Seriously thinking we should get Farke back!

[hogesar 9,711]

30 minutes ago, Graham Paddons Beard said:

A scenario where we don’t start well next season , the existing directors go back to recent successes, and Farke is available.

It really isn’t so unimaginable. 

Deano took Villa up after Bruce had had his now familiar run of poor form. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Villa went up in the playoffs with Mings , McGinn, Grealish , Abraham and El Ghazi in the starting 11 at Wembley . 
Smith won’t have anything like that advantage next year in the Chumps. I can’t see how Teemu fits with a Smith Championship style . 
 

Smiths championship style would typically suit Pukki.

It suited the likes of Watkins at Brentford, who he signed and turned into a Premier League forward, typically playing of the shoulder of the last defender. Much like Pukki.

[Ken Hairy 3,774]

18 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Well I'm not going to search the threads so believe me or not makes no odds to me.

I think Hamilton was the worst. Then Grant, Roeder., Megson...

 

Not a case of believing you, was genuinely interested who would be ridiculous enough to think that, as like I said whilst I know plenty who wanted him out at the end, none who thinks he's anywhere near our worst manager. 

[chicken 2,640]

11 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Smiths championship style would typically suit Pukki.

It suited the likes of Watkins at Brentford, who he signed and turned into a Premier League forward, typically playing of the shoulder of the last defender. Much like Pukki.

This.

Also, why is it everyone is banging on about how poor our midfield is but then can't understand why Smith appears to be deploying tactics that largely bypass them?

Tbh, the centre of the pitch has been the issue all season. Arguably missing Rupp a lot, though we can't rely upon an injured player. No cohesion in there. No partnerships to speak of particularly.

What is also painful at the moment, is that whilst there is a chance of staying up, Smith is effectively forced to try and play our best midfield rather than to pick out the players he will be here and in his regular 11 next season and start playing them to develop those partnerships.

I think a lot of fans would settle for that now. Even if it meant taking a bit more punishment for it. Gilmour and Normann won't be here next season. Do they really add more than say Sorensen and a youngster say? 

[hurricane 21]

It's never as good second time around. I remeber when Mike Walker came back with similar hopes. 

[Petriix 2,847]

Farke gave us the two best seasons in the club's history. What has Smith given us? Abject failure. No coherent plan. The same tactical mistakes over and over again. He's a fraud.

[canarybubbles 1,924]

24 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Smiths championship style would typically suit Pukki.

It suited the likes of Watkins at Brentford, who he signed and turned into a Premier League forward, typically playing of the shoulder of the last defender. Much like Pukki.

First of all, that was a long time ago. I've seen nothing from Smith this season to suggest his style suits Pukki. In contrast, I see a Pukki who struggles to get involved in games and runs around like a headless chicken chasing lost causes.

Second of all, although Smith's time at Brentford is now painted by his supporters as a time of gloriously successful football, Brentford came 9th, 10th and 9th during his time there according to Wikipedia. In contrast, once he left they finished 3rd twice, winning the play-offs on the second occasion. So although you can argue that he helped to form the foundation of the success that Brentford are currently enjoying, you could also argue that he delayed that success by turning a team capable of the play-offs into a mid-table side.

On one level, it's pointless arguing: you win and he's going nowhere. For good or bad, we're stuck with him. We'll just have to see who is right.

[crispeduk 282]

38 minutes ago, alex_ncfc said:

Smith doesn't fit Norwich. I like him but it's an odd fit, just something doesn't feel right about his appointment at all. He really wasn't what we needed.

If we were going to get rid of Farke and had Knutsen in mind, we should have just waited and signed Knutsen when available surely?!

Not sure I want the rich seam of young talent potentially about to blossom at the Carra in the hands of someone who thought keeping Walsall up was a bigger challenge than keeping us in the Prem and took Brentford to the dizzying heights of ninth in the Championship before a spendy time at Villa. Daniel recognised where Todd and Billy were – nuff said. He may not be the man to come back in but I’d be happier with that scenario than sticking with what we have. Honestly don’t wish Deano and his assistant ill, especially as I suspect/hope he’s just keeping the seat warm for a more inspiring appointment available in the summer.

[Mengo 825]

7 minutes ago, Petriix said:

Farke gave us the two best seasons in the club's history. What has Smith given us? Abject failure. No coherent plan. The same tactical mistakes over and over again. He's a fraud.

Championship seasons not premier league. There is only one fraud in this and its not Smith.

[hogesar 9,711]

3 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

First of all, that was a long time ago. I've seen nothing from Smith this season to suggest his style suits Pukki. In contrast, I see a Pukki who struggles to get involved in games and runs around like a headless chicken chasing lost causes.

Probably best to judge Smiths style of football in the relevant decision with his own team, rather than trying to firefight relegation with an inept midfield?

I'm not sure on Smith myself but he at least deserves to be judged fairly.

[canarybubbles 1,924]

3 minutes ago, Mengo said:

Championship seasons not premier league. There is only one fraud in this and its not Smith.

Are you saying Farke is a fraud?

[TheGunnShow 5,973]

I didn't want Farke to be sacked at the time, but over time I've come to see it as a "mercy killing". Farke could still leave us with his head held high, he left on a win (a bit fortuitously as the decision had apparently been made after Leeds, but he ended up with the Brentford game anyway), he'd developed several players and sold for good money, improving our parlous financial position. He'd also pretty much done it playing a stylish brand of football that enchanted most of us and most importantly, will probably be his abiding memory when we as fans look back at his time with us. He'd clearly tried to adapt with a much duller style and tried to learn from previous failings, but his team were caught twixt and between.

If Farke were to come back, I'd prefer him in Webber's position simply as who better to maintain the ethos he built as manager than he as DoF. Indeed he'd already done that at Lippstadt. Even then, there's very little chance indeed of that happening.

So, back to Smith. Granted, we've been served slim pickings. In fact, I'd say starvation rations. Then again, he'd got a squad in transition that got promoted then lost the two best players. Farke tried adapting and struggled, and now Smith's got them. Chuck in the obligatory epic ba-s-t-ard ****-ton of injuries including the most promising in Omobamidele and indeed Idah in his last two or three games.

Farke had a preseason with us when he took over. His first season still produced plenty of what can be best described as inanely turgid dross. 0-0 against Burton Albion, anyone? Didn't start his second season too well either, as a Bielsa-inspired 0-3 home defeat to Leeds showed, then it turned. Oh, boy - did it turn. And didn't we love it.

Summa summarum, I don't enjoy watching us at the moment. However, in the interests of being fair, I'm happy to let Smith have a pre-season and a chance to build a team somewhat.

[OnDaBall 137]

I think there's more chance of Lambert coming back than Farke, and no I don't want that.

[Mengo 825]

25 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

Are you saying Farke is a fraud?

I would say no to that. I think you know fine well who I mean. 

[Creative Midfielder 1,999]

1 hour ago, Monty13 said:

It’s not happening and shouldn’t happen IMO.

Never go back, Farke did overall a great job getting us two Championships but he’d took us as far as it looked like he could and his PL record was terrible, we severed ties and you move on.

If Smith doesn’t work we look for someone else. 

There is no 'if' is there - he clearly hasn't worked and frankly it was never likely that he would.

[nutty nigel 7,555]

1 hour ago, Ken Hairy said:

Not a case of believing you, was genuinely interested who would be ridiculous enough to think that, as like I said whilst I know plenty who wanted him out at the end, none who thinks he's anywhere near our worst manager. 

It wasn't really just that they wanted him out. It was the absolute hatred they had for him. I guess that's hard to shake off. It was very much like the Chase out stuff. Protests, marches, St Andrew's Hall. All that was missing was the police horses.

Thankfully we've seen nothing like it since.

Edited April 2, 2022 by nutty nigel

[astro 365]

I think people lost patience with Worthy due to the lack of excitement on the new player front. This was probably not his fault as the purse strings may have been extremely taut! But trotting out the ‘we’ll go with what we’ve got mantra’ season after season was not going to endear him to the fan base. 

Edited April 2, 2022 by astro

[Indy 3,307]

Again I keep reading lots of “judge him when it’s Smiths Team” when does it become Smith’s team? Do people expect massive changes lots of departures and Smith to bring in lots of his own?

As far as I can see, Krull, Byram, Hanley, Gibson, Giannoulis, McLean, Dowell, Pukki, Idah, Lees, Sargent, Tzolis, Rowe, Omobamdele, Zimmermann, Mumba, Sorensen will all be here next year, can see Aarons and Rashica being sold to balance the books, but don’t see huge amount of players coming in! Maybe a couple with a couple loans and won’t it be the DOF and his scouts who get the players? 

[astro 365]

5 minutes ago, Indy said:

Again I keep reading lots of “judge him when it’s Smiths Team” when does it become Smith’s team? Do people expect massive changes lots of departures and Smith to bring in lots of his own?

As far as I can see, Krull, Byram, Hanley, Gibson, Giannoulis, McLean, Dowell, Pukki, Idah, Lees, Sargent, Tzolis, Rowe, Omobamdele, Zimmermann, Mumba, Sorensen will all be here next year, can see Aarons and Rashica being sold to balance the books, but don’t see huge amount of players coming in! Maybe a couple with a couple loans and won’t it be the DOF and his scouts who get the players? 

Exactly - I can’t see wholesale changes either. Smith was brought in to get the players we had here performing better than Farke had them performing, and personally I think he has failed. The defence looks a bit more solid, but it’s at the expense of any attacking threat. 

[corbs 147]

We will look back on the Farke era much as Leeds will look back on Bielsa. A unique period in our history. But all good things come to an end and we are left with having to support the current incumbents, it’s not their fault that they cannot match the majestic time before they came. 

[TheGunnShow 5,973]

15 minutes ago, Indy said:

Again I keep reading lots of “judge him when it’s Smiths Team” when does it become Smith’s team? Do people expect massive changes lots of departures and Smith to bring in lots of his own?

As far as I can see, Krull, Byram, Hanley, Gibson, Giannoulis, McLean, Dowell, Pukki, Idah, Lees, Sargent, Tzolis, Rowe, Omobamdele, Zimmermann, Mumba, Sorensen will all be here next year, can see Aarons and Rashica being sold to balance the books, but don’t see huge amount of players coming in! Maybe a couple with a couple loans and won’t it be the DOF and his scouts who get the players? 

It'll be more his team when he's had two windows to at least fine-tune his team with a few signings to augment what we have. He's basically had loans that weren't his and a team that's not his. We will get more of an idea in the next window as I suspect a few might go.

Also, remember that the Gilmour deal was structured such that the loan would only be free if Gilmour played every game, and the more games he missed, the more we have to pay Chelsea. My gut instinct is making me suspect he's playing Gilmour to reduce the fee paid to Chelsea for it so he might have a bit more of a kitty to play with in the summer.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,227]

I lean more towards @Petriix ‘s view that we may dangerously drift into incoherent squad-building and a fundamental shift from our previous philosophy, which was clear and connected to financial Realisms. 

Talking like we ‘can’t judge until we let the new manager buy his own team’ slips dangerously back into the yo-yo manager-centric spending that we can neither afford, nor which fits the sporting director model. 

So what are we now? What kind of players do we want? What is the goal for that spending and direction?

If we say we want Premier League style players - more power, physicality, height et al - we will simply end up with Championship ersatz versions which ironically will be unlikely to get us out of the championship. We will simply look like every other half-baked Championship wannabe side that will cost money and still not be good enough overall for the premier….….or our previous model, philosophy and structure is right, we are Swansea-Man City lite and developing our own players for progress or money?

So which is it?

What do we see in front of us? What’s the coherent model, the identity, the refined methodology that will amortise our lack of finance? Where does it all fit together?

As Darren Kenton said - with candour- ‘players move for money’ and ‘the Chelsea academy funds the first team’ - they know they can’t make players good enough, so they hoover them, brand them and sell them on to lower level clubs and use the money to buy stars…

The point of a sporting director system is to smooth out these erratic manager-led peaks and troughs, good spending vs bad spending, players I like vs players you like. A theme, a model an identity, a coherence….something that extends beyond the shelf-life of any single manager. The selection of managers that have a similar outlook, that play a similar way, so players - and the sparsely-available money spent on them is as well-protected and ‘investment-purchase’ as possible. 

We look a little lost up a mountain at present..

Parma 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Monty13 2,235]

1 hour ago, Creative Midfielder said:

There is no 'if' is there - he clearly hasn't worked and frankly it was never likely that he would.

I don’t think you can make a full judgement based on this season for a multitude of reasons personally.

[Indy 3,307]

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

We look a little lost up a mountain at present..

Parma 

Is that a little observation about our DOF! 😉👍💛💚

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,435]

2 hours ago, hogesar said:

Smiths championship style would typically suit Pukki.

It suited the likes of Watkins at Brentford, who he signed and turned into a Premier League forward, typically playing of the shoulder of the last defender. Much like Pukki.

We will see Young Hoggy. We will see. 

[Big O 225]

Farke was a legend and the first promotion was magical with free flowing football and goals galore. Unfortunately the harsh realities of the premier league chewed us up and spat us out. Our bounce back last time was heavily influenced by Emi and Skipp which augmented a strong, experienced spine/squad. The rebuild this time will need to be more profound as we currently don’t appear to have a style, we Lack weapons to hurt teams and the flair has all but disappeared. 

We will need atleast 2 centre midfielders and somehow a player with the required quality to make us tick and hope thatnTzolis, Rashica and Sargent suddenly look like world beaters a level down. 

[Green Canary 21]

Farke has proven he can build a team that plays to a particular football style/tactics and ingrains that in every player. Smith so far looks as if he can't, but will no doubt be offered the chance to prove he can do it next season in the Champs. I'm not convinced he can, but obviously hope he proves me wrong. I realise Farke totally screwed up this season, abandoning the style of play in a catastrophic fashion, in a desperate attempt to grind out some results in the Prem. But Smith has had enough time to at least start to establish some patterns of play, but has not. Sadly, it seems he is failing. Sure the squad is not of his making, but that should not stop a good manager imposing systems of play. ( And we are told we have a bizarre system in which Webber chooses players rather than managers recruiting to fit their strategy - if this true, we really are f******d until we change structure.

[Monty13 2,235]

2 hours ago, Petriix said:

Farke gave us the two best seasons in the club's history. What has Smith given us? Abject failure. No coherent plan. The same tactical mistakes over and over again. He's a fraud.

Two best seasons in our history? 

Very short memory.

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

3 hours ago, Petriix said:

Farke gave us the two best seasons in the club's history. What has Smith given us? Abject failure. No coherent plan. The same tactical mistakes over and over again. He's a fraud.

Farkes 1st season was shocking... he was given time and so should Smith

[Cantiaci Canary 558]

It's genuinely hilarious to see how many posters are showing enthusiasm to get Farke back in!!!

In his last month I was one of the very few sentimentalsts who wanted to keep DF in the dug out and there was a tidal wave of desire on this message board to sack the German.

However, even I came round to thinking that his time was up in the end.

We have to remember that peak Daniel = Farkeball ... which on a shoestring COULD NOT EVER WORK IN THE TOP TIER. Too small, too slow, too predictable and too easy to score against - we continue to live with the consequences today.

When he tried to adapt this season we looked as confused as we do right now. 

That's where Daniel lost his job. He COULDN'T adapt and keep us competitive outside of the Championship.

ALL season long we haven't looked like a team that has a clear identity and style of play. For us to have any chance we need round pegs in round holes ... we don't even have holes right now - and didn't under Farke in the end either ... tragically.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Cantiaci Canary

[chicken 2,640]

3 hours ago, Petriix said:

Farke gave us the two best seasons in the club's history. What has Smith given us? Abject failure. No coherent plan. The same tactical mistakes over and over again. He's a fraud.

We have to be very careful when making statements like that.

"the two best seasons in the clubs history" - yikes. I mean, I turned 40 recently, and as much as I admire Farke and love what he did for this football club, I can think of at least three better seasons in my own living memory going back to around 1990 when I started supporting a football club which was our beloved NCFC.

He has given us two fantastic championship winning seasons, though the one under Worthington was also just as swashbuckling and probably a bit more fairy tail. That Farke beat that points total is great, but one must not forget he did it with a squad worth more money and younger. We also shouldn't forget that we had three great seasons with Lambert too - though the first was League One, the following promotion was just as good and then maintaining our premier league status... 

You can't help but wonder what it would have been like had Webber been about then and Lambert, Culverhouse and Karsa worked with him... we seemed to pick up some great bargains back then. A much better balanced side.