Farke and a failure of evolution

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,219]

@Boris I always look out for your posts and greatly respect your views, they are often insightful and you are not afraid to come at issues from a different angle. I always really like that. 

A lot of what you say is good, fair and reasonable as always. 

Nonetheless, I have been to the puppet show and seen the strings…

…’Unhappy’ footballers is a daily occurrence. Unhappy about position, playing, money, others, attention, getting tapped up, grass is greener elsewhere, the team…though mostly about just themselves.

In my experience the cure for this is attention. A goal, an assist, a win perhaps…new contracts and money are - strangely - quickly forgotten. Football sunlight is always a cure-all….it’s a weekly medicine that never fails to heal…

Keeping Buendia, Offering Spurs £20m+ for Skipp, getting in Normann on loan and maybe PLM does not seem an impossible stretch. If not Skipp then the nearest available thing…

£20m on wingers playing wide, open football? £10m on a striker who never scores? A noisy Chelsea loaner who pays the deep-lying regista role in a side under a constant high press?…no weapons at all that disrupt the opposition preferred blueprint (even a Crouch), no set piece specialist….

It didn’t look coherent to many, it wasn’t, it isn’t….

Parma 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Nuff Said 5,108]

But Parma, no-one knows how Emi would have behaved if we hadn’t let him leave. Farke’s track record with “difficult” players however does suggest that he would have not been selected to play, at least until the message had been received - as we saw happen last season. At best, we would have been without him for several games, at worst we would have had a shadow for the whole season of the Emi we came to love, if Farke played him at all.

 

And while £20m for Skipp might have tempted Spurs, would it have tempted a player brought up through Spurs’ youth system, who is a Spurs fan and comes from a family of Spurs fans?
 

Then there’s the wages that would have had to match the £20m price tag you say we should have spent on him or an equivalent - how would they have gone down with the rest of the squad who weren’t in a similar wage bracket? 

 

So while it’s possible that you predicted some of what went wrong, you have no evidence that doing it differently would have been any more successful, and it’s not hard to posit reasons why they could equally have gone wrong.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Nuff Said

[Boris 56]

19 minutes ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

@Boris I always look out for your posts and greatly respect your views, they are often insightful and you are not afraid to come at issues from a different angle. I always really like that. 

A lot of what you say is good, fair and reasonable as always. 

Nonetheless, I have been to the puppet show and seen the strings…

…’Unhappy’ footballers is a daily occurrence. Unhappy about position, playing, money, others, attention, getting tapped up, grass is greener elsewhere, the team…though mostly about just themselves.

In my experience the cure for this is attention. A goal, an assist, a win perhaps…new contracts and money are - strangely - quickly forgotten. Football sunlight is always a cure-all….it’s a weekly medicine that never fails to heal…

Keeping Buendia, Offering Spurs £20m+ for Skipp, getting in Normann on loan and maybe PLM does not seem an impossible stretch. If not Skipp then the nearest available thing…

£20m on wingers playing wide, open football? £10m on a striker who never scores? A noisy Chelsea loaner who pays the deep-lying regista role in a side under a constant high press?…no weapons at all that disrupt the opposition preferred blueprint (even a Crouch), no set piece specialist….

It didn’t look coherent to many, it wasn’t, it isn’t….

Parma 

 

I fully agree of all that you say as only my opinion is different about when promise is given and player ask to go out 1 year  is no return at all from this point.

My English not allowed me to say always what I like to say so apologies for errors but I never learn English as we only use to learn Russian in our schools 30 y ago here in Bulgaria 🙂

I totally agree with you that  recruitment policy of Webber is antipode to what him ask team to must stay in this league and be competitive  and same time big % of players who come is obsessed with a view for a increased value and big future potential  who is good but is for the future no for the club who is urgent to settled in PL asap.

Sometimes in football ppl like Webber are really on very hard situation to make balance right.

Without doubt if you loose Skipp and Emi 2 fundamental key players  you have huge problem but also other think big cash injection very early on window is enough time to play his cards on good way that seems Webber not do.

 

Still I think our players is much better than what they look like last 10 games but of course only right manager choice will bring us some hopes this to be true.

ironically most of us here was over the moon and rated this transfer window best ever but was a big gamble to be added 11 new players some of them too late most of them from other leagues and 3 of them from already relegated teams (Werder Schalke) + already mentioned biassed of added value and for the future.

For me personally was pain to watch how we look last months as me also travel for 3 games , but still right appointment and next 3 4 games can bring some hopes for all of us...

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,219]

7 hours ago, Boris said:

I fully agree of all that you say as only my opinion is different about when promise is given and player ask to go out 1 year  is no return at all from this point.

My English not allowed me to say always what I like to say so apologies for errors but I never learn English as we only use to learn Russian in our schools 30 y ago here in Bulgaria 🙂

I totally agree with you that  recruitment policy of Webber is antipode to what him ask team to must stay in this league and be competitive  and same time big % of players who come is obsessed with a view for a increased value and big future potential  who is good but is for the future no for the club who is urgent to settled in PL asap.

Sometimes in football ppl like Webber are really on very hard situation to make balance right.

Without doubt if you loose Skipp and Emi 2 fundamental key players  you have huge problem but also other think big cash injection very early on window is enough time to play his cards on good way that seems Webber not do.

 

Still I think our players is much better than what they look like last 10 games but of course only right manager choice will bring us some hopes this to be true.

ironically most of us here was over the moon and rated this transfer window best ever but was a big gamble to be added 11 new players some of them too late most of them from other leagues and 3 of them from already relegated teams (Werder Schalke) + already mentioned biassed of added value and for the future.

For me personally was pain to watch how we look last months as me also travel for 3 games , but still right appointment and next 3 4 games can bring some hopes for all of us...

Blagodarya @Boris

Parma

[Petriix 2,834]

16 hours ago, king canary said:

Its an interesting view but not one I agree with. We saw the same issue last time in the Premier league where we had a number 10 but teams still knew they could press us and make us panic. If anything I'd suggest the lack of a natural playmakers who drops deep and picks the ball up from the defenders has sometimes hurt us but its also the inability to play longer when needed in any effective way- either to a forward who can hold the ball up with his back to goal or into the channels where pace can threaten- that has allowed teams to step up and press us high without having to worry about retaliation.

I'd still contend that the number 10 made it easier for us to gain useful possession higher up the pitch. He could drop short looking for the ball into feet or just pull the defence about, creating space for Pukki to exploit.

If we did 'go long' it would have a better chance of success. We'd pick up more second balls and generally have a better link between the midfield and attack. 

However, the biggest benefit of having a dedicated number 10 is that it means the other two central midfielders are definitely not operating in that area - apart from the occasional foray forwards with discretion.

It's the clearer definition of the midfield roles which we've really been missing. One more attacking/free roaming player with two disciplined holding players behind them is better in both attack and defence.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Petriix

[The Raptor 1,205]

Not just a farke thing but one thing I've felt Norwich have never learnt from being in the premier League. Going back to at least that season under Worthington is gamesmanship or what ever you want to call it. Slowing the game down when you're ahead, diving for fouls instead of staying on your feet, making the slightly cynical foul in your own half to break up the other teams momentum. That kind of thing. Like it or not it isn't pretty but it's part of the game now. The biggest teams do it as much as anyone. It's something we've never learned how to do. I've always felt that we would've benefited from having someone on the coaching staff who's played in the premier League.

Edited November 10, 2021 by The Raptor

[hogesar 9,653]

9 hours ago, Boris said:

My English not allowed me to say always what I like to say so apologies for errors but I never learn English as we only use to learn Russian in our schools 30 y ago here in Bulgaria 🙂

Your English is a lot better than half the posters on here!

[4th floor 4]

Excuse me for not approaching this from a strictly footballing, tactical angle. Just some genral thoughts about why I wouldn't be pointing the finger of blame at Farke.

In a nutshell, the problem is that the board seem to have delegated almost all transfer decisions to Webber. Perhaps a lack of checks and balances lies at the root of our predicament?

This season Webber appears to have gambled, perhaps buoyed by another Championship title, and also keen to seen to be spending after a very frugal previous PL campaign. Selling Buendia might have made more sense under a different scenario of different purchases, but for reasons that Parma and others have mentioned we've ended up with an additional series of gambles and spread our purchases too thinly.

We got a lot of sales spiel from Webber before the season started, but he was strangely silent when things didn't go to plan. He then 'comes out fighting' with more spiel when his silence becomes deafening, and tells us that DF's job was extremely safe ten days before it wasn't.

Webber has gambled fairly sizable sums on several young/youngish players in the expectation that they appreciate in value, as opposed to a more focused reinforcement with more experience. Obviously, part of the risk is that we probably won't see much of a return if we get relegated.

Few of last season's buys have made it into the team this season, ready to go with the wind of promotion in their sails, even if not quite PL ready. Under Lambert it was something like 8 in 9 played regularly in the PL, this time round it's a far lower percentage.

More starkly, some of this season's acquisitions haven't featured much either, with Farke appearing disinterested in them from an early stage.

Webber has got a lot right, but I feel that we're making the same kinds of errors that we've made in the past. Eg spending big, but not spending wisely. Not keeping enought of our promotion team together. 'Bolstering' our squad with raw young academy loans from top PL teams (and perhaps too many loans in general). An abrupt change in style.

If this all goes pear shaped, then perhaps the biggest mistake was giving one man too much power. Before it was an individual manager deemed to be at fault eg Hughton with RVW, Alex Neil with Naismith. Now it's an individual director of football.

But wasn't the director of football role supposed to be a cure for previous discontinuities, and to avoid the sort of abrupt changes that we've just witnessed? What can be done to remedy this apparent problem? Nobody seemed to like the idea of a football board, and a previous attempt under McNally never seemed to really materialise.

All in all, poor old Farke didn't appear to have enough clout or input to be able to prevent Webber from being too cavalier and revolutionary in his approach.

[sgncfc 1,225]

On 10/11/2021 at 09:18, The Raptor said:

Not just a farke thing but one thing I've felt Norwich have never learnt from being in the premier League. Going back to at least that season under Worthington is gamesmanship or what ever you want to call it. Slowing the game down when you're ahead, diving for fouls instead of staying on your feet, making the slightly cynical foul in your own half to break up the other teams momentum. That kind of thing. Like it or not it isn't pretty but it's part of the game now. The biggest teams do it as much as anyone. It's something we've never learned how to do. I've always felt that we would've benefited from having someone on the coaching staff who's played in the premier League.

The critical thing here that we still don't do is small foul the opposition as soon as they turnover the ball, preferably in their half. This buys time for players to get into position and reset. Everyone else does it. Everyone. We still don't.