Parma’s State of the Nation

[Barham Blitz 664]

2 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

Looking ahead, even with outgoings and a potentially limited budget, Webber and Wagner have the summer to get in players to suit whatever system the latter wants to play.

So does Wagner have a preferred system that he pretty much always uses, or at least likes to start a match with, or is he flexible depending on the opponents or indeed on the countries in which he is head coaching?

How did he get Huddersfield Town playing in the Championship, since that would seem the obvious default plan. And what kinds of players might we need to bring in to suit that? For example, is a top-of-the-Championship all-purpose solo central striker a must, because if so then we would seem not to have such at the moment.

I ask as a know-nothing where tactics are concerned, but under the impression that it is hard to make judgments on Webber's real preferences from this season because he seemed certainly towards the end to be desperately fire-fighting from match to match.

Essentially what we've seen - a 4-2-3-1 with the full backs pushed high, a single pivot which was Mooy for Huddersfield and Kenny for us dropping between the centre backs in that quarterback role, a floating midfielder which was Sara this season, two inside forwards one of which was Kasey Palmer from Chelsea, a number 10 and a striker which was Wells for Huddersfield but became the more physical but ill-fated Mounie in the Prem.

A high press and more direct - usually via Mooy -  to the wide players than we had under Farke with the full backs providing additional width.  They also used longer passes from Schindler at centre back.

Assuming he looks to use the same approach he did to get Huddersfield promoted.

I have to say, it relies on an exceptional player in the Mooy role (who was very good in his prime) and puts an awful lot of emphasis on a successful high press with some big holes in midfield if that press isn't successful.  As we've seen...

I'm not entirely convinced that this is going to work here unless we pull some significant rabbits out of the proverbial transfer hat.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Barham Blitz

[repman 636]

18 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

I think a few have already commented on 'Uddersfield being a kind of Liverpool-lite when Wagner was there. It took the Chumps by storm, also did okay in the 1st season in the EPL. However we have seen Liverpool struggle more often this season, which doesn't bode well for a strict repeat performance, as it implies other teams have sussed them and that information gets shared pretty quickly. The test this summer is for WebWag to come up with a modified system that can surprise teams as well as be effective.

I can't say I remember Wagner's Huddersfield that well but if it was the 'heavy metal' pressing that Klopp once talked about then I think that style has had its day. Klopp's Liverpool are much more possession oriented than his Dortmund sides ever were and this has been the case going all the way back to when they won the league. 

There are few sides that have continued that manic pressing style, the obvious candidates being the Red Bull teams, so much so that I think people would describe it as the Red Bull style of play now. The only other club I can think of that has gone for this style recently would be Leeds, who in Bielsa had an excellent pressing coach but also a very decent possession one. When it got tough they doubled down on the pressing side, signing various ex-RB players and of course hiring an ex-RB coach. We've seen how that's turned out now...

[Barham Blitz 664]

1 minute ago, repman said:

There are few sides that have continued that manic pressing style, the obvious candidates being the Red Bull teams, so much so that I think people would describe it as the Red Bull style of play now. 

Which is particularly amusing given the allegations regarding Klopp and caffeine doping ...

[ron obvious 1,517]

16 hours ago, Barham Blitz said:

You may be correct in your assertion that we didn't set out to change the formation from the outset an and that it was driven by the players that became available (and indeed possibly more so by those that weren't).

This is what so many people do not want to admit. Too many think that you just decide on a player (or even several players per position) to fit your strategic approach & it' then becomes a straightforward purchasing process. It isn't.

There are so many incalculable factors in football that, using an analogy from electronics I've used before, the noise is often far greater than the signal. Luck predominates, if you prefer. That's why so many managers fail after a while - especially those in clubs with limited financial resources.

I do think our recruiting strategy needs to improve however. It strikes me that many teams are turning up at Carrow Road with players I've never heard of, & with no or little transfer fees having been paid, make our nascent 'stars' look second rate. I suspect trying to sign players like Tzolis & Rashica - recognised hot prospects - is a mistake. The only way for us to succeed is to unearth talent from anywhere & everywhere. An extensive & first rate scouting network is our prime necessity; I know it's a difficult job - everyone's at it - but we have to try. And we can do it, as previous experience has shown. It may mean signing more duds, but if they don't cost much then we can get rid; I wonder how many Marley Watkins would we tolerate for one Buendia or Puuki? That's a conundrum In itself. What we definitely don't want is any more Naismiths😟

[SwearyCanary 1,179]

3 hours ago, shefcanary said:

I think a few have already commented on 'Uddersfield being a kind of Liverpool-lite when Wagner was there. It took the Chumps by storm, also did okay in the 1st season in the EPL. However we have seen Liverpool struggle more often this season, which doesn't bode well for a strict repeat performance, as it implies other teams have sussed them and that information gets shared pretty quickly. The test this summer is for WebWag to come up with a modified system that can surprise teams as well as be effective.

Definitely agree. It felt very much as though Wagner’s tactics had been quickly found out and nullified by opposition after initially blowing teams away. The trouble we seem to have had is not capitalising on good chances when the going was good. Rotherham were a prime example where we should’ve been 2-0 up by half time. It works (sometimes) for Klopp mainly due to the quality of players he has and when VVD was unbeatable at the back to reduce vulnerabilities plus DM performs well as Henderson did. When one or the other is out of form then you’re vulnerable. Bearing in mind we have no centre back even close to VVD quality and a bit of a void of Henderson esque DM talent it’s unsurprising we didn’t sustain it. I actually think Kenny was a pretty good champs level ‘Henderson’ until he was injured and this has left us with such frailty. 

It’s a great system to watch when it’s going well but it has such a fine line of success/failure. I’d love to see it working but we absolutely have to have the players to enact it and if IF we can get them at champs level, there’s a world of difference to what’s needed in the league above for it to work 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

Pukki On Emi Buendia: 

‘Emi, football-wise, I think he is the best player ever that I’ve played with’

Parma
 

 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

Ten Hag on takeovers and finances:

"But in football you need funds to construct squads because the level from your players makes you successful or not."

Parma

[hogesar 9,773]

16 hours ago, SwearyCanary said:

Definitely agree. It felt very much as though Wagner’s tactics had been quickly found out and nullified by opposition after initially blowing teams away. The trouble we seem to have had is not capitalising on good chances when the going was good. Rotherham were a prime example where we should’ve been 2-0 up by half time. It works (sometimes) for Klopp mainly due to the quality of players he has and when VVD was unbeatable at the back to reduce vulnerabilities plus DM performs well as Henderson did. When one or the other is out of form then you’re vulnerable. Bearing in mind we have no centre back even close to VVD quality and a bit of a void of Henderson esque DM talent it’s unsurprising we didn’t sustain it. I actually think Kenny was a pretty good champs level ‘Henderson’ until he was injured and this has left us with such frailty. 

It’s a great system to watch when it’s going well but it has such a fine line of success/failure. I’d love to see it working but we absolutely have to have the players to enact it and if IF we can get them at champs level, there’s a world of difference to what’s needed in the league above for it to work 

In Wagners's defence, I think it's moreso that he lost the players that made his system work. When Dowell was in the team, our results were:

4-0 Win

4-2 Win

0-3 Loss  (Burnley)

3-1 Win

0-0 Draw

3-1 Win

That's 14 goals scored vs 7 conceded. Quite different to our overall season.

Not in Wagner's defence is his inability to make anything else work when we started losing players. He couldn't make us solid at the back or in midfield and rely on individual quality up front, which may well have been a possible tactic for us.

 

[BigFish 1,988]

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

Ten Hag on takeovers and finances:

"But in football you need funds to construct squads because the level from your players makes you successful or not."

Parma

While on other threads there is the frantic clutching of pearls regarding the sale or not of various players in our under-performing squad this is key, not individuals but the financial plan. Under the self-funding model this would be be constrained by the risk of not getting back into the EPL before the parachute payments run-out. The squad would be funded to attempt to get out of the division without making any unaffordable commitments for the season after if sporting success did not follow. With MA on the horizon does this remain the case. Do we have a model where we can spend what we have, indeed outspend the majority of the division, in the knowledge that failure would be underwritten by investment dollars.

I don't have a clue about the answer, and anyone who does is unlikely to tell but it would be nice to know.

[essex canary 508]

15 minutes ago, BigFish said:

While on other threads there is the frantic clutching of pearls regarding the sale or not of various players in our under-performing squad this is key, not individuals but the financial plan. Under the self-funding model this would be be constrained by the risk of not getting back into the EPL before the parachute payments run-out. The squad would be funded to attempt to get out of the division without making any unaffordable commitments for the season after if sporting success did not follow. With MA on the horizon does this remain the case. Do we have a model where we can spend what we have, indeed outspend the majority of the division, in the knowledge that failure would be underwritten by investment dollars.

I don't have a clue about the answer, and anyone who does is unlikely to tell but it would be nice to know.

It would indeed but the Club with the largest number of shareholders has turned into the worlds greatest secret society. The dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

I think that the Messi case with PSG should be instructive to some. 

Typically clubs cannot be seen to just ‘lose’ their top stars. Particularly those with value and status.

So very often a ‘behavior scenario’ is manufactured - typically shortly before departure - where the club can position themselves as ‘the defender of the future….putting the club first…ahead of any individual’

A week or two ago Messi requested leave to do some promo in the Middle East. PSG said no. Messi went anyway. PSG ‘disciplined’ him. There is now ‘no way back’.

Except of course Messi was leaving anyway. 

It just looked bad for PSG that way. 

There are tens and hundreds of millions at stake here, plus brand image, club pride, fan feelings…

Any Italians amongst you? Business people? …

…how much Machiavellian nous would it take to create such a scenario, to construct similar plausible stories? The party leaving is typically getting what they want, so they accept the bullet-in-the-shoulder, the quarter truth stretched thin…

Parma 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/sports/article/2023/05/03/psg-to-discipline-messi-over-unauthorized-saudi-trip_6025238_9.html

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

On 24/04/2023 at 22:09, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

It is the right question @Big O. 

Long before Webber I championed the Sporting Director model, believing it to be of fundamental importance to any club, though particularly essential to us - with very limited resources, fan owners with a tendency to zealotically embrace the new messiah, attracting charismatic-opportunistic-mercenary managers whose raison d’être is to survive another 6 months in the job - whether it costs a Yanic Wildshut or two, whether he is affordable or not. 

The Sporting Director is there to amortise the eternal problems of football short-termism. To ensure a broad philosophical, methodological, operational sporting consistency of action is perennially maintained. 

@Big O here are some broad principles and some correlating questions that need to be answered for us to understand what we need from a Sporting Director:

What is the deep-rooted culture of the club? What makes it different, unique even, to the fans, the loyal customers, the paying public?

There are 23k season ticket holders, the ground has very often sold out its 27k capacity, these fans - and one must assume that there are even more if it was cheaper to attend, tickets were more accessible, available together, more seats  -  turn up every year almost regardless of results, league position, color of manager, sexual orientation of directors, gender of owner, niceties or otherwise of CEOs. 

Therefore we have something of a captive audience, we have little direct nearby competition, loyalty levels are high,  customers cannot - and do not really - take their money and business elsewhere. 

So let’s get to know them. What do they want? 
‘We just want winning football’ they say. But they don’t. Because they turn up anyway. 

So what makes them happy?

We don’t have to guess if we can read the book. Let’s go back to the last time fans were really happy. Farke and his distinct brand of Man City lite was in town and everyone wore the badge with pride. 

There were wins, but it certainly wasn’t all about winning. It was a joy at being entertained, a sense of identifying with the style, of recognizing something artistic, beautiful even. 

I would  venture also - something I considered utterly fundamental in my charges when coaching - that there was great pleasure in (after a time) understanding what was happening, what would happen next, what the purpose of the movements were, what the intended patterns were, the sense that there was a harmonious recognition of what everyone’s role was and how it elegantly intersected with those around. 

Football is an identity, a purpose, a style of playing, an approach to the game. Norwich is not rough-and-tumble. It is not low rent scrap for second balls. It is not even really counter-pressing and heavy metal football. It is passing angles, possession, elegance, control, through balls, number 10s, defenders comfortable on the ball, goalkeepers going short, through balls, springing offside traps, academy players being given first team chances earlier than most. Cruyffian ideals perhaps, though not - ultimately - requiring winning football. Just sometimes. ‘The right way’

Football is now about money and we don’t have it. So what are we going to do? What shall we aim to become? Crystal Palace lite? The dream of 15th every year? 

Even if we achieved it - and we almost can’t without significant further funding - we wouldn’t be happy with it within a year or two. Why? Because it would look attritional, spoiling, negative, cautious, highly physical. In short the brand would be no brand. It would be the perennial angst of looking down. Of being ‘as  less inferior as possible’. We are in any case light years from that. It would cost half a billion from here just to be that. 

So here is flaw number one currently: Preparing for the Premier is a false premise for Norwich City Football club in the here-and-now. It is a glossy brochure leprechaun dancing at the end of a faraway rainbow. 

Focusing on being too good for championship is a far more pragmatic and reasonable ambition. They are very, very far from the same thing. They have very different costs and wildly varying odds of success.

Ironically the first thing may well lead to great failure for the second. Whilst success in the second thing may eventually lead to the first. 

We had a model that proved the second, which we - mistakenly in my view - flip-flopped from to chase a Prem-lite chimera of a model that suited almost none of our personnel, went against years of our established football teaching, hard-drilled psychological positional play, mental pathway tendencies and previous investment on very particular footballing characteristics. This constancy of sporting purpose, investment  and ideals is what a Sporting Director is paid to direct, protect and maintain.

It is not that we simply tried to become Prem cheap lite, or that it wouldn’t work, it couldn’t have worked. We were years and hundreds of millions behind others that had done it for many years. Tens of clubs scout the kind of players we belatedly threw ourselves at - and they pay them far more money, offer them London or release clauses, plus far greater odds of success and more of a shop window. It is not to be negative about the club I love. You simply must recognize who and what you are, how you are seen by others. Even if you don’t like it. 

It was a desperate sporting pivot lacking in consistency of method, long-term vision and purpose. It was a dice throw of a move.

It is precisely the kind of panicked desperation that a Sporting Director is employed and designed to avoid proctor hoc. 

———

If Farke proved anything it is that methodology can trump players. So many cast offs, limited players and academy players became repeatedly valuable, central and effective. In fact it happened across 2 cycles of players.

I would go and speak to Farke. Often, repeatedly. That kind of knowledge, understanding and feel for the club, for positional play principles, for future academy  teaching - you just can’t let it leave the building and never be heard of, understood or repeated again. Football is a closed industry, it can be lonely. Invest in maintaining some kind of link. Learn.

I also would not ignore the reality of Farke’s tenure being underpinned by a creator and a goalscorer. Accept this football reality. Act accordingly. Don’t pad the squad. If you have limited finance you cannot retain two senior players for each position. Forget it. Choose a different way. Limited money means more utility players. Identify a few Sorenson-like players  and use them as cover for 5 positions. Run a squad of no more than 18 senior players. They are hard enough to keep happy anyway. 

We need dramatic change to shift the horrible downward momentum vortex that sucks in all good. I would suggest having a Martin Peters moment. Invest what limited resources you have on someone who knows what real quality looks like. Someone that lifts all boats. I would suggest not a Huckerby in current circumstances, more someone like James Milner. Someone utterly professional - prosaic, ‘just’ functional even - who hates to lose, who runs, covers different  positions, covers for the mistakes of others, sets standards, influences training levels, who won’t - can’t - accept low standards. Start from there. Offer him a player-coaching role, a senior coaching development pathway. Encourage him to bring some friends. Use his contacts. 

As a sporting squad you must carry less players. You simply take more injury risks and accept the consequences. But what are those consequences? You use the academy. Not everyone is Lewis, Godfrey, Omobamidele, Aarons. But even now, if Idah is 3rd or 4th choice striker, everyone is happy with that aren’t they? You take a chance- if faced with multiple injuries - on those who might come good. The Academy must be trusted in this way at Championship level, otherwise what is the point?

Football is all about momentum. Goals camouflage a multitude of sins. You must have a goalscorer. At any cost. Even if you can only afford one player. It must be a goalscorer. anything else can pretty much be covered for. If you have to stop gap with a (to use easy examples) Jordan Rhodes, Chris Martin, Dwight Gayle, you just must have one. Others players need to know that there is someone who knows where the net is. They play differently if they know this. Sargent is yet to convince, even at this level. If you feel it, don’t you think the players know it too? 

Of course it is all about Finances for Norwich, though you can choose how you cut the limited cake you have as a sporting Director. You can run a wide and deep squad, or a narrow, high and lean one. I repeatedly emphasised proctor hoc that keeping or attracting weapons, or peaks in your squad would always be my strategy. Amortising risks to be a bit better on average across the squad board just means you lose every game a bit less badly. I never liked it. 

The counterpart to this strategy is to be brave. If you can’t buy right - with the limited funds available  - communicate it, say it out loud. Tell the loyal fans you want limited, high quality, forensic signings or you simply won’t buy. You’ll trust those that got you there.

Upon promotion ‘21 It looked a little like Webber thought it might’ve been his opportunity to make his name. Did he try to convince himself that what was best for his career was also best for Norwich? Strong-minded people can convince themselves of any reality they choose. So did he do exactly what errant managers had previously done at Norwich and pressed and pushed for signings and sales that might work? Exactly what Sporting Directors are employed to prevent happening. 

———

As for thinning our current - horribly weak and flawed squad - we have a number of immediate problems to address.

For a start who buys what we have, can they match current wages, would our players go there and how do you get them to leave the building?

Typically cash buyers only want what you want to keep. Having said that, there is not one single current player who I wouldn’t sell. That is pretty damning. No one has much value. Rashica we’ll see. £5m and add ons after some tough negotiations I imagine. Who else will buy him and stalking horse Gala?
I very much doubt the lurid numbers and Premier interest in Sara. He is well short of that level of consistency, positional awareness and defensive discipline. He has scored some great goals, though such things are not typically reliably repeatable. Tzolis is a sad, expensive story that needs a rewrite. Gunn a few bob, Sargent something to someone, Hanley a little, Gibson a little, Nunez a punt for similar money, Idah something for potential. Aarons might not get the kind of offer we would take, his stock has fallen as his top level flaws - much like us a club - have been concretised. High single figure millions as Prem back up maybe. Omobamidele has the highest value ceiling, though it’ll be a year or two away at the soonest. It  really doesn’t add up to much of a total squad asset valuation. I dread to think how much less the playing staff is worth than the promotion ‘21 equivalent. That is real money gone. 

Maybe we are waiting for Attanasio. How much money is there now? How much might be injected into the playing squad post takeover?

Clearly as Sporting Director we must manage upwards to Delia. Let’s find out clearly where are we at in a corporate and financial sense. Let’s get as much directional clarity as can be made reasonably available to us as Sporting Director. To drive football momentum change I need a good narrative, for players, fans, agents, potential signings, even the football grapevine. I don’t ignore the noise, I generate it. Use the sporting Director platform to sell the brand, the philosophy, the vision, the future. I think I want to get Attanasio talking more, let’s sell some rainbows, we must change the narrative off the field to help change the momentum on the field. Even if he never gets more involved than he is now, I can use him. Let’s do a bit of public dreaming together, a bit of American ambitionism can be a powerful football fan aphrodisiac. I never said I was Mother Theresa. 

———

For now change has to come from out of contract players. Though the current Sporting Director - and Head Coach working under whatever parameters have been laid down -  have further reduced options by choosing to keep Onel and Dowell. The opposite of change. Keeping previously rejected bit-part players. 

What change can be achieved if we have pivoted our meagre current resources on Sara and Nunez? They likely have to succeed and must play. No change there then. 

Krul plus Gunn looks too much for our needs, too much for our resources and too much to keep happy in mid-table purgatory. So change there, though de-facto backwards. 

Omobamidele must play. It is time - not unlike Idah - we find out how good he is (and of course what his value ceiling might be). So no change there either then. 

To change we desperately need a real defensive midfielder. I like Liam Gibbs. I want to know what his role is. I suspect he does too. So I’d like to get involved a little in his development. I’ll have several chats with the Head Coach about him. 

Losing Pukki looks bad to the outside world. He is widely considered our only good player. ‘Everyone’s leaving Norwich aren’t they?’ Is the kind of football water cooler chat that is a world and a half away from ‘Guardiola watches them in his spare time you know…’. Don’t laugh. It matters.  

If we believe in Idah let’s send him out on loan for a year. He needs 90 minutes a week for 30 games. L1 sides would be super grateful and he’d score goals. We’ll then go from there. 

Tactically we’ll have a chat with the head coach and acknowledge our lack of weapons. I’ll accept his view that all we really have is Onel occasionally, Sara corners and Nunez free kicks. These are the only components of weapons we have now. After promotion, c£100m and the squad value we had in ‘21. And we’ve forward contracted £60m in parachute payments. Yes, we’ll have to do much, much better than that. 

If Aarons and Giannoulis are a liability defensively, play a three. Omo-Grizzly-Gibson perfectly good enough for this level. Though exposing them too much via poor CDM play and over-attacking line ups is the issue, not defensive weakness or individual errors per se. They are consequences, not outright causes. Defensive mistakes typically come from ‘too much action’ and too high a quality of chances conceded. I don’t like my Head Coaches talking about ‘mistakes’. I can generally see at least 3 or 4 semi-errors - tactically or technically - before the more obvious final error. Very often - and this is what head coaches never say - ‘the opposition was better and applying consistent pressure to our weak points for a period before the goal’. If we’re worse, let’s look at it together. 

As for recruitment don’t be completely obsessed about physicality. Yes the Premier is physical, athletic, hard-running, though Buendia was small, Pukki limited, Cantwell flaky, Skipp a ‘mercenary loan’, though all worked beautifully at times. At times is all you need. You win 10 games and you stay up. You don’t need to not get beaten in 30 games. You also don’t stand out in the championship with a load of Prem looky-likey ersatz players. It’s not how we got promoted. Twice. Easily.  

Players don’t necessarily want to come as much they did in ‘21 upon promotion, so how do we attract them? Well, like it or not, we have limitations here. We don’t offer Wages, security, London. We could offer family happiness, friends of friends recommendations, we do pay agents well, the training ground is a professional place to work. Pep might send us a few if we adhered to positional play principles again. 

We don’t really have a set up to compete at Prem level, that has been hard proven as others see it, so let’s stop spending limited and hard-earned resources now planning for something we can’t achieve, on players who don’t fit us and won’t be quite good enough at the top level anyway. Cold of course. So be it. 

It is easy to sell dreams on the way up. Hard to sell reality on the slide downwards once you’ve been to the puppet show and had the strings cut.  You just have to face that down as Sporting Director. Communicate  the failings. Address the status quo reality, however far you have fallen. Identify the hurdle in front of you now. Forget about the one you fell at yesterday. Move on. ‘I used to be a contender’ butters no Norfolk parsnips. Give the punters something new to get hold of, to believe in. I still like ‘Guardiola watches us’. If he came on Saturday it was to see Swansea. That has to change for a start. I still liked watching us when we lost under Farke. There. I’ve said it.

By the way, we didn’t just beat Manchester City, we deserved it.

It was not a cup scalp, a park-the-bus, a 20/80 posssession luck-in. Just think about that for a moment. That was us. We rejected and gave away and sold all of this to try to be something we couldn’t be and wouldn’t want to be even if it had worked.

Our current precipitous slide does metaphorically, psychologically and sportingly all pivot on the sale of Buendia. Let me be clear though: You can, will and must sell Buendia.

However you can never, never, never - at any cost, lie, fight, drama - sell Buendia at the point of a hard earned promotion, with the football alchemist’s gold of momentum, with all the players positive, their agents getting bonuses, Pukki with his eye in. 

The devastating effect on momentum, on confidence, on belief - ‘we got relegated first time to prepare for the second you said’ - to then sell the floor from under everyone. The slide - and it is catastrophically dramatic - began, pivoted and accelerated into an unstoppable mental, physical and sporting avalanche right there. 

That is football. It spins on a dime. We played a tight, narrow window strategic hand, we couldn’t afford big errors like that. Our house of cards is always going to be built on riskier strategic foundations than others through our lack of owner funds. That was a horribly obvious mistake that showed zero understanding of players. 

Make no mistake, players are everything. Like them or not, they are everything. Keeping them happy, compromising, lying, cheating, saying one thing publicly doing another privately is not just common and ‘normal’ in football, it is necessary. It is necessary for good reason. 

Maintaining surface unshakeable beliefs is key to players, fans, agents, others. Though what goes on behind closed doors is so, so, so different. Players are a strange mix of ultra-professional, ultra-hard, fragile, searingly self-critical and weak as ****. Egos are both unbreakable and collapsible. Truth is what you make it at any given moment. Top sportsmen create their own reality. An incredible strength and empirically bollox all at the same time. 

What has ‘honesty and straight-talking’ ever had to do with it? I’ll ignore that noise.

Parma

I see Brighton are going to sign Milner. 

Similar thinking there.

Parma  

Edited May 6, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

Ashley Barnes also very much fits the Dwight Gayle-Chris Martin-Jordan Rhodes template I outlined above. 

 

•  
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Posted just now

Quite right to break the rules for strikers.
 

Structurally you must have the focal point to build around. 

Quite possible to read it as recognition that Sargent is not sufficient.

Might also allow Idah to go out on much-needed loan and play plenty of games. 

Parma 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

I would suggest that with our sporting and brand backs very much against the wall, we are reverting to pragmatic decision-making, change-for-change’s-sake (correctly), received wisdom (throw it at strikers, strong characters).

Not in any way counter-cultural, do different…perhaps even a little bit of  ‘listening to the noise’... 

…not before time…

Parma 

[ricardo 7,414]

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

I would suggest that with our sporting and brand backs very much against the wall, we are reverting to pragmatic decision-making, change-for-change’s-sake (correctly), received wisdom (throw it at strikers, strong characters).

Not in any way counter-cultural, do different…perhaps even a little bit of  ‘listening to the noise’... 

…not before time…

Parma 

I will always remain disappointed by the change of direction post Farke, but yes, this is probably the only way left to go since they threw the baby out with the bath water.

[Taiwan Canary 145]

This makes me simultaneously sad, worried and hopeful.  As someone better than me said, "It's a funny old game." 

[SwearyCanary 1,179]

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

I see Brighton are going to sign Milner. 

Similar thinking there.

Parma  

I was going to post this but see you got there 23 hours before me! I think it’d be hard to criticise Brighton’s transfer history based on the last couple of seasons, this year especially, so Barnes, like Milner could well prove to be shrewd. 

I’m reminded of a 35 year old Gary McCallister for Liverpool under Houllier in the season they won 3 trophies where he was pivotal. There’s life in old dogs for sure 

Edited May 6, 2023 by SwearyCanary

[Tetteys Jig 830]

1 hour ago, SwearyCanary said:

I was going to post this but see you got there 23 hours before me! I think it’d be hard to criticise Brighton’s transfer history based on the last couple of seasons, this year especially, so Barnes, like Milner could well prove to be shrewd. 

I’m reminded of a 35 year old Gary McCallister for Liverpool under Houllier in the season they won 3 trophies where he was pivotal. There’s life in old dogs for sure 

Or Dion for us… would have been relegated before we were without him there

[nutty nigel 7,649]

Martin Peters (best ever)

Mick Channon

But we all thought Naismith was a great signing.

 

[essex canary 508]

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

I would suggest that with our sporting and brand backs very much against the wall, we are reverting to pragmatic decision-making, change-for-change’s-sake (correctly), received wisdom (throw it at strikers, strong characters).

Not in any way counter-cultural, do different…perhaps even a little bit of  ‘listening to the noise’... 

…not before time…

Parma 

Could well be right. Might be an idea then to let the fans know the change of direction.

I wonder if they have ditched mistake culture in favour of teamwork. Tim Krul can lead on that one depending on whether Zoe is still with us.

[dylanisabaddog 5,024]

On 03/05/2023 at 16:13, Barham Blitz said:

Which is particularly amusing given the allegations regarding Klopp and caffeine doping ...

At the start of the season before last, 22 of their 35 players were registered asthmatics

[chicken 2,656]

On 04/05/2023 at 06:29, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

Pukki On Emi Buendia: 

‘Emi, football-wise, I think he is the best player ever that I’ve played with’

Parma
 

 

Without being horrible here, that is the context of Pukki's career, and there is absolutely zero question that, to date, Pukki played his best football here.

When you are successful and enjoying whar you do, you will often attribute it to the people that are part of your team.

There is no doubt that Buendia has been the best player we have had at the club since Maddison and Hoolahan. It's not really surprising Pukki essentially reinforces that.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

——————

‘So farewell then Stuart Webber,
aged 34 and a half.

Ignore the noise you said
And then you didn’t.

Came with free weapons in your pocket 
Left with expensive ankle weights.

Pissed higher up the wall than anyone before you
Left all your friends behind after you. 

Built the training ground with the fan’s money
Then never got any more from anyone else.

Left for mountainous challenges
What remains is mostly flat.

So farewell then Stuart Webber
All the new looks like the old’

É.J.Thribb

————

Edited November 10, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Yobocop 1,105]

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

——————

‘So farewell then Stuart Webber,
aged 34 and a half.

Ignore the noise you said
And then you didn’t.

Came with free weapons in your pocket 
Left with expensive ankle weights.

Pissed higher up the wall than anyone before you
Left all your friends behind after you. 

Built the training ground with the fan’s money
Then never got any more from anyone else.

Left for mountainous challenges
What remains is mostly flat.

So farewell then Stuart Webber
All the new looks like the old’

É.J.Thribb

————

In the words of the not late but very great Tommy boyd ‘Very poor’ 

[Nuff Said 5,183]

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

——————

‘So farewell then Stuart Webber,
aged 34 and a half.

Ignore the noise you said
And then you didn’t.

Came with free weapons in your pocket 
Left with expensive ankle weights.

Pissed higher up the wall than anyone before you
Left all your friends behind after you. 

Built the training ground with the fan’s money
Then never got any more from anyone else.

Left for mountainous challenges
What remains is mostly flat.

So farewell then Stuart Webber
All the new looks like the old’

É.J.Thribb

————

Tl;dr (although I did read it): what goes around, comes around.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

So now we know quite a lot more. 

We’ve had time to chew over the interviews, we’ve had some signings, we know Webber is leaving, we fear Farke might end up at Leeds (please God no), that Webber may well end up there with him. As they look to the future. A future we rejected. 

We also have very clear signs about what the present is. 

Because we know what the present looks like, we can compare it to the recent - and not so recent - past and make some clear comparisons and reasonable judgments. 

Judgments are judgmental of course, though there is no need for hindsightism, revisionism, mis-direction or distraction any more. We can look it all in the mirror.

Then we can fairly review what happened. The decisions that were made. Whether they were good or bad, right or wrong. We can also make pretty good assessments of what criteria they were made by. This - and I suspect my friend @Don J Demorr will concur - is the interesting, telling and indicative bit. Not were you right, but what was your rationale, your strategic sporting and financials drivers and motivations? That will also show us our likely future. 

 

In terms of the Webber interviews - and regardless of semi-true football-speak, fan PR, dead cat bounces or whataboutery, we can see the direction of travel, what has been corrected, what has been lacking, what has worked and what hasn’t. 

It is not unfair - particularly for £500k a year - to make an empirical assessment of the decisions made in real time, with the information that was known, to see what people in power were thinking, what they tried to achieve and why they did it.

Then - as with football every single day of my life - we get judged on whether the results, the process, the value was good enough.

Plenty of players released at 16 have a lot of skills. They are simply deemed flawed in some way. Not good enough overall. Not up to the standard required. ‘Abuse’ online, on bedsheets or in the stands to a Sporting Director is laughable compared to that pressure, trauma and consequence. And it happens at every club every day, up and down the land. 

Let me be absolutely clear: if that process is good enough for sometimes fragile 16 year olds who may have their lives irrevocably changed (and their future much worsened as they feel it)  in an instant, via the summary judgments of others, all whilst being paid a few hundred quid, then we can certainly mirror that process for senior managers of the football club being paid £500k. In fact we must. 

let us start with our new - old - transfer policy and dealings. Recognitions of fundamental weaknesses and failings all i’m afraid. None of Duffy, Barnes and Stacey are good enough for the premier league, so they are Mr Right now signings. This is not the same as me saying that they are not what we need, rather how on earth - and more importantly why - have we fallen so far that we need to do it at all. 

To require such a dramatic Change of culture, to not have ‘hate to lose’ mentality, to compromise Farkeball for more nasty steel, more seen-it-before heads when things go against you, shows how structurally, mentally and operationally weak we had become. 

However - to repeat - the signings are a clear recognition of where we are now. I applaud that.

Recognising who and what we are, what our structural parameters are, what our financial restrictions are, is long overdue and fundamental on every level.

But is that what we did , who we were, what we recognised upon 2nd promotion when we had our 2nd spectacular ‘pissed up the wall’ window? Who’s job was it to hold that tiller? Who monitored the ship’s direction? Who questioned? Who believed blindly and why? That’s ok for fans, it’s feeble for non-Execs or seniors. 

What does @Don J Demorr think this shows about our self-awareness? Might he identify a weak nexus point?

Ok.

But then is it manager or head coaches? Is it ‘defensive errors’?. Every goal against is a defensive error somewhere if you look hard enough or far enough back, it’s true and not really true. 

Upon first premier promotion ‘19 we employed a cute - though often flawed - strategy of multiple  1st team loans. Quite a fair gamble with limited finances. Fine.  Then we progressed to ‘21 promotion and upgraded to investment purchases. This was the Shakespearean fulcrum moment. The once-in-football generation springboard opportunity. Money to spend, an open market, good brand positivity, a poor man’s Borussia Dortmund (rather than a poor man’s Crewe Alexandra)

For £10m each, young ambitious players, high playing and financial growth potential, this should not be so difficult. It is fishing aggressively in a good pond. You can find winners there. In fact you must. It’s a huge amount of money for a Tzolis or a Sargent.

However the process looked flaky from the outset. Buying from weak leagues should already be ringing alarm bells. The Championship is very  different to the Premier, though it is quite arguably a top 5 European league. So - if you are buying from Greece say- you are paying £10m for a young League 1 standout!!!!??? Wow, that’s a big leap of faith. A £10m American striker - who were going through a period of terrible striker paucity hence his early caps - who had never had a natural goalscoring record? An awkward mover and unclean striker of the ball? One who didn’t make natural striker movements even?

And so it proved. We got our once-in-a-generation pot of money and opportunity - when we were hot and Guardiola was watching us - to get some players in who were too good for us, but wanted attention, to move on and up, to shine at the top level….and we spent £20 million on players who weren’t ready or likely to be ready for a period? Odd. 

What else was revealed from the interviews?

We sacked Farke for not achieving top level success. Explaining the sacking on the Training Ground Guru podcast earlier this year, Webber said: “We sacked Daniel, who had been amazing for this club on every level. 

“But ultimately, in the Premier League, we won six games out of 50 with him, and made the decision to go with Dean (Smith), because he’d been more successful than Daniel in the Premier League.”

Though during the interviews - when in self-defense mode - he also stated that criticism was totally unfair because ‘ 2 of the 7 major trophies in the history of the club happened in last 2 years..’

Wow. Even by football’s two-faced standards that is playing both hands. 

What we DO know absolutely and conclusively is that sacking Farke hasn’t worked. It wasn’t the coach. It was the money. The structural limitations of the club itsef. It wasn’t even tactical approach, being too open or attacking or too Manchester City lite. The mercenary journeyman Smith was organized, Defensively-minded, he had contacts, made some signings. We threw the baby out with the bathwater and none of what came next added up to a hill of beans. As we said in the opening post on this thread. Ahead of time. 

So now we have neither top level success, nor appreciating investment purchases. We have no coherent sporting philosophy in evidence, our signings and spending is moving diametrically away from youth pathways into the first team and attracting up-and-coming talent that way. We are not good to watch. We don’t win. We don’t win at home. We don’t inspire. We are not even Prem lite. Though we will be soon. 

Rashica had been looked at for years by most Prem  clubs , that was not a secret. He was Rejected repeatedly by all. Did they ‘miss something’ or were they just right? We ‘did different’ indeed. We ignored the lack of noise.

In our club context these are Incredibly high investments with very poor returns. Loading money and expectation on 19 year old who had never left Greece? There is your risk. That is what has happened. Unexpected?

So it comes back to the flaw at the heart of club - and fundamentally the entrance of  Attanasio - in that we made compromised decisions based on financial limitations. We ended up Blaming individuals - and quite arguably one of the greatest playing individuals and one of the finest Head Coach’s our club has seen - for structural weaknesses and failings that were almost nothing to do with them. As per @Don J Demorr ‘s analysis. 

So then it does come back to: What are we? What do we want to be? How do we get there? What resources do we have?

To answer these effectively you must start from truthful self-image. You don’t have to plaster it all over the EDP, though there are realpolitik discussions that must be had at non-Exec level. And adhered to in strategic decision-making and operations. Like when you spend once-in-generation £30m. Like selling your best player upon promotion. Like blaming a head coach for budget limitations or purchasing limitations. 

In sporting terms ‘Spreading goals around the team’ is easy to say, though rarely a reality on grass. Buendia plus Pukki was confirmed as special by neutral eye, fans and subsequently both of those players openly themselves. To repeat, it is not about selling Buendia per se, it is the horrific psychological timing and lack of understanding of the feelings in the dressing room. Ferguson spent a lifetime - and invented a myriad of cute tricks - to always have the temperature of the dressing room. Webber ignored that noise. And got it horribly wrong. 

There was of course no acknowledgment of any of that. There was lots of ‘let’s move on’, new tomorrow, new players, another game tomorrow, another season, another story. Ah! But we disdain that football PR **** don’t we?

As with the famously-derided pissed up the wall window, there will be no moving on for years. There is only multiple years of mediocrity as payment. As my wise Father is fond of saying ‘you can make any decision you like, just be ready to pay the bill’. The cost of decisions is often only revealed after a period of time. Perhaps it’ll be 9 months from now (or somewhat less)…?

In defense perhaps it was believed that Sargent, and Tzolis would be too good for champs and Rashica would be a no-lose gamble with easy money back. Ok. Maybe. Though Sargent looks mid-champs at best, Tzolis looks derailed and wanton. Rashica is holding out on us and creating a Dutch auction at Gala. I’ll bet you that eventual contract has enough contingent clauses to make your eyes water. To the press we’ll be able to (just about) present a reasonable figure, though the reality of cash banked will be pretty low. So any defence is really demonstrably proved as untrue on any reasonable level then. Yes we are judging. Just as 16 year first year professionals are judged. And not for £500k.

So - and please remember we are taking about professional football - what actually happened?

‘Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth’ they say in boxing. Meaning you find out who you really are, how good you really are, how resilient your ideas are, your philosophies, your self-sustaining models when they come into contact with reality. 

There is no great wisdom in stating that within football Momentum is considered everything. So Sell Buendia at the post of promotion? Destroying your changing room morale? Raising eyebrows amongst all of your key assets and potential signings? Bursting your own hard-earned psychological equilibrium bubble? Yes players are super strong and super fragile at the same time. Why does a Mourinho - or even an Allardyce - Mis-direct traffic and the media attention to ‘protect his players’ then?

The Premier is horrible. There is lots of losing. You go from oppressing, attacking, being the protagonist, to defending a lot, suffering lots of mistakes, running harder, for less. 

In many ways the 2019 approach was right in a corporate sense. It was much more realistic and coherent as a strategy. Much better fitted to resources, parameters and real world options. There is no law against trying to do that better. Perhaps just keepBuendia and throwing everything at a Skipp. Perhaps we did our best to do those things. Though the Sporting Director’s raison d’etre - much like the much-maligned Civil Service - is to keep the clumsy old, slow oil tanker pointing in pretty much the same direction despite the storms that reasonably often buffet it. 

Not Tearing up a club wide plan because you can’t achieve a club mission statement that you should never have written because you didn’t have the resources to do it. 

There were a few distraction-technique bones thrown to the fans. Some clumsy ‘we’re open for business’ sale signs above the door. Nunez to Brighton £20m. Sara in high demand. Omo ‘record bid’. There are many kinds of record bid. £5m paid over 4  years and £40m if you fly to the moon on a cazoo is technically a record bid. I note Alexis McCallister’s move to Liverpool was reported as both £35m and £55m. I think I’d like the second one more. It’s all about add ons and conditionals (and how realistic they are and when they are paid)

Some of Webber’s Dead cat bounces were unnecessary and clumsy. The women’s football comment need not exist, does not have to be said, is embarrassing PR for the club and clumsily misrepresents the excellent development work done. Pathetic from a Sporting Director actually. 

As a Distraction technique perhaps he thought it was necessary. I’d prefer to look at his record. Some of you might look a little more closely at the fan-funded Colney developments, whose technical remit they fall under and how central the building development is to the Sporting Director role. Tell me Stuart, who did you spend the budget on again?  

There is of course a great deal of Managing upwards. Both protecting Delia and Michael’s lack of liquid input and simultaneously (until recently) eyeing up Attanasio’s. I get that. 

So now What is the model? What philosophical-operational-strategic continuity is the Sporting Director protecting?

Is it just hard-working, don’t-want-to-lose winning football? Yes, I think I’ve heard that somewhere…I think others might have thought of that…it’s about as far from innovative-thinking ignore-the-noise as you can get isn’t it? Might we have a bit more identity than that please?

Years ago we identified that nurturing Man City’s off casts and being a Crewe feeder to their world class treble winners might not be a bad model. There was no shame in it we said. Their reserve team would finish mid-table of the Premier we said. Guardiola watches us and loves us he said. Now that is Realpolitik strategic thinking for you. Too late now of course. That ship has sailed. 

As Don would no doubt say, choose the USP that you can be, not the ersatz version of what you can’t. 

Now I have seen the future. And it’s old. 

Farke to Leeds would be too much even for my cool, detached, empirical mind. That would prove we just got it wrong. You only know the cost of your choices when you come to pay the bill.

We could get away with a bit of Smith mercenary denial for a bit. Some Wagnerian positive-mindset school-teachery summer jollity.The Eternal optimism of a new game, a new season, a new manager, a new superstar.

But some things are David Gow and some things are Grant Holt.You get some things right and you get some things wrong. If you  have lots of money and resources you can maybe get more things wrong and get away with it. Maybe even some big things. If you are inferior - sportingly, financially, operationally - you really can’t. And definitely not the big things.

Support can be run on blind faith; running  a Company - especially with limited resources - can not.

So, farewell then Stuart Webber. 

Parma 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[canarybubbles 1,950]

I'm desperate to see a new start, and I think the club is, too. Webber is now history, however we finally evaluate his tenure at the club. It makes no sense for him to be sticking around, making key decisions that affect our future. The new SD should be in the door as soon as possible, making his own decisions and starting to introduce his vision.

Because what we have at the moment - more blood, sweat, tears, experience and some sh*thousery - is not a vision. It is the template for almost every club in the Championship bar relegated teams and Swansea. What worries me about the upcoming season is that they will all be better at it than we are because they've been doing it for so long and we seem happy to sacrifice the skill levels that raised us above this mediocrity. The decline in the technical ability of our squad since the last promotion is frightening.

Because of his high opinion of himself, Webber probably genuinely believes that he is helping the club by hanging around, but he isn't.  He should gracefully step down, happy to hand over the things that should be an advantage for his successor - the infrastructure, the training facilities, the youth set-up - so let's get the new guy here and see what he can do. 

Edited June 25, 2023 by canarybubbles

[SwearyCanary 1,179]

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

So now we know quite a lot more. 

We’ve had time to chew over the interviews, we’ve had some signings, we know Webber is leaving, we fear Farke might end up at Leeds (please God no), that Webber may well end up there with him. As they look to the future. A future we rejected. 

We also have very clear signs about what the present is. 

Because we know what the present looks like, we can compare it to the recent - and not so recent - past and make some clear comparisons and reasonable judgments. 

Judgments are judgmental of course, though there is no need for hindsightism, revisionism, mis-direction or distraction any more. We can look it all in the mirror.

Then we can fairly review what happened. The decisions that were made. Whether they were good or bad, right or wrong. We can also make pretty good assessments of what criteria they were made by. This - and I suspect my friend @Don J Demorr will concur - is the interesting, telling and indicative bit. Not were you right, but what was your rationale, your strategic sporting and financials drivers and motivations? That will also show us our likely future. 

 

In terms of the Webber interviews - and regardless of semi-true football-speak, fan PR, dead cat bounces or whataboutery, we can see the direction of travel, what has been corrected, what has been lacking, what has worked and what hasn’t. 

It is not unfair - particularly for £500k a year - to make an empirical assessment of the decisions made in real time, with the information that was known, to see what people in power were thinking, what they tried to achieve and why they did it.

Then - as with football every single day of my life - we get judged on whether the results, the process, the value was good enough.

Plenty of players released at 16 have a lot of skills. They are simply deemed flawed in some way. Not good enough overall. Not up to the standard required. ‘Abuse’ online, on bedsheets or in the stands to a Sporting Director is laughable compared to that pressure, trauma and consequence. And it happens at every club every day, up and down the land. 

Let me be absolutely clear: if that process is good enough for sometimes fragile 16 year olds who may have their lives irrevocably changed (and their future much worsened as they feel it)  in an instant, via the summary judgments of others, all whilst being paid a few hundred quid, then we can certainly mirror that process for senior managers of the football club being paid £500k. In fact we must. 

let us start with our new - old - transfer policy and dealings. Recognitions of fundamental weaknesses and failings all i’m afraid. None of Duffy, Barnes and Stacey are good enough for the premier league, so they are Mr Right now signings. This is not the same as me saying that they are not what we need, rather how on earth - and more importantly why - have we fallen so far that we need to do it at all. 

To require such a dramatic Change of culture, to not have ‘hate to lose’ mentality, to compromise Farkeball for more nasty steel, more seen-it-before heads when things go against you, shows how structurally, mentally and operationally weak we had become. 

However - to repeat - the signings are a clear recognition of where we are now. I applaud that.

Recognising who and what we are, what our structural parameters are, what our financial restrictions are, is long overdue and fundamental on every level.

But is that what we did , who we were, what we recognised upon 2nd promotion when we had our 2nd spectacular ‘pissed up the wall’ window? Who’s job was it to hold that tiller? Who monitored the ship’s direction? Who questioned? Who believed blindly and why? That’s ok for fans, it’s feeble for non-Execs or seniors. 

What does @Don J Demorr think this shows about our self-awareness? Might he identify a weak nexus point?

Ok.

But then is it manager or head coaches? Is it ‘defensive errors’?. Every goal against is a defensive error somewhere if you look hard enough or far enough back, it’s true and not really true. 

Upon first premier promotion ‘19 we employed a cute - though often flawed - strategy of multiple  1st team loans. Quite a fair gamble with limited finances. Fine.  Then we progressed to ‘21 promotion and upgraded to investment purchases. This was the Shakespearean fulcrum moment. The once-in-football generation springboard opportunity. Money to spend, an open market, good brand positivity, a poor man’s Borussia Dortmund (rather than a poor man’s Crewe Alexandra)

For £10m each, young ambitious players, high playing and financial growth potential, this should not be so difficult. It is fishing aggressively in a good pond. You can find winners there. In fact you must. It’s a huge amount of money for a Tzolis or a Sargent.

However the process looked flaky from the outset. Buying from weak leagues should already be ringing alarm bells. The Championship is very  different to the Premier, though it is quite arguably a top 5 European league. So - if you are buying from Greece say- you are paying £10m for a young League 1 standout!!!!??? Wow, that’s a big leap of faith. A £10m American striker - who were going through a period of terrible striker paucity hence his early caps - who had never had a natural goalscoring record? An awkward mover and unclean striker of the ball? One who didn’t make natural striker movements even?

And so it proved. We got our once-in-a-generation pot of money and opportunity - when we were hot and Guardiola was watching us - to get some players in who were too good for us, but wanted attention, to move on and up, to shine at the top level….and we spent £20 million on players who weren’t ready or likely to be ready for a period? Odd. 

What else was revealed from the interviews?

We sacked Farke for not achieving top level success. Explaining the sacking on the Training Ground Guru podcast earlier this year, Webber said: “We sacked Daniel, who had been amazing for this club on every level. 

“But ultimately, in the Premier League, we won six games out of 50 with him, and made the decision to go with Dean (Smith), because he’d been more successful than Daniel in the Premier League.”

Though during the interviews - when in self-defense mode - he also stated that criticism was totally unfair because ‘ 2 of the 7 major trophies in the history of the club happened in last 2 years..’

Wow. Even by football’s two-faced standards that is playing both hands. 

What we DO know absolutely and conclusively is that sacking Farke hasn’t worked. It wasn’t the coach. It was the money. The structural limitations of the club itsef. It wasn’t even tactical approach, being too open or attacking or too Manchester City lite. The mercenary journeyman Smith was organized, Defensively-minded, he had contacts, made some signings. We threw the baby out with the bathwater and none of what came next added up to a hill of beans. As we said in the opening post on this thread. Ahead of time. 

So now we have neither top level success, nor appreciating investment purchases. We have no coherent sporting philosophy in evidence, our signings and spending is moving diametrically away from youth pathways into the first team and attracting up-and-coming talent that way. We are not good to watch. We don’t win. We don’t win at home. We don’t inspire. We are not even Prem lite. Though we will be soon. 

Rashica had been looked at for years by most Prem  clubs , that was not a secret. He was Rejected repeatedly by all. Did they ‘miss something’ or were they just right? We ‘did different’ indeed. We ignored the lack of noise.

In our club context these are Incredibly high investments with very poor returns. Loading money and expectation on 19 year old who had never left Greece? There is your risk. That is what has happened. Unexpected?

So it comes back to the flaw at the heart of club - and fundamentally the entrance of  Attanasio - in that we made compromised decisions based on financial limitations. We ended up Blaming individuals - and quite arguably one of the greatest playing individuals and one of the finest Head Coach’s our club has seen - for structural weaknesses and failings that were almost nothing to do with them. As per @Don J Demorr ‘s analysis. 

So then it does come back to: What are we? What do we want to be? How do we get there? What resources do we have?

To answer these effectively you must start from truthful self-image. You don’t have to plaster it all over the EDP, though there are realpolitik discussions that must be had at non-Exec level. And adhered to in strategic decision-making and operations. Like when you spend once-in-generation £30m. Like selling your best player upon promotion. Like blaming a head coach for budget limitations or purchasing limitations. 

In sporting terms ‘Spreading goals around the team’ is easy to say, though rarely a reality on grass. Buendia plus Pukki was confirmed as special by neutral eye, fans and subsequently both of those players openly themselves. To repeat, it is not about selling Buendia per se, it is the horrific psychological timing and lack of understanding of the feelings in the dressing room. Ferguson spent a lifetime - and invented a myriad of cute tricks - to always have the temperature of the dressing room. Webber ignored that noise. And got it horribly wrong. 

There was of course no acknowledgment of any of that. There was lots of ‘let’s move on’, new tomorrow, new players, another game tomorrow, another season, another story. Ah! But we disdain that football PR **** don’t we?

As with the famously-derided pissed up the wall window, there will be no moving on for years. There is only multiple years of mediocrity as payment. As my wise Father is fond of saying ‘you can make any decision you like, just be ready to pay the bill’. The cost of decisions is often only revealed after a period of time. Perhaps it’ll be 9 months from now (or somewhat less)…?

In defense perhaps it was believed that Sargent, and Tzolis would be too good for champs and Rashica would be a no-lose gamble with easy money back. Ok. Maybe. Though Sargent looks mid-champs at best, Tzolis looks detailed and wanton. Rashica is holding out on us and creating a Dutch auction at Gala. I’ll bet you that eventual contract has enough contingent clauses to make your eyes water. To the press we’ll be able to (just about) present a reasonable figure, though the reality of cash banked will be pretty low. So any defence is really demonstrably proved as untrue on any reasonable level then. Yes we are judging. Just as 16 year first year professionals are judged. And not for £500k.

So - and please remember we are taking about professional football - what actually happened?

‘Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth’ they say in boxing. Meaning you find out who you really are, how good you really are, how resilient your ideas are, your philosophies, your self-sustaining models when they come into contact with reality. 

There is no great wisdom in stating that within football Momentum is considered everything. So Sell Buendia at the post of promotion? Destroying your changing room morale? Raising eyebrows amongst all of your key assets and potential signings? Bursting your own hard-earned psychological equilibrium bubble? Yes players are super strong and super fragile at the same time. Why does a Mourinho - or even an Allardyce - Mia-direct traffic and the media attention to ‘protect his players’ then?

The Premier is horrible. There is lots of losing. You go from oppressing, attacking, being the protagonist, to defending a lot, suffering lots of mistakes, running harder, for less. 

In many ways the 2019 approach was right in a corporate sense. It was much more realistic and coherent as a strategy. Much better fitted to resources, parameters and real world options. There is no law against trying to do that better. Perhaps just keepBuendia and throwing everything at a Skipp. Perhaps we did our best to do those things. Though the Sporting Director’s raison d’etre - much like the much-maligned Civil Service - is to keep the clumsy old, slow oil tanker pointing in pretty much the same direction despite the storms that reasonably often buffet it. 

Not Tearing up a club wide plan because you can’t achieve a club mission statement that you should never have written because you didn’t have the resources to do it. 

There were a few distraction-technique bones thrown to the fans. Some clumsy ‘we’re open for business’ sale signs above the door. Nunez to Brighton £20m. Sara in high demand. Omo ‘record bid’. There are many kinds of record bid. £5m paid over 4  years and £40m if you fly to the moon on a cazoo is technically a record bid. I note Alexis McCallister’s move to Liverpool was reported as both £35m and £55m. I think I’d like the second one more. It’s all about add ons and conditionals (and how realistic they are and when they are paid)

Some of Webber’s Dead cat bounces were unnecessary and clumsy. The women’s football comment need not exist, does not have to be said, is embarrassing PR for the club and clumsily misrepresents the excellent development work done. Pathetic from a Sporting Director actually. 

As a Distraction technique perhaps he thought it was necessary. I’d prefer to look at his record. Some of you might look a little more closely at the fan-funded Colney developments, whose technical remit they fall under and how central the building development is to the Sporting Director role. Tell me Stuart, who did you spend the budget on again?  

There is of course a great deal of Managing upwards. Both protecting Delia and Michael’s lack of liquid input and simultaneously (until recently) eyeing up Attanasio’s. I get that. 

So now What is the model? What philosophical-operational-strategic continuity is the Sporting Director protecting?

Is it just hard-working, don’t-want-to-lose winning football? Yes, I think I’ve heard that somewhere…I think others might have thought of that…it’s about as far from innovative-thinking ignore-the-noise as you can get isn’t it? Might we have a bit more identity than that please?

Years ago we identified that nurturing Man City’s off casts and being a Crewe feeder to their world class treble winners might not be a bad model. There was no shame in it we said. Their reserve team would finish mid-table of the Premier we said. Guardiola watches us and loves us he said. Now that is Realpolitik strategic thinking for you. Too late now of course. That ship has sailed. 

As Don would no doubt say, choose the USP that you can be, not the ersatz version of what you can’t. 

Now I have seen the future. And it’s old. 

Farke to Leeds would be too much even for my cool, detached, empirical mind. That would prove we just got it wrong. You only know the cost of your choices when you come to pay the bill.

We could get away with a bit of Smith mercenary denial for a bit. Some Wagnerian positive-mindset school-teachery summer jollity.The Eternal optimism of a new game, a new season, a new manager, a new superstar.

But some things are David Gow and some things are Grant Holt.You get some things right and you get some things wrong. If you  have lots of money and resources you can maybe get more things wrong and get away with it. Maybe even some big things. If you are inferior - sportingly, financially, operationally - you really can’t. And definitely not the big things.

Support can be run on blind faith; running  a Company - especially with limited resources - can not.

So, farewell then Stuart Webber. 

Parma 

Love reading your posts, but sad at the melancholy of the latest run. Largely, this is down to how much I agree with them. 

However, success is often crafted by learning from mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes take a while to undo and I have to optimistically hope that we are starting the process of repair. As you said, some of the signings are there to address the situation we find ourselves in so that seems like a logical starting point, from which to build once more to garner a bit of positive momentum has to be the modest goal for this season, whilst perhaps acknowledging that courting new ownership needs to be gathering positive momentum itself. 

Non mollare! Riprovaci. 

As Vince Lombardi said: Non importa quante volte cadi. Ma quante volte cadi e ti rialzi.

[Serinus Canaria Domestica 45]

Parma, love the essence of your posts. But prolix barely covers it. Please get an editor and save me some time! Love Serinus.

[Monty13 2,256]

@Parma Ham's gone mouldy thanks for a great read yet again, although it’s a painful one as I agree with pretty much all of it.

It’s hard to be both a supporter and judge, but also hard not to be.

I hope your medium term assessment is wrong. I hope Wagner starts a Huddersfield MkII revolution here. I hope our signings aren’t just good enough for now and maybe have something to prove at PL at will be vindicated in that belief. I hope we will retain our best talents and find more gems.

As a supporter I will pour over the summer news, love the potential of every transfer and be excited by the potential of what could come.

However the realist in me can’t shake the feeling of crushing disappointment of the last 2 years failures and what was thrown away.

We may well have ended up results wise in a very similar place with better decisions, but long term success is not determined by just the results on the pitch and I believe you’re right in your assessment of the damage done.