Stuart Webber Has Been Reported Missing.

[norfolkngood 1,086]

i think he has has offered to quit and Delia and Mwj have offered him a week to think about it before a statement either way 😉

[shefcanary 2,377]

4 hours ago, Yellow and Green said:

*I guess he didn't speak this Jan was because a) we didn't sign anyone and b) he spoke when we hired Smith

He didn't speak in January because as he said in his infamous PR piece in the Troygraph he was halfway up Kilimanjaro, as there was no need for him to be around as we had no money so could do no business!

[TIL 1010 4,717]

1 minute ago, shefcanary said:

He didn't speak in January because as he said in his infamous PR piece in the Troygraph he was halfway up Kilimanjaro, as there was no need for him to be around as we had no money so could do no business!

Didn't he also say that as there was going to be no movement in the January window there was little point in sitting at his desk or words to that effect ?

[Jim Smith 2,314]

3 hours ago, Danke bitte said:

But if he’s not speaking to Archant then who will he address?? He’s hardly going to offer MFW an exclusive interview.

He will do it through Canaries TV i'd imagine. Some kind of staged address from our glorious leader with no opportunity for the meddlesome local hacks to ask difficult questions. 

[Jim Smith 2,314]

14 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Didn't he also say that as there was going to be no movement in the January window there was little point in sitting at his desk or words to that effect ?

Yes. One interesting revelation from his Times interview is that its clear we don't actually need a Sporting Director for up to 3 months a year including January windows, June, October and any time international football is being played. So presumably a saving on wages to be made there!

Edited May 25, 2022 by Jim Smith

[king canary 7,558]

5 hours ago, Yellow and Green said:

I'm going out on a limb to defend him.

1) He's been pretty consistent with his interviews. Once after the summer transfer window, once after the January transfer window* and once at the end of the season. I honestly don't get why we expect him to speak before the end of the season. 

*I guess he didn't speak this Jan was because a) we didn't sign anyone and b) he spoke when we hired Smith

2) The last time he was directly involved in first team business (apart from sacking Farke/hiring Smith) was 10 months ago, when the summer transfer window closed. At that time, the fanbase was in a positive mood, crowing about the new players. As we spent all our money in the summer, he was basically powerless to change anything. He's essentially had to sit there, watch it all fall apart and take abuse all season.

Speaking at the end of the season is the right thing to do. He can't say 'we got the recruitment wrong', whilst the players still have a game to play. 

Whilst the recruitment/performances have been bad, the PR has been woeful, which has made everything so much worse. It literally seems like the club is falling apart. How much of this is Webber's fault (Times intrview aside) is debatable but they need to sort it out next season.

Not much to disagree with here. It was always a bit silly when people were demanding he give an interview about poor recruitment in February/March when survival was still possible. 

Largely it is a PR problem with Webber. That Telegraph interview was a car crash and has created a sense that his confidence has moved into full blown arrogance and he see's himself as too big to bother with the fans, something he needs to address. 

[komakino 272]

12 minutes ago, king canary said:

Not much to disagree with here. It was always a bit silly when people were demanding he give an interview about poor recruitment in February/March when survival was still possible. 

Largely it is a PR problem with Webber. That Telegraph interview was a car crash and has created a sense that his confidence has moved into full blown arrogance and he see's himself as too big to bother with the fans, something he needs to address. 

 

12 minutes ago, king canary said:

Not much to disagree with here. It was always a bit silly when people were demanding he give an interview about poor recruitment in February/March when survival was still possible. 

Largely it is a PR problem with Webber. That Telegraph interview was a car crash and has created a sense that his confidence has moved into full blown arrogance and he see's himself as too big to bother with the fans, something he needs to address. 

I'm not being unkind, but it sounds that Webber is having some sort of breakdown. 

 

[king canary 7,558]

1 minute ago, komakino said:

 

I'm not being unkind, but it sounds that Webber is having some sort of breakdown. 

 

I think he's probably just pissed off to be honest.

This season was supposed to be the crowning glory for him- showing he was smart enough to create a team that could compete at this level on a limited budget and instead it has blown up in his face- the manager was sacked, his new appointment didn't change much and none of his signings have remotely paid off. Almost every major decision he's made since promotion has gone badly. So he was hoping/expecting to come out of this season being heralded as a genius and instead has people questioning his competency. That is going to **** anyone off.

[Davidlingfield 63]

28 minutes ago, king canary said:

Not much to disagree with here. It was always a bit silly when people were demanding he give an interview about poor recruitment in February/March when survival was still possible. 

Largely it is a PR problem with Webber. That Telegraph interview was a car crash and has created a sense that his confidence has moved into full blown arrogance and he see's himself as too big to bother with the fans, something he needs to address. 

PR is wholly the Webbers’ problem as his wife is responsible for it at the club. Therein lies the problem.

[Mengo 820]

2 minutes ago, Davidlingfield said:

PR is wholly the Webbers’ problem as his wife is responsible for it at the club. Therein lies the problem.

Ah yes! Deary me. The Webber- Ward or the Ward- Webber Dream team , absolutely 🚗 crash material. I think Delia calling him a genius was a little over enthusiastic.  

[A Load of Squit 5,108]

2 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Yes. One interesting revelation from his Times interview is that its clear we don't actually need a Sporting Director for up to 3 months a year including January windows, June, October and any time international football is being played. So presumably a saving on wages to be made there!

How have you made up 3 months?

BTW Webber was away for 11 days in January.

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

On 23/05/2022 at 19:39, yellow_belly said:

Let’s hear from you, Stu..!

I believe Webber has decided to do an interview this week. It will be interesting to see who gets chosen to ask the questions.😍🤓🤩

Edited May 25, 2022 by PurpleCanary

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,219]

 

Posted yesterday at 12:54

   On 24/05/2022 at 10:34,  hogesar said: 

No, I don't think we've seen value for money. But Webber, maybe purposefully, hedged his bets again here. Instead of a Naismith and Klose where we would never see a return due to age, he's spent it on young players who could yet end up generating a profit, as distant as that seems right now. I'm sure it'll form part of his defence.

————————————

Totally right Hoggy, though it’s not quite as it was presented, not quite ‘before he had no gun, now he has bazookas and tanks’….

Webber has a difficult job at the top level with our very limited finances. It is perfectly reasonable to intimate ‘this is part of our longer term growth strategy, the Buendia’s of tomorrow, the Dortmund-esque young player pathway, our model et al….

But we don’t have to guess here, we can see what happened. The intention has now revealed itself.

The big money on Rashica-Sargent-Tzolis was only therefore one bazooka (Rashica), one back-up half bazooka (Sargent) and tomorrow investment purchase Tzolis (patience). That’s fine.

Now back to those bazookas that Farke had…

He had lost Buendia-Skipp, obviously risking negating Pukki and weakening us pre-season.

Rashica swap for Buendia? Maybe at a push you could believe it. Structurally we are still much weaker than previous year. 

So then what? We’ll add 4 x loan players. We can’t afford to buy, so we’ll do it that way. Bazookas? Kabak looked first back-up from the off (so not a Bazooka), Williams is solid (though we just paid £8m for Dimi so this not super-key. Not really a Bazooka, Buendia-Skipp not yet qualitatively amortised). Normann a good player, bit of an injury record, can shoot, we fancy him. Not super defensive, though energetic. Getting there, still behind last year’s team for quality though…)

The answer? The bazooka? It must have been Gilmour. We must have believed all the hype. We must have been sure that he could affect games  strongly at this level. 

As Smith said ‘the players we have are possession-oriented (in a league where we have to defend every week)’

So there you have it. We believed in Gilmour to the extent that we thought we’d always have the ball, pop it around, create a nice pocket of space  between defence and midfield, link and see winger-types driving into three-quarter spaces from wide, then supporting Pukki. 
 

We have seen none of that. It was flawed belief. There were no bazookas. 

Now here is the question Hoggy: go back and re-read all of the above with a clear head. On reflection was it a reasonable thought process? Was the belief well-founded?

Now that is somebody’s job. That is somebody’s responsibility. 

Parma 

Edited yesterday at 12:56 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

 ———————————

I could-should have added to this that the kind of player you sign upon ascension to the top level changes. 

An obvious strategic change is that - as you have gone from being superior at a lower level to inferior at a higher level - you have to shut more spaces. 

In this regard almost no top level teams play with traditionally-understood wingers. Manchester City just about get away with playing Grealish very wide sometimes, though their excellent overload-to-opposite underload- switches are exceptional. I would also suggest that Grealish is nearer a 3/4 player than a winger anyway. 

3/4 players are Jarrod Bowen, Lingard, Buendia, Cantwell and others that fill up the spaces between 10 , the wing, centre midfield, high-wide-ish, even centre forward areas.

This is a clear strategic imperative with even the most cursory study of top level football. 

So we go back to our bazookas and pre-season approach:

Rashica? Far more a winger than a 3/4. Tzolis? A winger. Sargent? Ok he fits, a striker-****-second striker-**** 3/4 (sort of).

So our major investments were in areas that we couldn’t really - or shouldn’t - use. Again, this is not hindsight, this is what football people spend their lives studying. 

Naismith can go wrong, though it was clear what and how he was supposed to perform. How he would fit in, what he should do. 

Our major investments may indeed be designed to dominate the championship as @hogesar said, that is fine. Though again, they cannot be ‘bazookas’ as they could not really strategically  have been fired even if they were good enough.

Weaker sides playing open football with wingers is a horribly flawed idea before the season started. 

Again, these are the directional decisions that are key. Again, this kind of strategic planning is somebody’s job.

Parma 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy
*cûm*

[Miss Demeanor 67]

13 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

I believe Webber has decided to do an interview this week. It will be interesting to see who gets chosen to ask the questions.😍🤓🤩

Nepalese Times?

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

6 minutes ago, Miss Demeanor said:

Nepalese Times?

A fine paper with particularly good coverage of East Anglian mountaineering...

[Mengo 820]

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

A fine paper with particularly good coverage of East Anglian mountaineering...

Thank you once again Norwich City .

Edited May 25, 2022 by Mengo

[yellow_belly 226]

2 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

I believe Webber has decided to do an interview this week. It will be interesting to see who gets chosen to ask the questions.😍🤓🤩

Interesting…

[benchwarmer 624]

On 23/05/2022 at 22:50, littleyellowbirdie said:

People like you deserve to support a League one team. 

I'd be proud to support a League 1 team as long as they were giving it their all.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,499]

50 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

I'd be proud to support a League 1 team as long as they were giving it their all.

So this squad weren't giving it their all? How do you know? This season was poor, but there's absolutely no evidence that what we saw wasn't all they had to give.

Edited May 25, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[TIL 1010 4,717]

5 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

So this squad weren't giving it their all? How do you know? This season was poor, but there's absolutely no evidence that what we saw wasn't all they had to give.

Well if that squad were giving their all more evidence as if it was needed that the recruitment was sadly sub standard.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,499]

3 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Well if that squad were giving their all more evidence as if it was needed that the recruitment was sadly sub standard.

I've yet to see anybody dispute that.

[priceyrice 123]

On 24/05/2022 at 10:34, hogesar said:

No, I don't think we've seen value for money. But Webber, maybe purposefully, hedged his bets again here. Instead of a Naismith and Klose where we would never see a return due to age, he's spent it on young players who could yet end up generating a profit, as distant as that seems right now. I'm sure it'll form part of his defence.

Sorry, but this it utter rubbish. £4-5m spent on a loan fee for Kabak - money pissed up the wall. 2.5m Fahrmann - money pissed up the wall. Even just with these two loans he's almost hit the transfer fee of Naismeth. 

Then if you want to talk wages, look at Drmic, potentially paid more than Naismeth during his time here and the rumours were we were only paying 10% of drmic wages while out on loan for 2 season. There are so many players we've been paying to not pay since Webber arrived. 

All players with no potential with us. I could keep mentioning poor, costly signings under Webber which have cost us a shed load but to me the other side of this is our payments to agents this summer, which I understand has been astronomical. We've been played this year due to a lack of scouting infrastructure at the club and over reliance on paying big agent fees to attract bang average players to our club. 

 

[slaphead 17]

I think i saw him in Eaton park on a climbing frame.

[hogesar 9,606]

2 hours ago, priceyrice said:

Sorry, but this it utter rubbish. £4-5m spent on a loan fee for Kabak - money pissed up the wall. 2.5m Fahrmann - money pissed up the wall. Even just with these two loans he's almost hit the transfer fee of Naismeth. 

Then if you want to talk wages, look at Drmic, potentially paid more than Naismeth during his time here and the rumours were we were only paying 10% of drmic wages while out on loan for 2 season. There are so many players we've been paying to not pay since Webber arrived. 

All players with no potential with us. I could keep mentioning poor, costly signings under Webber which have cost us a shed load but to me the other side of this is our payments to agents this summer, which I understand has been astronomical. We've been played this year due to a lack of scouting infrastructure at the club and over reliance on paying big agent fees to attract bang average players to our club. 

 

The difference with the loans is we have no long-term financial commitments. The problem with Naismith wasn't his £8.5m trasnfer fee. It was the fact we had committed to paying approx £10 million more in wages regardless of division. So no, not utter rubbish. Also, he's been part of generating 2x promotion moneys. And generating more funds through selling players.

[The Great Mass Debater 1,073]

On 23/05/2022 at 19:27, The Real Buh said:

some sort of vegetative clap state, barely conscious of their surroundings

Just thought that was worthy of a quote in itself!