What Went Wrong?

[Cornwall Canaryfan 16]

Just before the first lockdown in March 2020 we were bottom of the Premiership , 9 games to go & just the faintest chance of avoiding relegation. By fairly common consent we looked the best footballing side to ever be bottom of that league, attractive to watch & only just second best in most matches. We came out of lockdown a different side, losing all 9 games & never looking like competing in any of the games.

Next season we won the Championship, largely by solid, flareless football, often beating the opposition by a single goal & not doing particularly well most of the time against the sided around us in the table. In my opinion, nothing like the dominant, attractive footballing side we had been two seasons before.

Last season all flair had gone along with any belief that we could possibly win any game we contested.

This season is too new to abandon all hope just yet but as I type this we are losing 2 - 1 at Hull & it is getting increasingly difficult to imagine any improvement in the near future.

So,  just what went wrong April to June 2020 that has had such major, longstanding ramifications?

[Worthy Nigelton 1,058]

3 minutes ago, Cornwall Canaryfan said:

Just before the first lockdown in March 2020 we were bottom of the Premiership , 9 games to go & just the faintest chance of avoiding relegation. By fairly common consent we looked the best footballing side to ever be bottom of that league, attractive to watch & only just second best in most matches. We came out of lockdown a different side, losing all 9 games & never looking like competing in any of the games.

Next season we won the Championship, largely by solid, flareless football, often beating the opposition by a single goal & not doing particularly well most of the time against the sided around us in the table. In my opinion, nothing like the dominant, attractive footballing side we had been two seasons before.

Last season all flair had gone along with any belief that we could possibly win any game we contested.

This season is too new to abandon all hope just yet but as I type this we are losing 2 - 1 at Hull & it is getting increasingly difficult to imagine any improvement in the near future.

So,  just what went wrong April to June 2020 that has had such major, longstanding ramifications?

I think this bit is some serious revisionism. We were amazing that year.

[Cornwall Canaryfan 16]

Amazing is not the word I would use & I stand by my 'solid' description. I believe the side two seasons before would have beaten the last Championship side more often than not & been more attractive to watch as a bonus.

[ricardo 7,395]

All stems from a panic sacking last year.

[Cornwall Canaryfan 16]

A major contributory factor, but I think the seeds of the 'rot' were sown, for whatever reason, April to June 2020.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

49 minutes ago, Cornwall Canaryfan said:

 By fairly common consent we looked the best footballing side to ever be bottom of that league

You mean one well known pundit said that and everybody on this forum latched onto it for a while.

Edited August 13, 2022 by TeemuVanBasten

[Van wink 2,994]

We got rid of one of our best managers and sadly replaced him with a dud

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

We have a manager who doesn't know how to motivate a group of players, simple. 

[Dean Coneys boots 1,406]

 main issues 

1) poor appointment after Farke. We needed a progressive manager on the up not a tired old school coach licking his wounds after being sacked by his boyhood team. 

2) complacently relying on an ageing striker and not signing quality back up 

3) selling Buendia and losing Skipp and not replacing them adequately. Nunez may well be the answer - but far, far too late 

4) making McLean undroppable. He points and does nothing else 

[GodlyOtsemobor 2,350]

I think it all stems from us not bringing in any new recruits bar Byram that summer. 

[Helsinki canary 242]

51 minutes ago, Worthy Nigelton said:

I think this bit is some serious revisionism. We were amazing that year.

Agree, all the flair was from Emi and the solidity in front of the back two was Skipp. We have not replaced these two and thats the primary problem

[norfolkngood 1,087]

Webbers transfers and not getting someone similar to farke to carry on the same blueprint that the club had

webber had done well with transfers then bought very badly last season 

looks like he has it right this season but now got the wrong coach 

also owners took us a far as they could served us well but to stubborn to move over and let someone else have a go 

 

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

2 minutes ago, norfolkngood said:

looks like he has it right this season 

Left us a bit short of centre backs 

[AJ 1,224]

Well, firstly we blew all money from the sale of Buendia on adding squad depth instead of bringing in 2 or 3 Premier League ready/quality players to replace the outgoing Emi and Skipp. 

Then we decided it wasn't Webber's poor recruitment that was the problem, no, it was the helpless manager who had a bigger hole in his midfield armoury than the sinking Titanic. We then clearly didn't get our first choices of manager so having sacked Farke, killing the intertwined relationship between the team and the fans we panic signed a recently sacked Premier League manager who had managed to spectacularly underachieve at a team that had spent absolute millions on the summer recruitment of top talent.

We have then proceeded to become a completely soulless, tactically inept and disengaged team that cannot score and cannot defend.

So yeah, that pretty much sums it up I think. 

Edited August 13, 2022 by AJ

[Mello Yello 2,298]

A minor blip.....things will pick up..... 

[Mella Yella 40]

38 minutes ago, ricardo said:

All stems from a panic sacking last year.

At that point my support vaporised too, just goes to show what a brilliant manager we had, we had a better team then with misfits & freebies, what we achieved was remarkable, made even more upsetting by the fact we didn't even have a replacement lined up. The head of recruitment failed us, but we as supporters failed to support a man who worked miracles. We have got what we deserve.

[Robert N. LiM 4,464]

The short answer is that we reached the ceiling for a club with our model in the current football climate and got too clever by half trying to defy gravity. The rest is just noise.

[Robert N. LiM 4,464]

1 hour ago, Worthy Nigelton said:

I think this bit is some serious revisionism. We were amazing that year.

We certainly were. Best I've seen us play since the 90s. Miles better than the previous title win when we won much more often by the seat of our pants (which admittedly was ridiculously exciting). No idea how anyone could say we were without flair. Our first five goals against Huddersfield would all have been any other club's goal of the season that year.

[priceyrice 123]

3 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

The short answer is that we reached the ceiling for a club with our model in the current football climate and got too clever by half trying to defy gravity. The rest is just noise.

You are literally half the problem. We are one of, if not, the wealthiest cash rich clubs in the championship but we are all seeing the result of Webber's transfers over a several year period. Anyone who cannot see this is contributing to the problem. 

[Robert N. LiM 4,464]

1 minute ago, priceyrice said:

You are literally half the problem. We are one of, if not, the wealthiest cash rich clubs in the championship but we are all seeing the result of Webber's transfers over a several year period. Anyone who cannot see this is contributing to the problem. 

That's covered by the "too clever by half" part of my post. 

[ricardo 7,395]

If we lose again Tuesday I may well be forced into a boooooooooo.

[Ken Hairy 3,779]

Just now, ricardo said:

If we lose again Tuesday I may well be forced into a boooooooooo.

I'm going to boo them in the warm up 😏

[lake district canary 4,542]

11 minutes ago, Mella Yella said:

1 hour ago, ricardo said:

All stems from a panic sacking last year.

At that point my support vaporised too, just goes to show what a brilliant manager we had, we had a better team then with misfits & freebies, what we achieved was remarkable, made even more upsetting by the fact we didn't even have a replacement lined up. The head of recruitment failed us, but we as supporters failed to support a man who worked miracles. We have got what we deserve.

I feel a bit like this. There was a lot of noise demanding Farke be sacked and those fans who called for it have got what they asked for. Smith can still turn it round of course, but if he doesn't, it will look increasingly like Farke was indeed a miracle worker in getting us promoted twice.

[Petriix 2,847]

It all stems from the ludicrous decision to abandon Farkeball last summer. We were playing scintillating football and achieved our highest ever points total. Then we ripped it all up chasing an impossible dream. 

What we needed was incremental improvement. What we got was a radical divergence from our successful plan.

It started with selling Buendia and continued with effectively removing Cantwell and Dowell's positions in the team with a tactical switch. Then we failed to replace Skipp while breaking the club's transfer record three times on utter dross. 

Then we sacked the once in a lifetime manager who had brought us two Championship titles in two attempts and replaced him with a nobody.

The biggest issue has been the total failure to recognise and accept any of these actions as mistakes. 

[Chelm Canary 404]

Christ is so easy to say now that getting rid of Farke was a panic sacking. 

If the season had started well there wouldn't be a whisper about Farke. 

[canarybubbles 1,935]

1 hour ago, Cornwall Canaryfan said:

A major contributory factor, but I think the seeds of the 'rot' were sown, for whatever reason, April to June 2020.

I seem to be almost the only person so far who agrees with you that the 9 matches after the restart were when it all went wrong. If we had still gone down but managed to get to around 30 points, I think we would still have believed that 'Farkeball' would work next time, but that awful run of results meant we lost faith in what we were doing. We tried to change our approach, but not with any real conviction. Maybe Farke should have stuck to his beliefs after the second promotion and told Webber 'back me or sack me'. 

[Capt. Pants 4,271]

1 hour ago, ricardo said:

All stems from a panic sacking last year.

It wasn't the sacking, it was the panic appointment thereafter, but I guess that's what you meant.

[Cornwall Canaryfan 16]

23 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

I seem to be almost the only person so far who agrees with you that the 9 matches after the restart were when it all went wrong. If we had still gone down but managed to get to around 30 points, I think we would still have believed that 'Farkeball' would work next time, but that awful run of results meant we lost faith in what we were doing. We tried to change our approach, but not with any real conviction. Maybe Farke should have stuck to his beliefs after the second promotion and told Webber 'back me or sack me'. 

Yes, we seem to be in the minority.

I am not writing off what the club achieved the following season, I'm just saying we were more attractive to watch in the first Championship season &, purely from recollection, winning with less nail biting moments & goals coming from all over the pitch. This eased any pressure on our expected goal scorers who were aware that if they had an off day other could step up to the plate. This didn't disappear in the second Championship season, it just wasn't as prevalent. 

Still doesn't explain why we didn't seem to try in the final 9 games of the 19/20 season & all of last season. The defeats hurt but the manor of them hurt more.

[AJ 1,224]

1 hour ago, lake district canary said:

I feel a bit like this. There was a lot of noise demanding Farke be sacked and those fans who called for it have got what they asked for. Smith can still turn it round of course, but if he doesn't, it will look increasingly like Farke was indeed a miracle worker in getting us promoted twice.

He was, he got those boys playing far above their expected ability in his first promotion. The second was much plainer sailing but he still engineered everything around it. The system, the belief, the connection with the fans. Turning around a sinking ship, shaking off the negativity after project restart, that’s absolutely no mean feet as Smith is now finding out

[Canary Wundaboy 1,359]

We sold Emi and couldn’t buy Skipp. Ripped the heart and spine out of the team with the 2 best players gone before we’d even kicked a ball. Replacing them both was a tall order but wasting the money so horrendously was and still is, unforgivable.