

What exactly do you mean by this? Do you imagine that there's an offshore bank account with £100m sitting in it?

The fact is that we've spent the money. Some of it may still be in the club's bank account, but we've committed to spending it on the agreed payments under various contracts for player purchases and salaries. It means that we won't go bankrupt when we get relegated and we won't be forced to sell anyone just to survive like we've previously done. I'm genuinely struggling to imagine what the alternative was.

Perhaps you think that we should have committed to expenditure that we couldn't sustain in the gamble that we could scrape survival, at the possible expense of ending up broke in the lower reaches of the Championship?

I am talking about the 19 -20 season. We were promoted and even Webber admits we didn't have a go. Part of the plan was to take the money and go down. War without a gun if I remember. Then  COVID hit our finances but it also hit everyone else. We went down but by not having a go had a huge financial advantage over the other teams in the league. It's levels. Man city etc have far more money than us but we have far more money than Wycombe. 

[Petriix 3,214]

45 minutes ago, Canaries north said:

I am talking about the 19 -20 season. We were promoted and even Webber admits we didn't have a go. Part of the plan was to take the money and go down. War without a gun if I remember. Then  COVID hit our finances but it also hit everyone else. We went down but by not having a go had a huge financial advantage over the other teams in the league. It's levels. Man city etc have far more money than us but we have far more money than Wycombe. 

I know which season you're talking about. I just don't think there was really an alternative other than a massive gamble. By any objective measure, given that we are in the Premier League again two years later, it worked perfectly.

[Haus 267]

1 minute ago, Petriix said:

I know which season you're talking about. I just don't think there was really an alternative other than a massive gamble. By any objective measure, given that we are in the Premier League again two years later, it worked perfectly.

Not perfectly as we were supposed to come back up stronger.....

[BigGrantsTash 74]

2 hours ago, Haus said:

Not perfectly as we were supposed to come back up stronger.....

Yes and supposedly learnt this, that and the other. It’s strange people only see it as you spend nothing or take a massive gamble. There’s no middle ground seemingly 

[yellowrider120 917]

20 hours ago, Rhiadd said:

While it is tempting to assign blame for the teams position and woeful performance to this point in the season, the reality, is sadly quite simple. A small market team will never be able to compete in the Premier league as presently constituted until there is a salary cap. Only when there is a level playing field can you compare managers, teams and sporting directors. Our recruitment this campaign was at best naive and at worst woefully incompetent, our managerial performance, lost and without focus which leaves the players hopelessly incapable of performing coherently regardless of how good they may or not be. There is not one reason, the whole thing is simply not good enough and   never will be as it stands, Yes, the odd time the little team will punch above it’s weight, but overwhelmingly the big picture is comfortably clear every single season. Money. If the Saudi billionaires at the top were only allowed to spend the same amount as the little guy at the bottom, then it might be possible to discuss the relative merits and talents of teams, managers, sporting directors and owners. Poverty as an excuse for bad performance is pointless and horribly unsatisfactory. It doesn’t even work as an explanation. It rings hollow because we have no way of knowing whether the overall management of the club is capable of spending more money intelligently and using the end result well, The best will always stand out, will always lead the way, talent will always triumph, but with a salary cap we might have one or two  in that category and a competitive team to celebrate every Saturday.

I'm really sorry but this (highlighted and which I totally agree with by the way) has absolutely ZERO to do with 'money'!! 

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

19 hours ago, Rhiadd said:

While it is tempting to assign blame for the teams position and woeful performance to this point in the season, the reality, is sadly quite simple. A small market team will never be able to compete in the Premier league as presently constituted until there is a salary cap. Only when there is a level playing field can you compare managers, teams and sporting directors. Our recruitment this campaign was at best naive and at worst woefully incompetent, our managerial performance, lost and without focus which leaves the players hopelessly incapable of performing coherently regardless of how good they may or not be. There is not one reason, the whole thing is simply not good enough and   never will be as it stands, Yes, the odd time the little team will punch above it’s weight, but overwhelmingly the big picture is comfortably clear every single season. Money. If the Saudi billionaires at the top were only allowed to spend the same amount as the little guy at the bottom, then it might be possible to discuss the relative merits and talents of teams, managers, sporting directors and owners. Poverty as an excuse for bad performance is pointless and horribly unsatisfactory. It doesn’t even work as an explanation. It rings hollow because we have no way of knowing whether the overall management of the club is capable of spending more money intelligently and using the end result well, The best will always stand out, will always lead the way, talent will always triumph, but with a salary cap we might have one or two  in that category and a competitive team to celebrate every Saturday.

Yes, you are quite right that money is the overwhelming problem in football as it is pushing the extremes at both ends out further and also corrupting the teams in the middle. I think the pundits have picked on us because we are the stand-out example of the team that crushes the Championship but because we refuse under our present owners to spend beyond our means, we are unable to compete at the higher level and we are the ones that get crushed. You'd hope that some of the smarter commentators would be able to see that we are a symptom of the problem in football and not the problem itself. Those pundits that complain about Norwich taking up a place in the Premier League when there are other less successful teams below us but with more money and therefore more deserving of a place in the EPL. are really either the cheer leaders for a football super league or just plain old hypocrites.

And it is not just us in this position. Sheffield United were the media darlings a couple of seasons ago, and are now gone. Leeds had one good season after promotion and are now struggling at the bottom. Huddersfield, one hit wonders. Will Brentford be able to sustain their early season form? And the same teams that recently came down are looking favourites to go up, West Brom, Fulham, Bournemouth. So we all seem to be in the same yo-yo trap and with each passing year the gap between the top division and the lower divisions grow ever wider.

Everything else we see playing out in front of our eyes stem from the fact that we are not rich enough to sustain a place in the EPL. Webber has to go bargain hunting in foreign leagues with almost no leeway to make a mistake. Whereas rich clubs can afford to make mistakes in their signings and have enough resources to bring in replacements for the duffers.

Our manager ends up with a team where every player has a mistake in them and we play in a league where mistakes get punished. Both the Leeds goals were less about their brilliance - they aren't - and more about the costly mistakes of our own players. Getting rid of the manager won't get rid of the mistakes or make lower quality players better than their best. Getting rid of the sporting director won't mean his replacement will be shopping in more upmarket stores, and getting rid of the owners means giving into the corrupt system that football has become.

I don't believe our Sporting Director and Coach are useless ****s. They both have brought success to Norwich from a very low starting point. Our current situation at the bottom of the league is a symptom of where football is failing due to money.

The European Super League collapsed because of pushback from the fans. If we are ever to reclaim domestic football its going to take a similar fan pushback to succeed.

[Monty13 2,736]

20 hours ago, Rhiadd said:

While it is tempting to assign blame for the teams position and woeful performance to this point in the season, the reality, is sadly quite simple. A small market team will never be able to compete in the Premier league as presently constituted until there is a salary cap. Only when there is a level playing field can you compare managers, teams and sporting directors. Our recruitment this campaign was at best naive and at worst woefully incompetent, our managerial performance, lost and without focus which leaves the players hopelessly incapable of performing coherently regardless of how good they may or not be. There is not one reason, the whole thing is simply not good enough and   never will be as it stands, Yes, the odd time the little team will punch above it’s weight, but overwhelmingly the big picture is comfortably clear every single season. Money. If the Saudi billionaires at the top were only allowed to spend the same amount as the little guy at the bottom, then it might be possible to discuss the relative merits and talents of teams, managers, sporting directors and owners. Poverty as an excuse for bad performance is pointless and horribly unsatisfactory. It doesn’t even work as an explanation. It rings hollow because we have no way of knowing whether the overall management of the club is capable of spending more money intelligently and using the end result well, The best will always stand out, will always lead the way, talent will always triumph, but with a salary cap we might have one or two  in that category and a competitive team to celebrate every Saturday.

Which is it? Can we not compete or was our recruiting woeful and incompetent? 

I agree the playing field isn’t level, it never has been and has only been getting worse and worse for years.

But I can’t understand why the idea Norwich’s finances are the sole reason we look potentially the worst team the Premier League has ever seen seems to be brainwashing everyone. 

Theres a difference between trying and failing to overcome a challenge, and failing to try.

[Rhiadd 7]

3 hours ago, yellowrider120 said:

I'm really sorry but this (highlighted and which I totally agree with by the way) has absolutely ZERO to do with 'money'!! 

 

[Rhiadd 7]

True, but perhaps only in as much as a financially level playing field does mean that the most talented people regardless of the job they are doing might look at more teams as offering an equal opportunity for success as opposed to a list upon which the small market team sits firmly on the bottom rung because of the salary they can afford to pay and the money available to pursue success.

[Rhiadd 7]

2 hours ago, Monty13 said:

Which is it? Can we not compete or was our recruiting woeful and incompetent? 

I agree the playing field isn’t level, it never has been and has only been getting worse and worse for years.

But I can’t understand why the idea Norwich’s finances are the sole reason we look potentially the worst team the Premier League has ever seen seems to be brainwashing everyone. 

Theres a difference between trying and failing to overcome a challenge, and failing to try.

It is both. We cannot compete because our recruitment was woeful and our use of our present resources is simply inept compounding the problem.But would financial equality have brought Mr. Farke and Mr. Webber and several of our new players to  the club or would the fact that every team has the same financial clout have allowed us to compete much more effectively for the better people in all the areas necessary for success. I am not naive enough to believe a salary cap is possible because of the strangle hold money has on the game I simple believe there is no way forward for small market teams without one.

[Rhiadd 7]

3 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Yes, you are quite right that money is the overwhelming problem in football as it is pushing the extremes at both ends out further and also corrupting the teams in the middle. I think the pundits have picked on us because we are the stand-out example of the team that crushes the Championship but because we refuse under our present owners to spend beyond our means, we are unable to compete at the higher level and we are the ones that get crushed. You'd hope that some of the smarter commentators would be able to see that we are a symptom of the problem in football and not the problem itself. Those pundits that complain about Norwich taking up a place in the Premier League when there are other less successful teams below us but with more money and therefore more deserving of a place in the EPL. are really either the cheer leaders for a football super league or just plain old hypocrites.

And it is not just us in this position. Sheffield United were the media darlings a couple of seasons ago, and are now gone. Leeds had one good season after promotion and are now struggling at the bottom. Huddersfield, one hit wonders. Will Brentford be able to sustain their early season form? And the same teams that recently came down are looking favourites to go up, West Brom, Fulham, Bournemouth. So we all seem to be in the same yo-yo trap and with each passing year the gap between the top division and the lower divisions grow ever wider.

Everything else we see playing out in front of our eyes stem from the fact that we are not rich enough to sustain a place in the EPL. Webber has to go bargain hunting in foreign leagues with almost no leeway to make a mistake. Whereas rich clubs can afford to make mistakes in their signings and have enough resources to bring in replacements for the duffers.

Our manager ends up with a team where every player has a mistake in them and we play in a league where mistakes get punished. Both the Leeds goals were less about their brilliance - they aren't - and more about the costly mistakes of our own players. Getting rid of the manager won't get rid of the mistakes or make lower quality players better than their best. Getting rid of the sporting director won't mean his replacement will be shopping in more upmarket stores, and getting rid of the owners means giving into the corrupt system that football has become.

I don't believe our Sporting Director and Coach are useless ****s. They both have brought success to Norwich from a very low starting point. Our current situation at the bottom of the league is a symptom of where football is failing due to money.

The European Super League collapsed because of pushback from the fans. If we are ever to reclaim domestic football its going to take a similar fan pushback to succeed.

Absolutely agree. I am really only posing the subject of a salary cap for discussion. I would never advocate that any one lose their job. Particularly since I could not do that job myself. But I think it is abundantly clear that the structure of football is really set up to feed the gluttonously well fed and starve into irrelevance everybody else. I have supported this team since the days when a bed sheet was carried around the ground at half time and we all threw what we could afford into the sheet to help pay the bills. Somehow there was more satisfaction and more hope in that than parachute payments, players earning fantastic salaries and receiving a crumb or two when we punch above our weight.

[Rhiadd 7]

12 hours ago, Numan said:

The subject of money has always been a tricky one.  In the 'olden days' Blackburn, Portsmouth, Sunderland et al all threw shed loads of cash at their teams with a varying degree of success.  Now look at them.  Smaller clubs in the EFL have done similar (obviously not in the hundreds of millions category) and ended up in the National League.  I want NCFC to win matches and to entertain me when I go to those matches.  I have been going since the 60s and have had some great times and some rubbish ones too.  The current situation is one of those rubbish times but not as bad as ending up in League 1.  Without a 'benefactor' NCFC will never be able to compete with the 'big boys' so the idea if a wage cap is good in theory, but the aforementioned 'big boys' will never go for it and neither would the PFA.  I think being a yo-yo club is where we are and this is unlikely to change under the current circumstances, with or without a change of manager.

You are correct. The big boys will never go for it. There are however overwhelmingly more little boys than big ones and far, far more supporters of those small teams.