Michael Bailey Athletic Article

[hertfordyellow 460]

1 minute ago, Tommo said:

I do hope he does - my issue though is that he clearly isn’t ready to make immediate impact on the prem league and it was unrealistic gamble that he would be given age and his level of playing experience. If he was being bought for the future then £9m when budget is tight and we needed more immediate impact quality players was not the right decision 

Well he had already played Internationally and in both Champions League and Europa. I don’t think he was pin pointed as one for the future but there was always a chance he wouldn’t be ready.

Truth is, Tzolis with another season in Europe etc I.e. 21 years old is out of our price range. We had to take gambles IMO. Too many gambles though. 

[Jim Smith 2,325]

This article is deeply damning of Webber and our approach to this season. Deeply frustrating as it suggests that Farke did identify what was needed but was badly let down. 

[Son Ova Gunn 165]

6 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Well he had already played Internationally and in both Champions League and Europa. I don’t think he was pin pointed as one for the future but there was always a chance he wouldn’t be ready.

Truth is, Tzolis with another season in Europe etc I.e. 21 years old is out of our price range. We had to take gambles IMO. Too many gambles though. 

I totally subscribe to the notion that we generally have to buy players before they are PL ready, before they both become attractive to too many mid table PL sides and before their cost becomes prohibitive. This is all the more reason however to have kept those which were bought 1-2 seasons previously and have kicked on, not sell them when they are ready because we won’t pay competitive rates and make leaving so very attractive.

[hertfordyellow 460]

2 minutes ago, Son Ova Gunn said:

I totally subscribe to the notion that we generally have to buy players before they are PL ready, before they both become attractive to too many mid table PL sides and before their cost becomes prohibitive. This is all the more reason however to have kept those which were bought 1-2 seasons previously and have kicked on, not sell them when they are ready because we won’t pay competitive rates and make leaving so very attractive.

I agree with the sentiment. Unfortunately covid might have forced their hand on sales. We’ll never know what could have been.

[Disco Dales Jockstrap 1,898]

Interesting points for me not already mentioned by others:

That Watford defeat visibly knocked Norwich’s coaching staff, too. From that point on September 18, to some, they looked lost. It was the last thing anyone needed.

I'm going to admit that this game was the first one where I thought, "We're gonna need a bigger boat...'' We were so so poor against another promoted club. It had 19/20 vibes. We didn't look like we believed - and this was bl00dy Watford we were playing! At home! But there was so much of the season to go I thought. You can't be relegated in September Disco! Come on Norwich! You can do it...

His heart (Emi) was already set on a move, although sources are adamant there was no previous agreement between the club and player to sell him following last season’s promotion.

It's been indicated that there was some agreement with Emi to sell him - this implies there 100% was not. We shouldn't have sold him - no hindsight, I said so at the time, as did many others.You don't sell your best player if you want to stay up.

Norwich had set their limit at £10 million and opted to bide their time, feeling Ajer would sign a pre-contract option with them come January, given he was entering the final 12 months of his contract. Then Brentford offered the £13 million fee Celtic wanted and Ajer moved to west London instead of Norfolk.

😬 FFS! What do you even say to that. "Hello? Is that Norwich City? Brentford here! Do you mind awfully if we step in and pinch your new centre back? That's OK? Great stuff! What's that? You'll phone him for us and and let him know? Top man! All the best!"

Following a 7-0 thrashing at Chelsea on Saturday, October 23, Norwich’s players retained their days off on the Sunday and Monday.

🤬 Defeatist mentality - screams of 'we aren't good enough so why bother' 🤷‍♂️.

Defeats hurt but were perhaps dismissed a little too easily before the next game came along....and....“At Norwich, in the Premier League, if you lose it’s like, ‘OK. Cool. Dust ourselves off and go again’. At Newcastle, it’s like, ‘No, that’s not good enough. We need to do this, this and this’.” (Jamal Lewis)

🤬🤬🤬 Defeatist mentality again. Feeds into Dean Smith's comments about the culture at the club.

Four of the side played with high temperatures that night, although they did not record positive COVID-19 tests before the game. Those who did so were already isolating. At least one member of the starting XI threw up in the dressing room at half-time. Norwich had phoned the Premier League to discuss postponing the game (Aston Villa) but not until a few hours before kick-off.

🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 Speechless.

Even criticism from a team-mate can sometimes be taken personally by some of the group’s younger members, rather than reflecting on its intended purpose.

Cantwell?

OTBC

[Branston Pickle 3,669]

10 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

This article is deeply damning of Webber and our approach to this season. Deeply frustrating as it suggests that Farke did identify what was needed but was badly let down. 

To be fair we all identified what we needed, and didn’t get anywhere near getting it.

[hertfordyellow 460]

2 minutes ago, Disco Dales Jockstrap said:

Interesting points for me not already mentioned by others:

That Watford defeat visibly knocked Norwich’s coaching staff, too. From that point on September 18, to some, they looked lost. It was the last thing anyone needed.

I'm going to admit that this game was the first one where I thought, "We're gonna need a bigger boat...'' We were so so poor against another promoted club. It had 19/20 vibes. We didn't look like we believed - and this was bl00dy Watford we were playing! At home! But there was so much of the season to go I thought. You can't be relegated in September Disco! Come on Norwich! You can do it...

His heart (Emi) was already set on a move, although sources are adamant there was no previous agreement between the club and player to sell him following last season’s promotion.

It's been indicated that there was some agreement with Emi to sell him - this implies there 100% was not. We shouldn't have sold him - no hindsight, I said so at the time, as did many others.You don't sell your best player if you want to stay up.

Norwich had set their limit at £10 million and opted to bide their time, feeling Ajer would sign a pre-contract option with them come January, given he was entering the final 12 months of his contract. Then Brentford offered the £13 million fee Celtic wanted and Ajer moved to west London instead of Norfolk.

😬 FFS! What do you even say to that. "Hello? Is that Norwich City? Brentford here! Do you mind awfully if we step in and pinch your new centre back? That's OK? Great stuff! What's that? You'll phone him for us and and let him know? Top man! All the best!"

Following a 7-0 thrashing at Chelsea on Saturday, October 23, Norwich’s players retained their days off on the Sunday and Monday.

🤬 Defeatist mentality - screams of 'we aren't good enough so why bother' 🤷‍♂️.

Defeats hurt but were perhaps dismissed a little too easily before the next game came along....and....“At Norwich, in the Premier League, if you lose it’s like, ‘OK. Cool. Dust ourselves off and go again’. At Newcastle, it’s like, ‘No, that’s not good enough. We need to do this, this and this’.” (Jamal Lewis)

🤬🤬🤬 Defeatist mentality again. Feeds into Dean Smith's comments about the culture at the club.

Four of the side played with high temperatures that night, although they did not record positive COVID-19 tests before the game. Those who did so were already isolating. At least one member of the starting XI threw up in the dressing room at half-time. Norwich had phoned the Premier League to discuss postponing the game (Aston Villa) but not until a few hours before kick-off.

🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 Speechless.

Even criticism from a team-mate can sometimes be taken personally by some of the group’s younger members, rather than reflecting on its intended purpose.

Cantwell?

OTBC

To me, yes management looks poor but the players need to shoulder way more blame than they do currently.

They collectively seem to be weak, immature and arrogant.

[Disco Dales Jockstrap 1,898]

1 minute ago, hertfordyellow said:

To me, yes management looks poor but the players need to shoulder way more blame than they do currently.

They collectively seem to be weak, immature and arrogant.

Oh yes, it's a collective failure of many aspects of the club, I wouldn't disagree. The quotes I noted were just the ones that stood out to me.

OTBC

[Nuff Said 5,153]

20 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

This article is deeply damning of Webber and our approach to this season. Deeply frustrating as it suggests that Farke did identify what was needed but was badly let down. 

I think we could all have had a reasonable shout at what was needed. Wanting and delivering are two different things.

[HertsCanary93 222]

Sounds like there is a really poor culture at the club.

In terms of playing staff we're pretty comparable to Brentford, but the defeatist mentality at this level has really permeated throughout the squad and that is obviously a key difference when you're trying to punch above your weight.

[repman 635]

Signing just 3 players in the positions that Farke wanted would have been nowhere near enough. Replacing Buendia and Skipp were obviously musts and a top quality CB was also needed but we would have had a squad still way off in my opinion. On top of that I would have said we needed an additional wide option (a more traditional winger on top of the initial Buendia replacement), cover for both full back positions, a back up GK for Krul and a central midfield option to replace McLean and Rupp. As it turns out we did sign most of those positions, however its clear very few were up to standard.

[priceyrice 123]

Well at least we know there never was an agreement with Buendia! This just seems to be a rumour started by those on here to justify our club selling our best player on promotion, when we should have been making him our highest earner. 

[......and Smith must score. 1,349]

9 minutes ago, priceyrice said:

Well at least we know there never was an agreement with Buendia! This just seems to be a rumour started by those on here to justify our club selling our best player on promotion, when we should have been making him our highest earner. 

Whether or not there was a gentleman's agreement between the club and player we'll never really know but way back someone on here posted that Buendia's house was emptied of furniture as soon as last season ended.

If that's true then it's pretty obvious he was on his way.

 

[Monty13 2,235]

12 minutes ago, priceyrice said:

Well at least we know there never was an agreement with Buendia! This just seems to be a rumour started by those on here to justify our club selling our best player on promotion, when we should have been making him our highest earner. 

Yea far from us being unable to keep him because of agreements or him being held hostage if we did as some suggested because he was so set on leaving, looks like we choose to.

[Segura 84]

34 minutes ago, repman said:

Signing just 3 players in the positions that Farke wanted would have been nowhere near enough. Replacing Buendia and Skipp were obviously musts and a top quality CB was also needed but we would have had a squad still way off in my opinion. On top of that I would have said we needed an additional wide option (a more traditional winger on top of the initial Buendia replacement), cover for both full back positions, a back up GK for Krul and a central midfield option to replace McLean and Rupp. As it turns out we did sign most of those positions, however its clear very few were up to standard.

Exactly this plus there's no guarantee players like Ajer would have improved us - has he been that good for Brentford?

Cant comment on the German targets having not seen either, but sounds like neither were that interested in signing.

However I'm sure we can all agree that we've got poor value out of Sarge, Tzolis and bar some flashes Rashica.

[hertfordyellow 460]

1 hour ago, KeiranShikari said:

SOme, but a lot will if you pay them the going rate.

What are you basing that comment on?

[shefcanary 2,435]

Those bits of Disco's analysis of Bailey's article are truly shocking.  Once again a demonstration of how poor the management of the club has been.  If this doesn't change the current set up then League 1 or even 2 beckons!

A CEO would hold an inquest of each matches performance, would challenge the SD over what the manager had in place to prevent a repeat, challenge the SD over recruitment, challenge commercial dept over the contracts and whether they met brand calues, challenge marketing over whether they were in a good position over fan communication.  Regularly, weekly preferably. 

Instead we have the position that the SD focusses on his training programme, the manager tries to win over his squad by being nice and allowing them trips all over Europe, the commercial team sign up to quick wins and marketing completely ignore fans, both existing and prospective.  The latter would certainly have pushed for ground expansion!

Proper corporate governance would not have guaranteed on field success, but boy we would not have the confluence of poor decisions that have accrued over the past 18 months! 

Come on Smith & Jones, get a grip now.

[Danke bitte 967]

1 hour ago, Disco Dales Jockstrap said:

Oh yes, it's a collective failure of many aspects of the club, I wouldn't disagree. The quotes I noted were just the ones that stood out to me.

OTBC

I haven’t read the article but the snippets I’m seeing have baffled me. Abject failure across all avenues. It really puts a mark against the great work Webber and Farke did prior. But I mentioned in another post last night, for me something smelled wrong when the BK8 debacle occurred. 

And the person left having to pick up the pieces is Smith. When he took the job with Shakespeare a few weeks in he must’ve thought “what the fcku have I done?!”

 

[Kingston Yellow 220]

3 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

He also lost nearly every game that season. This seems to be lost in the analysis.

I think that’s very harsh, given the bigger picture.
 

Farke had us competing in 2019/20, right up until lockdown, despite a sub standard and under resourced squad.  Therefore, there’s reason to believe that had we replaced Buendia and Skipp (instead of p155ing money up against the wall) that he would have made fist of it this season.
 

Every indication, including the various journalists’ insight over the last 24 hours, suggests that the issues this season were well beyond Farke’s areas of influence.  Not least the appalling recruitment ‘strategy’.

 

[hertfordyellow 460]

8 minutes ago, Kingston Yellow said:

I think that’s very harsh, given the bigger picture.
 

Farke had us competing in 2019/20, right up until lockdown, despite a sub standard and under resourced squad.  Therefore, there’s reason to believe that had we replaced Buendia and Skipp (instead of p155ing money up against the wall) that he would have made fist of it this season.
 

Every indication, including the various journalists’ insight over the last 24 hours, suggests that the issues this season were well beyond Farke’s areas of influence.  Not least the appalling recruitment ‘strategy’.

 

The same people who think it’s harsh to point to the facts of Farke’s results are the same people usually that are quick to lay everything on Webber.

was Farke in charge of those games post lockdown? What was his record? Why does it matter that it was post lockdown as every other club had the same scenario to deal with?

[PurpleCanary 5,575]

49 minutes ago, priceyrice said:

Well at least we know there never was an agreement with Buendia! This just seems to be a rumour started by those on here to justify our club selling our best player on promotion, when we should have been making him our highest earner. 

If Bailey's sources are correct. This is another case where what a journalist is saying is treated as true if it fits in with what the reader wants to be true. But even if there was no agreement to let him go, that doesn't mean it was right to keep him. Bear in mind that by Bailey's reckoning Farke's plan  for just three quality signings involved selling Buendia!

And going by the high mid-point of estimates last summer of how much we would have to spend if we didn't sell Buendia, it was between £20m and £25m. Get in an established Premier or equivalent quality and battle hardened central defensive midfielder and that would have been most if not all of the transfer fund gone.

[king canary 7,643]

18 minutes ago, Kingston Yellow said:

Farke had us competing in 2019/20, right up until lockdown,

Did he? We were rock bottom from Boxing Day and at the time of lockdown we were 6 points off safety. Largely the idea we were competitive seems to be based on a cup win at Spurs. We were very much on course to go down pre lockdown.

[Disco Dales Jockstrap 1,898]

16 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

I like how Bailey is regarded by posters as well-informed and accurate, except when...

 

2 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

If Bailey's sources are correct. This is another case where what a journalist is saying is treated as true if it fits in with what the reader wants to be true.

Indeed it is Purple! 😉 Do you think Mr Bailey is being fast and loose with the truth then? If so, what makes you think that?

OTBC

[king canary 7,643]

7 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

If Bailey's sources are correct. This is another case where what a journalist is saying is treated as true if it fits in with what the reader wants to be true. But even if there was no agreement to let him go, that doesn't mean it was right to keep him. Bear in mind that by Bailey's reckoning Farke's plan  for just three quality signings involved selling Buendia!

And going by the high mid-point of estimates last summer of how much we would have to spend if we didn't sell Buendia, it was between £20m and £25m. Get in an established Premier or equivalent quality and battle hardened central defensive midfielder and that would have been most if not all of the transfer fund gone.

Equally it's the case that some will claim Bailey's words aren't true or to be treated with skepticism because it fits their narrative.

I agree some healthy skepticism is always needed for these reports but the level of detail combined with Bailey's rep and connections means I don't see a great reason to doubt much.

[Kingston Yellow 220]

2 minutes ago, king canary said:

Did he? We were rock bottom from Boxing Day and at the time of lockdown we were 6 points off safety. Largely the idea we were competitive seems to be based on a cup win at Spurs. We were very much on course to go down pre lockdown.

I don’t disagree we looked likely to go down. That wasn’t my point.  My point was that in the context of spending c.£400k on transfer fees that summer, we at least competed, had belief and there was some reason for optimism.  Unlike this season, when we lost 2, arguably 3 critical players and didn’t replace them.
 

Farke got d1ck3d about on both prem outings. So the comment “Farke lost nearly every game seems to have got lost in the analysis” seems harsh, given the context. 
 

 

[PurpleCanary 5,575]

7 minutes ago, king canary said:

Equally it's the case that some will claim Bailey's words aren't true or to be treated with skepticism because it fits their narrative.

I agree some healthy skepticism is always needed for these reports but the level of detail combined with Bailey's rep and connections means I don't see a great reason to doubt much.

KC and Disco, I suspect it is true. My only point was it was immediately turned into an absolute and proven fact. The more interesting point, to my mind, is that - if Bailey is right -  Farke wanted to sell Buendia anyway.

Edited May 1, 2022 by PurpleCanary

[Mr Angry 1,570]

I’m finding it hard to reconcile the idea of us having a defeatist nature, with the memory of us romping the league last season.

[canarydan23 4,060]

2 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

Let’s face it, if Farke came round and set fire to your house, you’d be saying “well, it did need redecorating “. 

It's interesting/telling that the dwindling number of advocates of Webber's decision to sack Farke for his own failings are resorting to such hyperbole.

[Move Klose 303]

20 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

It's interesting/telling that the dwindling number of advocates of Webber's decision to sack Farke for his own failings are resorting to such hyperbole.

I genuinely believe that Webber sacked Farke because he believed Farke should be getting more out of these players, the problem is Webber believed these players were better than they actually were.

[king canary 7,643]

13 minutes ago, Move Klose said:

I genuinely believe that Webber sacked Farke because he believed Farke should be getting more out of these players, the problem is Webber believed these players were better than they actually were.

I think both things can be true- the players likely weren't good enough to survive but they were better than the performances Farke was getting from them