Some People Are Never Satisfied!

[Myra Hawtree 124]

An away win and clean sheet.  Maybe the football wasn’t great but would you rather we played scintillating football and lost?  Since his departure Farke seems to be viewed through rose tinted spectacles.  What about the 9 games in a row we lost after lock down and were relegated?
Smith seems have been disliked from the start despite his experience in English football and Shakey was coaching at Leicester when they won the Premier League title.

I think fans have been spoiled over the last 10 or so years.  I remember what it was like in Division 3 South when hope was to get to the old Division 2 and the excitement that ensued when we actually did that by beating Southend.  Forget the year but others will know.  OTBC.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

Correct

Smith out, Webber and his idiot board out

get higher standards

[cambridgeshire canary 6,700]

"Maybe the football wasn’t great but would you rather we played scintillating football and lost?"

 

Given we have had more than one post that is rather sadly along the lines of that yes it seems there's are quite a few people who would have liked to see us pass the ball around at speed and have a german manager with a funny accent and lose rather than win.

[Deptford Yellow 258]

Can we have attractive passing football AND win ?

(Asking for a friend…)

[Pugin 601]

15 minutes ago, Myra Hawtree said:

Smith seems have been disliked from the start despite his experience in English football and Shakey was coaching at Leicester when they won the Premier League title.

 

Many Norfolk people are prejudiced against what they regard as outsiders.

Many football watchers these days get their kicks from laying into good people doing an extremely hard job.

Sadly, that's why there is a significant groundswell of opinion opposed to Dean Smith.

Fans these days can be a quite unloveable group 😞

 

 

[Newtopia 517]

1 minute ago, Deptford Yellow said:

Can we have attractive passing football AND win ?

(Asking for a friend…)

Tbh any clear strategy with players to match would be okay with me

[The Real Buh 3,432]

3 minutes ago, Pugin said:

Many Norfolk people are prejudiced against what they regard as outsiders.

Many football watchers these days get their kicks from laying into good people doing an extremely hard job.

Sadly, that's why there is a significant groundswell of opinion opposed to Dean Smith.

Fans these days can be a quite unloveable group 😞

 

 

Way to slander unjustifiably Norfolk people.

get higher standards

[Newtopia 517]

25 minutes ago, Myra Hawtree said:

An away win and clean sheet.  Maybe the football wasn’t great but would you rather we played scintillating football and lost?  Since his departure Farke seems to be viewed through rose tinted spectacles.  What about the 9 games in a row we lost after lock down and were relegated?
Smith seems have been disliked from the start despite his experience in English football and Shakey was coaching at Leicester when they won the Premier League title.

I think fans have been spoiled over the last 10 or so years.  I remember what it was like in Division 3 South when hope was to get to the old Division 2 and the excitement that ensued when we actually did that by beating Southend.  Forget the year but others will know.  OTBC.

I am not sure it is personal, I think he is the representation of our current malaise, an appointment by a director who does not want to be here,  had not appointed a full time under him to ensure a smooth transition when he does go, and losing Farke.   Just all a bit meh

[Newtopia 517]

7 minutes ago, Pugin said:

Many Norfolk people are prejudiced against what they regard as outsiders.

Many football watchers these days get their kicks from laying into good people doing an extremely hard job.

Sadly, that's why there is a significant groundswell of opinion opposed to Dean Smith.

Fans these days can be a quite unloveable group 😞

 

 

I loved Farke, Stiepermann, Pukki, Gunn  Fleck, so sort of feel okay about outsiders.......

[Indy 3,297]

It’s a great debate, play good football and lose or play dire boring football to survive! Funny how probably 80% on here over the years said they wouldn’t want to watch a Pulis or a Dykes boring team week in week out…..now we appear to have our very own Dykes and we are going through a very sobering process of pretty uninspiring performances but winning enough to keep us in the playoff mix.

So I’d suggest that there will always be that divide who want to be entertained and hopeful of success and those who want success even if it’s dull. That’s what makes us all different with different expectations and views.

[......and Smith must score. 1,341]

10 minutes ago, Indy said:

It’s a great debate, play good football and lose or play dire boring football to survive! Funny how probably 80% on here over the years said they wouldn’t want to watch a Pulis or a Dykes boring team week in week out…..now we appear to have our very own Dykes and we are going through a very sobering process of pretty uninspiring performances but winning enough to keep us in the playoff mix.

So I’d suggest that there will always be that divide who want to be entertained and hopeful of success and those who want success even if it’s dull. That’s what makes us all different with different expectations and views.

 

[......and Smith must score. 1,341]

Dykes ? Is that a typo for Dyche ?

Would tend to agree

[......and Smith must score. 1,341]

43 minutes ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

"Maybe the football wasn’t great but would you rather we played scintillating football and lost?"

 

Given we have had more than one post that is rather sadly along the lines of that yes it seems there's are quite a few people who would have liked to see us pass the ball around at speed and have a german manager with a funny accent and lose rather than win.

There’s a balance. Smith ‘s teams are mind-numbingly boring. Slow, slow and even slower and our win rate under him is nothing to write home about.

Our German manager might have had a ‘ funny ‘ accent but you’ll have a long search trying to find one with a Norfolk twang. Besides I’ll bet his English is a lot better than most English peoples German.

Oh, and he used to win matches too.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

I find the OP's assertion ridiculous. He assumes attractive attacking football equates to losing. Does he have incontrovertible knowledge that if we had attacked more yesterday we would have lost? I could counter that, no, we would have won three nil.

And that we have been spoilt over the last ten years is also a daft comment. Why have we been spoilt? Top 26 is the mantra. And we have achieved our goals. And with attacking football. Until now.

Its the old argument that is always rolled out as a counter to watching a game where were second best apart from the goals column. "We won didn't we?"

 

[corbs 147]

41 minutes ago, Pugin said:

Many Norfolk people are prejudiced against what they regard as outsiders.

 

 

In football terms I’ve felt the opposite applies, good local prospects get disrespected, and underestimated, don’t get me going on the bias v Cantwell 

[canarydan23 4,060]

If anyone thinks we'll get promoted (and according to bookies in the summer we should do via the automatic places) playing the way we did yesterday needs to give their head a wobble.

With the quality we have at this level compared to our rivals, we will inevitably scrape undeserved wins on balance of play, but you won't get promoted playing like that consistently.

But apparently we should ignore all that, because we won yesterday. Sorry, but burying my head in the sand is never something I'm inclined to do.

Unless Martin is a liar, even our players know we got away with one.

[Indy 3,297]

2 hours ago, ......and Smith must score. said:

Dykes ? Is that a typo for Dyche ?

Would tend to agree

Indeed it is, my mistake….

[Petriix 2,834]

5 hours ago, Indy said:

It’s a great debate, play good football and lose or play dire boring football to survive! Funny how probably 80% on here over the years said they wouldn’t want to watch a Pulis or a Dykes boring team week in week out…..now we appear to have our very own Dykes and we are going through a very sobering process of pretty uninspiring performances but winning enough to keep us in the playoff mix.

So I’d suggest that there will always be that divide who want to be entertained and hopeful of success and those who want success even if it’s dull. That’s what makes us all different with different expectations and views.

Put it this way: do you think we've enjoyed our football more or less than Everton fans over the last 12 seasons?

I wouldn't trade those promotions for years of mediocrity. If scrapping around for narrow wins in the Championship is success then, yes, I'm hard to please. I want to see a coherent plan coming together with increasing frequency. 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

11 minutes ago, Petriix said:

Put it this way: do you think we've enjoyed our football more or less than Everton fans over the last 12 seasons?

I wouldn't trade those promotions for years of mediocrity. If scrapping around for narrow wins in the Championship is success then, yes, I'm hard to please. I want to see a coherent plan coming together with increasing frequency. 

This is bang on 

it’s not the league we’re in, it’s the direction we’re headed. The plan, the inspiration. The trajectory!

The trajectory right now is the equivalent of that smell you get when you go round someone’s house who has boiled the crap out of some green vegetables. Unpleasant.

[Indy 3,297]

1 hour ago, Petriix said:

Put it this way: do you think we've enjoyed our football more or less than Everton fans over the last 12 seasons?

I wouldn't trade those promotions for years of mediocrity. If scrapping around for narrow wins in the Championship is success then, yes, I'm hard to please. I want to see a coherent plan coming together with increasing frequency. 

I’m in favour of good football which generally brings success with it! I gave up my season ticket pre Farke because it was becoming too costly for the enjoyment I was getting out of it, this is after 40 years of turning up ( when not playing, working or watching Oxford over the years)…..Alex Neil’s premiership season was my last full season ticket.

[MrFruit 28]

14 hours ago, Myra Hawtree said:

An away win and clean sheet.  Maybe the football wasn’t great but would you rather we played scintillating football and lost?  Since his departure Farke seems to be viewed through rose tinted spectacles.  What about the 9 games in a row we lost after lock down and were relegated?
Smith seems have been disliked from the start despite his experience in English football and Shakey was coaching at Leicester when they won the Premier League title.

I think fans have been spoiled over the last 10 or so years.  I remember what it was like in Division 3 South when hope was to get to the old Division 2 and the excitement that ensued when we actually did that by beating Southend.  Forget the year but others will know.  OTBC.

Well said Myra. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,541]

20 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

I find the OP's assertion ridiculous. He assumes attractive attacking football equates to losing. Does he have incontrovertible knowledge that if we had attacked more yesterday we would have lost? I could counter that, no, we would have won three nil.

And that we have been spoilt over the last ten years is also a daft comment. Why have we been spoilt? Top 26 is the mantra. And we have achieved our goals. And with attacking football. Until now.

Its the old argument that is always rolled out as a counter to watching a game where were second best apart from the goals column. "We won didn't we?"

 

Isn't the corollary of this all the good performances we've seen that finish with 'yeah, but we still lost, didn't we?'

They've shown they can attack and knit together some nice attacking play this season. What they haven't shown is that they can sustain it for long stretches of time, and they've also shown they're prone to moments of gross defending incompetence.

This last game ticked a box regarding avoiding the episodes of gross defending incompetence against a good attacking side that likes to play technical football. Paired with even spells of good attacking play puts us in a good position, and if all the players can sustain the levels needed long enough then we'll start to see more of the decent attacking stuff to boot.

So there's no either or here; we have a decent points performance, we're not remotely a hoofball side a la Pulis etc, and there's still more evidence to support the squad performance trending upwards rather than downwards as the season continues.

[Hairy Canary 696]

At the end of the day it's about winning.

Having said that there is sitting 4th in the league playing edge of the seat stuff and there is 4th in the league playing mind numbing football. It's hardly a shock when those two scenarios are viewed differently. 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

43 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Isn't the corollary of this all the good performances we've seen that finish with 'yeah, but we still lost, didn't we?'

They've shown they can attack and knit together some nice attacking play this season. What they haven't shown is that they can sustain it for long stretches of time, and they've also shown they're prone to moments of gross defending incompetence.

This last game ticked a box regarding avoiding the episodes of gross defending incompetence against a good attacking side that likes to play technical football. Paired with even spells of good attacking play puts us in a good position, and if all the players can sustain the levels needed long enough then we'll start to see more of the decent attacking stuff to boot.

So there's no either or here; we have a decent points performance, we're not remotely a hoofball side a la Pulis etc, and there's still more evidence to support the squad performance trending upwards rather than downwards as the season continues.

Personally, I see no evidence of an upward trend in performance. But these are all points that are not what the OP was saying. He was having a go at those who were unhappy with our performance not the result. Of course nobody was unhappy with the result. And we all know you cannot sustain a high level of performance for game after game.

But Deano told us we would see a different beast after the break. And quite frankly we didn't. It seems daft that I was more impressed with Swansea's attitude and performance than ours. But we had the long drive home happy that we remain in the hunt.

But 200 miles down the road the conversation had turned to we will be even worse in the EPL next time if we play like that.

Meaning we thought we had gone backwards not forwards as a club. And that is probably the biggest disappointment of all.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,541]

2 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Personally, I see no evidence of an upward trend in performance. But these are all points that are not what the OP was saying. He was having a go at those who were unhappy with our performance not the result. Of course nobody was unhappy with the result. And we all know you cannot sustain a high level of performance for game after game.

But Deano told us we would see a different beast after the break. And quite frankly we didn't. It seems daft that I was more impressed with Swansea's attitude and performance than ours. But we had the long drive home happy that we remain in the hunt.

But 200 miles down the road the conversation had turned to we will be even worse in the EPL next time if we play like that.

Meaning we thought we had gone backwards not forwards as a club. And that is probably the biggest disappointment of all.

Except we know performance in the Championship is meaningless with regard to performance in the Premier League, after two jaw-dropping promotions where we were untouchable being followed up by falling flat on our faces in the most disastrous way possible in the Premier League.

When things are bad, if you point out anything positive it will always be countered with 'it's a results business'; critics can't have it both ways.

[Yellow Fever 3,767]

I wonder how many supporters on here thought England were the better team overall, played good football, but lost to a more clinical France. Perhaps we'd all of been happier if we'd been a bit more boring but playing Morocco instead of France on Wednesday ?

There is a lot of improvement Norwich can make but I'll bank the win and move on. 

It seems to me that Dean Smith's biggest fault in the mind of so many supporters is that he isn't Farke.

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Yellow Fever

[Google Bot 3,268]

33 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Except we know performance in the Championship is meaningless with regard to performance in the Premier League

I wouldn't say it's meaningless, as you use the Championship to build.  We're going backwards, and i'd bet my life savings that Burnley would do far better than us in the Prem league as they have an identity and direction.

Fulham walked the league last season and look comfortable in the prem.  Brentford are doing fine second season in.  Neither teams are anything like as boring, or clueless as we are currently.

Our failure last season was mainly down to not having the correct players.  This was proved when Smith came in with a more pragmatic style that still left us rooted to the bottom of the table.

We sold Buendia which killed any hope in the championship and not only failed to replace him, but also Skipp - both integral reasons we walked the Championship, and why we were so ****e after promotion.

Take Mitrovic or Toney away plus a defensive mid from either of the above teams and see how they fair.

 

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Except we know performance in the Championship is meaningless with regard to performance in the Premier League, after two jaw-dropping promotions where we were untouchable being followed up by falling flat on our faces in the most disastrous way possible in the Premier League.

When things are bad, if you point out anything positive it will always be countered with 'it's a results business'; critics can't have it both ways.

The talk of the EPL was based on the recognition that we had got three points and stay in the race. The real discussion with that was if Deano is going to get us up then we thought he has to change. Obviously the playing staff wasn't even discussed.

But where do you see evidence of improvement? Defensively maybe but that is more down to midfield cover. Swansea had a plan and style Saturday which didn't succeed I know but was evident. I just don't see ours at the moment.

[lake district canary 4,531]

8 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

It seems to me that Dean Smith's biggest fault in the mind of so many supporters is that he isn't Farke.

Yep, nail on head. In my mind we had the man for the job and we stupidly let him go in a futile short termist attempt to stay in the PL.  

You can't replace the irreplaceable. And for those who think he should have been replaced, the evidence is now clear that the problem was not Farke, it was the quality of players. 

So we have replaced a charismatic leader who showed twice how to win the championship, with someone who after a year is still struggling to get us going. Farke, I have no doubt, would have hit the reset button as he did after the previous relegation and got us playing with belief and confidence. Saturday against Swansea would have been a much easier watch with Farke in charge - he would have insisted on keeping better control of the ball to start with.

But - and I hear you say "he's gone, get used to it" - and I agree - but Smith has yet to convince me that he is going to get us playing promotion quality football.  Yes, we're fourth in the table, but we are six points off second and nine points off top place - a big gap already - so unless we go on a fantastic winning run, we are going to be amongst the ten or more clubs fighting for play off places.

Long way to go yet, I suppose, but there is a feeling that something is missing - and imo, what is missing is the Farke charisma and philosophy, which so many players and fans benefited from and as you say, YF the problem for Smith is that he isn't Farke.

[hogesar 9,657]

18 hours ago, Petriix said:

Put it this way: do you think we've enjoyed our football more or less than Everton fans over the last 12 seasons?

I wouldn't trade those promotions for years of mediocrity. If scrapping around for narrow wins in the Championship is success then, yes, I'm hard to please. I want to see a coherent plan coming together with increasing frequency. 

I'm with you on the Everton reference.

The problem is for a large % of our fans, staying up in the Prem *somehow* is the only relevant goal and everything else is dismal failure.

Hence the sacking of Farke.