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Parma’s State of the Nation

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Parma’s State of the Nation

Farke brought us a precise, carefully-constructed philosophy, using intelligent positional play, Dortmund-esque fan engagement, attractive sporting entertainment, though clear top level failure. 
Webber - it must be assumed - also implemented this very particular methodology throughout the youth ages. Planning purchases based on that particular style (Or?). 
Delia -  though passionate, loyal and committed - has no ‘football  money’, so the self-sustaining model is a top down necessity, as shown by the £5m fan Bond to build the training ground (via the Tifosys finance model).

Promotion to premier duly puts Webber in a difficult position: Do we accept the glass ceiling of our model or blame Farke?
The external questions were clear: 
Were the new players good enough for now? Were they investment purchases to appreciate at some future date?

The idea - surely - is that as you develop, the risk on buying youth is less, as you pay more, you buy experienced youth playing at higher levels already. Vid Tzolis, Sargent. You try to get a weapon. Vid Rashica (really?).


The ‘Pissed up the wall’ window had Klose (longevity, good quality, value), Pinto (longevity, fair quality, value), Naismith (expensive here-and-now investment, Sat on contract, nightmare -£15m), Maddison +£18m, Godfrey +£20m), so an overall window balance of say +£20m? Did we do better than this under the new model? The top level is where we are judged, where our aims are focused as per our attractively-presented 2022 Report. 

Trotsdem , top level failure occurred despite implanting an excellent, attractive, coherent playing philosophy. Record points totals had been achieved, there was a clear identity, followed by a high spend on new players. The Sporting Director had had plenty of preparation time and a free operational hand. Including with the limited ring-fenced chequebook. 

Farke (despite recently-signed 4 year contract) was summarily replaced by Smith, who was suddenly available, opportunistically persuaded, so not pre-planned. Both parties fell into each others’ arms via timing. 

Webber - I think just about understandably - just could not accept that our structural ceiling (financial-operational-sporting) had been reached, plus the further implication that his big investment signings were not successful. He just couldn’t (be seen) to accept either at that point.  

However history shows that within the parameters of owner finance this was-is as good as we can expect (particularly after first Premier season failure, which was ‘taking the money, to come back stronger next time’)

Thus the glass Norwich ceiling was concretised. No further dreaming was possible. Everything that could have been done, was done. Mistakes were perhaps the inevitable product of imperfect financial and sporting compromises. 

QED Attanasio? Or an acceleration-expansion of his involvement?

Nevertheless Sportingly Smith replacing Farke looks like correcting yesterday’s mistakes. Thus everything is a step behind where it should be. 

Smith immediately tried to solidify an exposed defence, the over-committed midfielders (particularly out of possession). A desire to counter-press effectively, stay-in-shape, not be so vulnerable on transition. 

The flaw with this approach - which has been endorsed also by the Sporting Director whose *new*  vision now also ‘aligns’ - is that the Premier League and the Championship are fundamentally, dramatically, operationally so different from each other. And for very good reason. 

At the top level you are one of the worst, so you have to defend a lot, so you come under lots of pressure and you lose a lot. So you must be pretty good at defending or have awkward weapons that others have to adjust for. 

In the second tier you are not punished much for your mistakes (relatively), you don’t need to set up to defend, lots of teams are hard-working but lack quality. And no one has any weapons (really). So you don’t need to defend so much or so well.

Farke also knew the above perfectly well. What he did was no accident. As Guardiola has repeatedly stated (including in writing if you read his books), positional play is actually a defensive tool. If you keep possession and ‘do nothing with it’, no one else has it either do they? Passing it backwards and sideways for 90 minutes is a bloody good idea against most top level teams (nil-nil is better than you will do in about 25 games). 

Of course upon demotion, very few teams can live with positional play. It takes high intelligence and it requires a level of coordinated press and defensive shape to combat, that few teams in the championship have enough players of sufficient intelligence to achieve.

So we now have a a pragmatic mercenary journeyman manager that might suit a top level team destined to defend every week and be attritional, with a structure that is hard to break down and shouldn’t get hammered every week (I appreciate that we are not seeing this, though it is-was the intention I believe).

The problem is that we are solving yesterday’s problems again. 

We don’t need to ask the players - say Cantwell - to counter press like marines. You need this at the top level. There are limits to professional footballers (at our level). They cannot chase defensive shape chickens like Gary Holt, then magically make through passes like Buendia a second later. The very, very best can do this (sometimes). We cannot buy them. So we end up neither fish, nor fowl.

The irony is that many accused Farke of doing something that needed top level players only. He proved many of you wrong. With coaching, teaching, studying of positional play principles, it spread through the club. It became second nature to many. 

I would suggest that what Smith is asking for is more geared towards top level players only. Be a machine out of possession, switch to Litmanen cool upon turnover. We’d all love to think we can do that, though try sprinting flat out for 200 metres, then beating the computer at Chess. It’s not really how the brain and body typically operates. Hence we often look disjointed, erratic and play in fits-and-starts. 

Farke chose a certain compromise. Smith is trying to pretend that no such compromises are necessary. That we can have all things. Furthermore both he and a Webber appear to think that we need ‘to be prepared for the Premier’ in the way we play now. In our current circumstances.

I think that this is fundamentally flawed. 

We need to jump the Championship hurdle - whereby you can attack teams, be expansive and overwhelm opposition if you have Pukki and players who can score regularly - first. 

This methodology is then proved (within our parameters) not to come close to working at the top level. At which point you need different tactics, a far more mechanical, low-risk, high running, high physicality, couple of expensive and strategically-protected weapons (which is where you spend all your available money). 

However there is even a further flaw. None of our players would be good enough for the top level anyway (except Pukki who’ll leave shortly anyway). We couldn’t invest enough to buy what we’d need to reframe the squad make up and approach anyway (which would also require a coaching-sporting pivot). 

So we return to our nexus points. Our sale of Buendia, our sacking of Farke, our huge relative  investments strategically in Rashica-Tzolis-Sargent. Our style pivot to a prosaic Smith-headed philosophy - even in the second tier (and is it now through the age groups? Does-can anyone teach positional play anymore?)

As fans what do we have? Identity no. Entertainment not really. Continuity not obviously. Clarity of corporate future not yet. Dreams of top level success extinguished. Unique Fan led club no longer. Money no. Investment purchases unnrealised and seemingly mostly unrealisable. Large swathes of too-good-for-Championship yesterday’s men out of contract. A huge pivot on unproven new players that have not obviously improved anything. A much smaller, cheaper squad by necessity-design.

We are chasing a chimera. Even success is just expensive and embarrassing. Though in its stead we are drifting into that awful, anonymous, disinterested purgatory of mid-table second tier quicksand. 

The ‘camels coming down Carrow Road’ were previously dismissed, now the Cowboys are embraced. 

Despite the planning, sporting strategy and legions of forecasters, it all starts to look a little ‘events dear boy, events’. 

Parma

Edited by Parma Ham's gone mouldy
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I think a lot of people could see this coming but we had a lot entitled fans that feel we should be better and unfortunately that builds into a crescendo. You only have to look at the power of social media when two completely inept individuals like the TNC boys carry a strange level of weight int their opinions.

the question is what do you do now? How long do you give it? This team is only getting up through the playoffs at best. 

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So in a nutshell, we should be playing open, expansive football to get promotion, as we did so well under Farke who knew what was the easiest way to get promotion. However trying to play EPL style football in the Chumps without EPL class players means we'll fail, will bore the fans, ultimately settling into the mid-table quagmire as money runs out and we have to cut our cloth accordingly.

Lovely. Not....

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

The irony is that many accused Farke of doing something that needed top level players only. He proved many of you wrong. With coaching, teaching, studying of positional play principles or spread through the club. It became second nature. 

I would suggest that what Smith is asking for is more geared towards top level players only. Be a machine out of possession, switch to Litmanen cool upon turnover. We’d all love to think we can that, though try sprinting flat out for 200 metres, then beating the computer at Chess. It’s not really how the brain and body typically operates. Hence we are some that disjointed, erratic and playing in fits-and-starts. 

I always thought it odd people thought this. Farkes team always seemed to me well drilled but relatively rigid in philosophy, although there was plenty of fluidity in movement.

When it worked it was sublime. When it didn’t it looked one dimensional.

I’ve heard from a few different places now Smith wants his team to be more fluid in approach, understand and solve their own problems, react to the game not be dogmatic.

Maybe we just don’t have the players, especially when a good chunk of them have spent years in many cases in completely the opposite environment.

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

Do we accept the glass ceiling of our model or blame Farke?

 

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

Webber - I think just about understandably - just could not accept that our structural ceiling (financial-operational-sporting) had been reached, plus the further implication that his big investment signings were not successful. He just couldn’t (be seen) to accept either at that point.  

 

this is the crux - added to the Yes Minister-style decision making of "Something must be done. This is something. Therefore we must do it". Realistically all you can do at that stage in the season is roll the dice on the coach.

Certainly in hindsight - and I realise many would argue without hindsight - SW could have really ignored the noise, faced down TalkSport and said "Daniel is our greatest asset. We think the squad's good enough to stay up, but if it's not, he's the guy to bring us back". Whether the fans would have accepted such 'lack of ambition' (quote marks very much deliberate) is another question.

Great post as always, by the way - lots to chew on. Will come back to it, I think.

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

Parma’s State of the Nation

Farke brought us a precise, carefully-constructed philosophy, using intelligent positional play, Dortmund-esque fan engagement, attractive sporting entertainment, though clear top level failure. 
Webber - it must be assumed - also implemented this very particular methodology throughout the youth ages. Planning purchases based on that particular style (Or?). 
Delia -  though passionate, loyal and committed - has no ‘football  money’, so the self-sustaining model is a top down necessity, as shown by the £5m fan Bond to build the training ground (via the Tifosys finance model).

Promotion to premier duly puts Webber in a difficult position: Do we accept the glass ceiling of our model or blame Farke?
The external questions were clear: 
Were the new players good enough for now? Were they investment purchases to appreciate at some future date?

The idea - surely - is that as you develop, the risk on buying youth is less, as you pay more, you buy experienced youth playing at higher levels already. Vid Tzolis, Sargent. You try to get a weapon. Vid Rashica (really?).


The ‘Pissed up window wall’ window had Klose (longevity, good quality, value), Pinto (longevity, fair quality, value), Naismith (expensive here-and-now investment, Sat on contract, nightmare -£15m), Maddison +£18m, Godfrey +£20m), so an overall window balance of say +£20m? Did we do better than this under the new model? The top level is where we are judged, where our aims are focused as per our attractively-presented 2022 Report. 

Trotsdem , top level failure occurred despite implanting an excellent, attractive, coherent playing philosophy. Record points totals had been achieved, there was a clear identity, followed by a high spend on new players. The Sporting Director had had plenty of preparation time and a free operational hand. Including with the limited ring-fenced chequebook. 

Farke (despite recently-signed 4 year contract) was summarily replaced by Smith, who was suddenly available, opportunistically persuaded, so not pre-planned. Both parties fell into each others’ arms via timing. 

Webber - I think just about understandably - just could not accept that our structural ceiling (financial-operational-sporting) had been reached, plus the further implication that his big investment signings were not successful. He just couldn’t (be seen) to accept either at that point.  

However history shows that within the parameters of owner finance this was-is as good as we can expect (particularly after first Premier season failure, which was ‘taking the money, to come back stronger next time’)

Thus the glass Norwich ceiling was concretised. No further dreaming was possible. Everything that could have been done, was done. Mistakes were perhaps the inevitable product of imperfect financial and sporting compromises. 

QED Attanasio? Or an acceleration-expansion of his involvement?

Nevertheless Sportingly Smith replacing Farke looks like correcting yesterday’s mistakes. Thus everything is a step behind where it should be. 

Smith immediately tried to solidify an exposed defence, the over-committed midfielders (particularly out of possession). A desire to counter-press effectively, stay-in-shape, not be so vulnerable on transition. 

The flaw with this approach - which has been endorsed also by the Sporting Director whose *new*  vision now also ‘aligns’ - is that the Premier League and the Championship are fundamentally, dramatically, operationally so different from each other. And for very good reason. 

At the top level you are one of the worst, so you have to defend a lot, so you come under lots of pressure and you lose a lot. So you must be pretty good at defending or have awkward weapons that others have to adjust for. 

In the second tier you are not punished much for your mistakes (relatively), you don’t need to set up to defend, lots of teams are hard-working but lack quality. And no one has any weapons (really). So you don’t need to defend so much or so well.

Farke also knew the above perfectly well. What he did was no accident. As Guardiola has repeatedly stated (including in writing if you read his books), positional play is actually a defensive tool. If you keep possession and ‘do nothing with it’, no one else has it either do they? Passing it backwards and sideways for 90 minutes is a bloody good idea against most top level teams (nil-nil is better than you will do in about 25 games). 

Of course upon demotion, very few teams can live with positional play. It takes high intelligence and it requires a level of coordinated press and defensive shape to combat, that few teams in the championship have enough players of sufficient intelligence to achieve.

So we now have a a pragmatic mercenary journeyman manager that might suit a top level team destined to defend every week and be attritional, with a structure that is hard to break down and shouldn’t get hammered every week (I appreciate that we are not seeing this, though it is-was the intention I believe).

The problem is that we are solving yesterday’s problems again. 

We don’t need to ask the players - say Cantwell - to counter press like marines. You need this at the top level. There are limits to professional footballers (at our level). They cannot chase defensive shape chickens like Gary Holt, then magically make through passes like Buendia a second later. The very, very best can do this (sometimes). We cannot buy them. So we end up neither fish, nor fowl.

The irony is that many accused Farke of doing something that needed top level players only. He proved many of you wrong. With coaching, teaching, studying of positional play principles, it spread through the club. It became second nature to many. 

I would suggest that what Smith is asking for is more geared towards top level players only. Be a machine out of possession, switch to Litmanen cool upon turnover. We’d all love to think we can do that, though try sprinting flat out for 200 metres, then beating the computer at Chess. It’s not really how the brain and body typically operates. Hence we often look disjointed, erratic and play in fits-and-starts. 

Farke chose a certain compromise. Smith is trying to pretend that no such compromises are necessary. That we can have all things. Furthermore both he and a Webber appear to think that we need ‘to be prepared for the Premier’ in the way we play now. In our current circumstances.

I think that this is fundamentally flawed. 

We need to jump the Championship hurdle - whereby you can attack teams, be expansive and overwhelm opposition if you have Pukki and players who can score regularly - first. 

This methodology is then proved (within our parameters) not to come close to working at the top level. At which point you need different tactics, a far more mechanical, low-risk, high running, high physicality, couple of expensive and strategically-protected weapons (which is where you spend all your available money). 

However there is even a further flaw. None of our players would be good enough for the top level anyway (except Pukki who’ll leave shortly anyway). We couldn’t invest enough to buy what we’d need to reframe the squad make up and approach anyway (which would also require a coaching-sporting pivot). 

So we return to our nexus points. Our sale of Buendia, our sacking of Farke, our huge relative  investments strategically in Rashica-Tzolis-Sargent. Our style pivot to a prosaic Smith-headed philosophy - even in the second tier (and is it now through the age groups? Does-can anyone teach positional play anymore?)

As fans what do we have? Identity no. Entertainment not really. Continuity not obviously. Clarity of corporate future not yet. Dreams of top level success extinguished. Unique Fan led club no longer. Money no. Investment purchases unnrealised and seemingly mostly unrealisable. Large swathes of too-good-for-Championship yesterday’s men out of contract. A huge pivot on unproven new players that have not obviously improved anything. A much smaller, cheaper squad by necessity-design.

We are chasing a chimera. Even success is just expensive and embarrassing. Though in its stead we are drifting into that awful, anonymous, disinterested purgatory of mid-table second tier quicksand. 

The ‘camels coming down Carrow Road’ were previously dismissed, now the Cowboys are embraced. 

Despite the planning, sporting strategy and legions of forecasters, it all starts to look a little ‘events dear boy, events’. 

Parma

you need a ghost writer

Edited by mastoola

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An excellent post, as usual @Parma Ham's gone mouldywhat I would add is that the wages we're apparently paying absolutely compound our problems. The club is in serious financial trouble without promotion, and only just treading water if we miraculously go up.

However, what we saw tonight was not far off a reasonable imitation of Farke's 4-2-3-1. Minus, of course, the confidence, familiarity, understanding etc.. A tiny part of me thinks (dreams) that we might just be able to recreate it with some diligence. 

But, to win requires patience and incision. We need to maximise our chances, know when to change gears, pull defenders out of position. Be greater than the sum of our parts. 

I'm still of the opinion that Farke could have broken that glass ceiling with a bit more continuity and less radical change. We were close and Brentford have shown exactly how it might have otherwise gone.

I doubt we'll ever see anything quite like our two Championship titles under Farke again. There's a reason why our record points total doesn't get beaten very often. The stars had aligned momentarily. Ripping that up was insanity.

Edited by Petriix
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1 minute ago, Petriix said:

The stars had aligned momentarily. Ripping that up was insanity.

Not disagreeing with that, but it's hard to keep it going in any case. Read an interesting piece about the difficulty Klopp has in refreshing his teams - and I think even you might agree he might be an even better coach than Daniel 😉. Basically his first great team here was coming to an end anyway: it's not a given he'd have been able to do it all again.

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5 minutes ago, Petriix said:

 The club is in serious financial trouble without promotion, and only just treading water if we miraculously go up.

The number of people in denial about this is ridiculous.

There have been no contract offers made because without promotion we won't be able to afford to keep the ones worth keeping, that much is clear.

Our saving grace is that in Mumba, McCallum,AO, Tomkinson, Gibbs, Rowe, Idah etc we might be able to cobble together the nucleus of a passable Championship squad on a tight budget. But it will require a better coach than Dean Smith to get the best of them.

Edited by TeemuVanBasten
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Just now, TeemuVanBasten said:

Mumba, McCallum,AO, Tomkinson, Gibbs, Rowe, Idah

Have to say that watching those guys develop under a coach we've never heard of would be more fun than getting tonked in the PL every week under an Allardycealike.

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Just now, Robert N. LiM said:

Have to say that watching those guys develop under a coach we've never heard of would be more fun than getting tonked in the PL every week under an Allardycealike.

I say we appoint the Dortmund II coach, supplement the squad with cheap Germans.

Go full circle.

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Just now, Robert N. LiM said:

Or maybe that guy at Mönchengladbach. Can't remember his name.

He's not walking away from that squad to come here. He's levelled up.

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5 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

He's not walking away from that squad to come here. He's levelled up.

didn't think I could have done any more to suggest I was joking.

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1 minute ago, Robert N. LiM said:

didn't think I could have done any more to suggest I was joking.

I struggle to take that as a joke as I really wish he was stuck at a **** Bundesliga 2 side and desperate to come back.

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Just now, TeemuVanBasten said:

I struggle to take that as a joke as I really wish he was stuck at a **** Bundesliga 2 side and desperate to come back.

I'm conflicted. Part of me wants to leave it perfectly in the past and not risk spoiling the memories. Part of me wants him to go on a sh1t run at BM, get fired, and for D&M to get on a plane, in full sackcloth and ashes, apologise profusely and make him sporting director on a 20-year contract. And then see if Webber can get a signal halfway up K2 to discover he's been replaced. 

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3 hours ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

Parma’s State of the Nation

Farke brought us a precise, carefully-constructed philosophy, using intelligent positional play, Dortmund-esque fan engagement, attractive sporting entertainment, though clear top level failure. 
Webber - it must be assumed - also implemented this very particular methodology throughout the youth ages. Planning purchases based on that particular style (Or?). 
Delia -  though passionate, loyal and committed - has no ‘football  money’, so the self-sustaining model is a top down necessity, as shown by the £5m fan Bond to build the training ground (via the Tifosys finance model).

Promotion to premier duly puts Webber in a difficult position: Do we accept the glass ceiling of our model or blame Farke?
The external questions were clear: 
Were the new players good enough for now? Were they investment purchases to appreciate at some future date?

The idea - surely - is that as you develop, the risk on buying youth is less, as you pay more, you buy experienced youth playing at higher levels already. Vid Tzolis, Sargent. You try to get a weapon. Vid Rashica (really?).


The ‘Pissed up window wall’ window had Klose (longevity, good quality, value), Pinto (longevity, fair quality, value), Naismith (expensive here-and-now investment, Sat on contract, nightmare -£15m), Maddison +£18m, Godfrey +£20m), so an overall window balance of say +£20m? Did we do better than this under the new model? The top level is where we are judged, where our aims are focused as per our attractively-presented 2022 Report. 

Trotsdem , top level failure occurred despite implanting an excellent, attractive, coherent playing philosophy. Record points totals had been achieved, there was a clear identity, followed by a high spend on new players. The Sporting Director had had plenty of preparation time and a free operational hand. Including with the limited ring-fenced chequebook. 

Farke (despite recently-signed 4 year contract) was summarily replaced by Smith, who was suddenly available, opportunistically persuaded, so not pre-planned. Both parties fell into each others’ arms via timing. 

Webber - I think just about understandably - just could not accept that our structural ceiling (financial-operational-sporting) had been reached, plus the further implication that his big investment signings were not successful. He just couldn’t (be seen) to accept either at that point.  

However history shows that within the parameters of owner finance this was-is as good as we can expect (particularly after first Premier season failure, which was ‘taking the money, to come back stronger next time’)

Thus the glass Norwich ceiling was concretised. No further dreaming was possible. Everything that could have been done, was done. Mistakes were perhaps the inevitable product of imperfect financial and sporting compromises. 

QED Attanasio? Or an acceleration-expansion of his involvement?

Nevertheless Sportingly Smith replacing Farke looks like correcting yesterday’s mistakes. Thus everything is a step behind where it should be. 

Smith immediately tried to solidify an exposed defence, the over-committed midfielders (particularly out of possession). A desire to counter-press effectively, stay-in-shape, not be so vulnerable on transition. 

The flaw with this approach - which has been endorsed also by the Sporting Director whose *new*  vision now also ‘aligns’ - is that the Premier League and the Championship are fundamentally, dramatically, operationally so different from each other. And for very good reason. 

At the top level you are one of the worst, so you have to defend a lot, so you come under lots of pressure and you lose a lot. So you must be pretty good at defending or have awkward weapons that others have to adjust for. 

In the second tier you are not punished much for your mistakes (relatively), you don’t need to set up to defend, lots of teams are hard-working but lack quality. And no one has any weapons (really). So you don’t need to defend so much or so well.

Farke also knew the above perfectly well. What he did was no accident. As Guardiola has repeatedly stated (including in writing if you read his books), positional play is actually a defensive tool. If you keep possession and ‘do nothing with it’, no one else has it either do they? Passing it backwards and sideways for 90 minutes is a bloody good idea against most top level teams (nil-nil is better than you will do in about 25 games). 

Of course upon demotion, very few teams can live with positional play. It takes high intelligence and it requires a level of coordinated press and defensive shape to combat, that few teams in the championship have enough players of sufficient intelligence to achieve.

So we now have a a pragmatic mercenary journeyman manager that might suit a top level team destined to defend every week and be attritional, with a structure that is hard to break down and shouldn’t get hammered every week (I appreciate that we are not seeing this, though it is-was the intention I believe).

The problem is that we are solving yesterday’s problems again. 

We don’t need to ask the players - say Cantwell - to counter press like marines. You need this at the top level. There are limits to professional footballers (at our level). They cannot chase defensive shape chickens like Gary Holt, then magically make through passes like Buendia a second later. The very, very best can do this (sometimes). We cannot buy them. So we end up neither fish, nor fowl.

The irony is that many accused Farke of doing something that needed top level players only. He proved many of you wrong. With coaching, teaching, studying of positional play principles, it spread through the club. It became second nature to many. 

I would suggest that what Smith is asking for is more geared towards top level players only. Be a machine out of possession, switch to Litmanen cool upon turnover. We’d all love to think we can do that, though try sprinting flat out for 200 metres, then beating the computer at Chess. It’s not really how the brain and body typically operates. Hence we often look disjointed, erratic and play in fits-and-starts. 

Farke chose a certain compromise. Smith is trying to pretend that no such compromises are necessary. That we can have all things. Furthermore both he and a Webber appear to think that we need ‘to be prepared for the Premier’ in the way we play now. In our current circumstances.

I think that this is fundamentally flawed. 

We need to jump the Championship hurdle - whereby you can attack teams, be expansive and overwhelm opposition if you have Pukki and players who can score regularly - first. 

This methodology is then proved (within our parameters) not to come close to working at the top level. At which point you need different tactics, a far more mechanical, low-risk, high running, high physicality, couple of expensive and strategically-protected weapons (which is where you spend all your available money). 

However there is even a further flaw. None of our players would be good enough for the top level anyway (except Pukki who’ll leave shortly anyway). We couldn’t invest enough to buy what we’d need to reframe the squad make up and approach anyway (which would also require a coaching-sporting pivot). 

So we return to our nexus points. Our sale of Buendia, our sacking of Farke, our huge relative  investments strategically in Rashica-Tzolis-Sargent. Our style pivot to a prosaic Smith-headed philosophy - even in the second tier (and is it now through the age groups? Does-can anyone teach positional play anymore?)

As fans what do we have? Identity no. Entertainment not really. Continuity not obviously. Clarity of corporate future not yet. Dreams of top level success extinguished. Unique Fan led club no longer. Money no. Investment purchases unnrealised and seemingly mostly unrealisable. Large swathes of too-good-for-Championship yesterday’s men out of contract. A huge pivot on unproven new players that have not obviously improved anything. A much smaller, cheaper squad by necessity-design.

We are chasing a chimera. Even success is just expensive and embarrassing. Though in its stead we are drifting into that awful, anonymous, disinterested purgatory of mid-table second tier quicksand. 

The ‘camels coming down Carrow Road’ were previously dismissed, now the Cowboys are embraced. 

Despite the planning, sporting strategy and legions of forecasters, it all starts to look a little ‘events dear boy, events’. 

Parma

Absolutely.  Could not agree more with all of the above.  We bet the house on the Premiership and lost anyway and no longer have the stake to stay in the game or even the means to buy in again.  I can see what they were trying to do, but it was a desperate gamble that threw away the work of three seasons.  

 

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8 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Filing this under 'To Read'.

I will read it, just looks too much for my tired brain tonight.

It's well worth reading IMO.

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Fans need to turn on Smith and webber we can't even muster a full chrous of otbc at the moment much less "Smith out"

That Hanley/ Gibson passing master class was enough to put a chronic insomniac to sleep.

 

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19 minutes ago, Nexus_Canary said:

Fans need to turn on Smith and webber we can't even muster a full chrous of otbc at the moment much less "Smith out"

That Hanley/ Gibson passing master class was enough to put a chronic insomniac to sleep.

 

As it came so soon after half time, I can only assume they were told to do it.

At 1-0 up, yes, maybe. A team which is behind often comes out at the start of the second half with all guns blazing.

But "Take the sting out of the game, lads. It's 0-0." ????

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It is interesting now that the last two games Smith is now engaging fully with 4-2-3-1 rather than his EPL pragmatic 4-3-3. Results are beginning to show, there is a noticeable improvement. I also don't think this is just because certain players have shaken off their injuries.

Has Smith been allowed to deploy this by the DoF, the latter realising far too late that there's no point practising for the EPL if you can't get there first anyway?

Edited by shefcanary
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4 hours ago, The Bristol Nest said:

In short, I'll be watching Wales v New Zealand 3pm Saturday.

Good piece Parma.

I am well aware that ‘us economists’ have predicted 5 of the last 2 recessions…🤣

…however Bristol’s pithy response is very, very important.

Openly ‘value pricing’ seats - as Richens defiantly confirms is now central modus operandi in his vid - might be fine if it ‘freshened’ the blood’ of Carrow Road, brought in richer, keener, cut-out-of-it currently, new supporters…

.…though is that how the world is now?…is it where Norwich is as a club-company now?…is  it in tune with the true feelings of the ‘punters in the current Norwich fan marketplace?’

Football - as I re-learn regularly from my dear friend @nutty nigel - is about dreaming and believing and wishing and wondering….

I think Attansio is here because the believing and wishing and wondering has gone. We have - all (including Delia) - been to the puppet show and seen the strings. 

We dressed our best, we saw the best performance on offer, we learned the script and - sadly - we have nothing left to buy into. 

It is almost - now - worse for us than ‘sleeping giants’ who can still focus on that dream. 
 

Once again - vid the value pricing - are we solving yesterday’s problems?  …..‘Resembling the last person who sat on us’ as a wise friend used to say…

And so Bristol goes to the Rugby instead…

Parma 

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

I am well aware that ‘us economists’ have predicted 5 of the last 2 recessions…🤣

…however Bristol’s pithy response is very, very important.

Openly ‘value pricing’ seats - as Richens defiantly confirms is now central modus operandi in his vid - might be fine if it ‘freshened’ the blood’ of Carrow Road, brought in richer, keener, cut-out-of-it currently, new supporters…

.…though is that how the world is now?…is it where Norwich is as a club-company now?…is  it in tune with the true feelings of the ‘punters in the current Norwich fan marketplace?’

Football - as I re-learn regularly from my dear friend @nutty nigel - is about dreaming and believing and wishing and wondering….

I think Attansio is here because the believing and wishing and wondering has gone. We have - all (including Delia) - been to the puppet show and seen the strings. 

We dressed our best, we saw the best performance on offer, we learned the script and - sadly - we have nothing left to buy into. 

It is almost - now - worse for us than ‘sleeping giants’ who can still focus on that dream. 
 

Once again - vid the value pricing - are we solving yesterday’s problems?  …..‘Resembling the last person who sat on us’ as a wise friend used to say…

And so Bristol goes to the Rugby instead…

Parma 

All things must pass (sic).

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16 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

Love this Parma you 🌟 it's where we are and why we're where we are. But where we're going is the great unknown...

 
Don't no where we're going,
Got no way of knowing,
Driving on the road to nowhere
Sponging for a living,
Checking out the teabags,
Riding on the road to nowhere
And we don't take sh*t from anyone,
All we wanna do is have some fun
We're Smithy and Shakey,
Shakey and Smithy
And best of all we don't play Sargent up front!
Edited by TeemuVanBasten

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19 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

The number of people in denial about this is ridiculous.

There have been no contract offers made because without promotion we won't be able to afford to keep the ones worth keeping, that much is clear.

Our saving grace is that in Mumba, McCallum,AO, Tomkinson, Gibbs, Rowe, Idah etc we might be able to cobble together the nucleus of a passable Championship squad on a tight budget. But it will require a better coach than Dean Smith to get the best of them.

I can’t see who we are stuck with like Naismith this time though… anyone on big wages has either already gone, had wages reduced upon relegation, being sold for actual money or can leave on a free in summer.

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6 minutes ago, Tetteys Jig said:

I can’t see who we are stuck with like Naismith this time though… anyone on big wages has either already gone, had wages reduced upon relegation, being sold for actual money or can leave on a free in summer.

Tim Krul was said to be on £70k a week last season. There will have been a relegation reduction, but he's not a free agent in the summer, he's got another year. 

Rashica is contracted until summer 2025, and Tsoliz is contracted until 2026. That's likely the two highest paid bits of deadwood at the minute.

Edited by TeemuVanBasten

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1 hour ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Tim Krul was said to be on £70k a week last season. There will have been a relegation reduction, but he's not a free agent in the summer, he's got another year. 

Rashica is contracted until summer 2025, and Tsoliz is contracted until 2026. That's likely the two highest paid bits of deadwood at the minute.

Deadwood would imply we won’t get any money for them and can’t get them off the wage bill a la Naismith. I highly doubt that’s the case. They are both still young and have potential to contribute at a decent level. Tzolis could yet come back and be a quality player for Norwich even.

As for Krul, he’s still a useful player for us (challenging for first choice keeper) will be on a decent chunk less and we’d probably be able to shift him on in summer for nothing to be back up/3rd choice at a top Dutch/prem side.

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