Farke essentially got sacked for failing...

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

To keep this lot + Rupp + Lees Melou + Rashica off the bottom of the Premier League.

That's quite difficult to get your head around in hindsight isn't it.

Can't remember if Webber said that Farke had the 'tools' or had the 'weapons',  but it has made Webber look like a tool and a weapon.

We've had two seasons without a defensive midfielder (two respective sick notes on loan), and I'm not convinced that we currently have a Championship level left back on the books.

Is Webber really the man to embark on this rebuild? 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,553]

Morale counts for a lot and there are a lot of reasons for the morale and self-belief to have waned in them over time.

I think that's more what it's about than technical ability; most of them show quality on a fairly regular basis, but not consistently.

Edited March 15, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[AJ 1,223]

I think it became very apparent to everyone a few weeks after Smith took the helm it had nothing to do with Farke not being good enough or losing the dressing room. The squad was miles away from being good enough to survive in the Premier League. In reality the squad we have this season is arguably better than last season, and large parts of it are still terrible. I almost don't want us to go up anyway, wouldn't look forward to getting hammered every week again

[Midlands Yellow 3,995]

6 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

To keep this lot + Rupp + Lees Melou + Rashica off the bottom of the Premier League.

That's quite difficult to get your head around in hindsight isn't it.

Can't remember if Webber said that Farke had the 'tools' or had the 'weapons',  but it has made Webber look like a tool and a weapon.

We've had two seasons without a defensive midfielder (two respective sick notes on loan), and I'm not convinced that we currently have a Championship level left back on the books.

Is Webber really the man to embark on this rebuild? 

 

7 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

To keep this lot + Rupp + Lees Melou + Rashica off the bottom of the Premier League.

That's quite difficult to get your head around in hindsight isn't it.

Can't remember if Webber said that Farke had the 'tools' or had the 'weapons',  but it has made Webber look like a tool and a weapon.

We've had two seasons without a defensive midfielder (two respective sick notes on loan), and I'm not convinced that we currently have a Championship level left back on the books.

Is Webber really the man to embark on this rebuild? 

Webber’s out his depth, was clearly found after the second embarrassing failure in the top flight. I actually feel sorry for him now, he’s aged ten years since he’s been here and is probably questioning his own bullsh1t now. 

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

5 minutes ago, AJ said:

I almost don't want us to go up anyway, wouldn't look forward to getting hammered every week again

Oh I definitely don't.

I don't think this team deserves to scrape a lucky promotion, would feel completely unjust, I'd seriously struggle to celebrate it. 

We need a full Wagner pre-season and some ins and outs, some sort of reset, I think going up would be a disaster.

[Robert N. LiM 4,392]

1 minute ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Oh I definitely don't.

I don't think this team deserves to scrape a lucky promotion, would feel completely unjust, I'd seriously struggle to celebrate it. 

We need a full Wagner pre-season and some ins and outs, some sort of reset, I think going up would be a disaster.

Yeah, agree with that. It would comfortably be the worst of our three most recent promoted teams, and the two others finished bottom of the PL. It doesn't really bear thinking about. Fortunately, we're not going to have that problem.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,553]

Friendly reminder that Farke was as much part of building the squad that failed in the prem and continues to fail as anyone else, built for him over several seasons.

I'm afraid his sh1t smells as much as anyone else's.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Friendly reminder that Farke was as much part of building the squad that failed in the prem and continues to fail as anyone else, built for him over several seasons.

I'm afraid his sh1t smells as much as anyone else's.

Its not about the EPL. Smith failed there as well as Hughton and Neil. DF succeeded at this level.  Clearly Smith didn't and neither is DW. And it must be said, we have some poor players in the squad. And the academy doesn't seem to be sending any through either.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,553]

6 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Its not about the EPL. Smith failed there as well as Hughton and Neil. DF succeeded at this level.  Clearly Smith didn't and neither is DW. And it must be said, we have some poor players in the squad. And the academy doesn't seem to be sending any through either.

And yet we come back to the point that most of these players were bought here on Farke's watch; he wasn't a bystander in that.

Edited March 15, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[Tumbleweed 106]

This lot getting promoted doesn't bear thinking about. I'm sort of pleased we didn't win. We need to rebuild completely this summer, let the new chaps bed in further , including Sara and Nunez, and buy two good central defenders plus a DM. Promotion would be awful right now, probably the first time ever where I have not wanted us to go up. Weird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 minute ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

And yet we come back to the point that most of these players were bought here on Farke's watch; he wasn't a bystander in that.

And maybe he could have got something out of them in the Championship. He was sacked because he wasn't good enough to coach the team into a successful team, i.e 17th, in the EPL. 

 

[All the Germans 1,078]

Farke is without question our best manager in recent years (and for me ever). The fact that we got rid of him, considering what he achieved, means we deserve what we get. The grass is not always greener, sometimes you should water your own grass.

[Duncan Edwards 2,237]

25 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Its not about the EPL. Smith failed there as well as Hughton and Neil. DF succeeded at this level.  Clearly Smith didn't and neither is DW. And it must be said, we have some poor players in the squad. And the academy doesn't seem to be sending any through either.

Poor old Hughton. Kept us up and never got relegated with us. 

[nutty nigel 7,539]

Totally agree that Farke would have been a better fit for this season. But it was never going to happen. If he hadn't been sacked when he was he would have been gone by the Christmas. It would have become toxic. There were already polls where the majority wanted him sacked and the Farke Out bedsheet had been made.

It's a shame but it's how it works. 

[AJ 1,223]

40 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Friendly reminder that Farke was as much part of building the squad that failed in the prem and continues to fail as anyone else, built for him over several seasons.

I'm afraid his sh1t smells as much as anyone else's.

Farke told Webber exactly what he wanted for last season, in that he wanted a few PL quality players including a DM to build on the existing squad and instead Webber ignored him and signed 11 cheap nobodies of which only one has remained as a permanent member of our squad. 

So whilst Farke was head coach, he certainly didn't build the squad we've got now, he was given it and to that end got sacked for failing to make a bunch of not good enough players successful, and so far two other coaches have virtually found the same result. Farke was unlucky in ways. People were unhappy and the head coach is the obvious target. Sadly once you're three managers down the line and still getting the same results it might be time to look a bit higher up the chain

[Duncan Edwards 2,237]

5 minutes ago, AJ said:

Farke told Webber exactly what he wanted for last season, in that he wanted a few PL quality players including a DM to build on the existing squad and instead Webber ignored him and signed 11 cheap nobodies of which only one has remained as a permanent member of our squad. 

So whilst Farke was head coach, he certainly didn't build the squad we've got now, he was given it and to that end got sacked for failing to make a bunch of not good enough players successful, and so far two other coaches have virtually found the same result. Farke was unlucky in ways. People were unhappy and the head coach is the obvious target. Sadly once you're three managers down the line and still getting the same results it might be time to look a bit higher up the chain

Delia Out. 

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

12 minutes ago, AJ said:

Farke told Webber exactly what he wanted for last season, in that he wanted a few PL quality players including a DM to build on the existing squad and instead Webber ignored him and signed 11 cheap nobodies of which only one has remained as a permanent member of our squad. 

This doesn't sound right at all.

It was 11 incoming signings as you state, however 2 of those were the contractually obligated signings of Gibson and Giannoulis upon promotion.

So not including those two it was 9 (5 permanents + 4 loans).

Of those 5 permanents.... surely its Gunn + Sargent who have been mainstays of our squad? Rather than the "only one" that you claim?

Upon reflection if we can claw back a few million on Rashica and if Tsoliz can get his sh*t together and add something of value to our side then the permanent signings don't look half as dreadful as the loan business.

Dread to think how much we p*ssed up the wall on Williams, Kabak, Normann and Gilmour, and to what end? Surely would have been better spending the collective loan fees + wages on that four bunch of wasters on one permanent DM from somewhere, and then would then have saved us the wages & loan fee on Isaac Hayden this season!

I bet the loan fees paid for Normann and then Hayden would have given us decent little budget for a permanently contracted DM! 

Edited March 15, 2023 by TeemuVanBasten

[Bobzilla 145]

12 hours ago, All the Germans said:

Farke is without question our best manager in recent years (and for me ever). The fact that we got rid of him, considering what he achieved, means we deserve what we get. The grass is not always greener, sometimes you should water your own grass.

You don’t remember Mike Walker, do you.  Martin O’Neill?  Bet you’re not even 20 yet.  Farke was great at getting us up.  Walker had us in Europe.  We were in a position for what would now be Champions League.  Imagine that, Norwich a Champions League side.  We’re still the only English team to have beaten Bayern in the Olympic Stadium, and no-one’s ever taking that away from us.  Liverpool have taken the German Soil away from us, but they needed penalties to do that.  We did it in normal time.

Sorry, but there is no way in hell that Farke is our best ever.  Hell, even Lambert deserves a shout in recent times.  Shame that all fell apart when and how it did.

[Ulfotto 637]

I loved Daniel Farke and we lucky to have him but the reason he was sacked was a record of one win in 24 games in the premier league. One win in 24 games.

[All the Germans 1,078]

4 hours ago, Bobzilla said:

You don’t remember Mike Walker, do you.  Martin O’Neill?  Bet you’re not even 20 yet.  Farke was great at getting us up.  Walker had us in Europe.  We were in a position for what would now be Champions League.  Imagine that, Norwich a Champions League side.  We’re still the only English team to have beaten Bayern in the Olympic Stadium, and no-one’s ever taking that away from us.  Liverpool have taken the German Soil away from us, but they needed penalties to do that.  We did it in normal time.

Sorry, but there is no way in hell that Farke is our best ever.  Hell, even Lambert deserves a shout in recent times.  Shame that all fell apart when and how it did.

Thank you for the passive aggressive response.

I was at all of the (home) European games. Albeit as a 10 year old child. I remember all of the managers you have quoted but Mike Walker was at an entirely different time where the Premier League was in it's infancy and we had 'a chance' (and he inherited a much better side) the comparison of achievements is simply lazy and not relevant to modern times. There is no manager in the world, past or present, who could get us into the Champions League from where we were when Farke took over. On the other hand, imagine the style of play if Farke had inherited a capable Premier League squad like Walker did.

Edited March 16, 2023 by All the Germans

[Worthy Nigelton 1,053]

I never wanted him gone and wish he was still here.  I'm pretty sure we'd be in a better position this year had we have stuck with him, and who knows, he might have done a Steve Cooper and made a fist of it in the PL - although with the players he had at his disposal it is highly unlikely.

Alas, he is gone and he probably is never coming back so we need to move on.  I didn't particularly take to Smith but also felt he wasn't an awful manager like some here think.  I do genuinely like Wagner however and want to see him given time - even if we start next season badly, I want the club to nail their colours to the mast and tough it out... regardless of outside pressure. You can't keep sacking managers and the reality is unless you've got a real dud in charge, it makes little difference to results.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Worthy Nigelton

[Worthy Nigelton 1,053]

5 hours ago, Bobzilla said:

You don’t remember Mike Walker, do you.  Martin O’Neill?  Bet you’re not even 20 yet.  Farke was great at getting us up.  Walker had us in Europe.  We were in a position for what would now be Champions League.  Imagine that, Norwich a Champions League side.  We’re still the only English team to have beaten Bayern in the Olympic Stadium, and no-one’s ever taking that away from us.  Liverpool have taken the German Soil away from us, but they needed penalties to do that.  We did it in normal time.

Sorry, but there is no way in hell that Farke is our best ever.  Hell, even Lambert deserves a shout in recent times.  Shame that all fell apart when and how it did.

This is all true, but the game is vastly, vastly different than it was 30 years ago with Mike Walker.  Walker also took over a team with a great foundation built by Stringer (another quality manager).

Martin O'Neill only had half a season with us and his record overall is pretty patchy to be honest.

I'm not saying Farke is our best ever, but he should be in the conversation for sure.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Worthy Nigelton

[sgncfc 1,228]

Not sure how to rate past managers. We played great football under Bond, Brown, Stringer and Walker. Lambert was more pragmatic but we got success. Yet I never enjoyed a season as much as 2017-18 under Farke. It was simply dreamland. Some of the style and panache of that squad, their fearless approach and the engagement with the support was just phenomenal and different to anything that came before. 

It was never really likely that they could transfer it to the ruthless EPL but they gave it a shot for half a season and I still think that without lockdown we 'd have given it a better go. After that, it was souless - the title at a canter but in empty grounds which took us all to a belief that the team was better than it was. Not Farke's fault of course, but he had a mountain to climb last year and never really had a chance after the start we had. The players gave up under Smith and haven't started playing since.

Time to start again. That's football. The dreams and the disasters only tend to last a couple of years.

[king canary 7,609]

I don't think others share this view but I'm not convinced, had we kept Fakre, that we'd be in all that different a position right now.

We're seeing players who previously were good enough to win the title fall short in part due to the psychological scars of these two humiliating failures in the Premier League. I'm not sure why Fakre would be immune to this?

[AJ 1,223]

6 minutes ago, king canary said:

I don't think others share this view but I'm not convinced, had we kept Fakre, that we'd be in all that different a position right now.

We're seeing players who previously were good enough to win the title fall short in part due to the psychological scars of these two humiliating failures in the Premier League. I'm not sure why Fakre would be immune to this?

I do agree to a point but that in itself is the issue isn't it, the manager was almost immaterial last season, we were always coming down because the squad wasn't good enough. It was more about getting them going again this season which is something Farke had shown he was good at and I've no doubt would have done okay this season. Smith wasn't, evidently. But I agree we'd probably be in a similar position, the manager can only do so much if the squad isn't capable 

[hogesar 9,689]

9 minutes ago, king canary said:

I don't think others share this view but I'm not convinced, had we kept Fakre, that we'd be in all that different a position right now.

We're seeing players who previously were good enough to win the title fall short in part due to the psychological scars of these two humiliating failures in the Premier League. I'm not sure why Fakre would be immune to this?

There's the argument we thought those scars would effect us for our second title win but Farke surpassed that with flying colours.

However he did also have Emi (plus Skipp) and I suppose it depends how vital we think Emi was for Farke.

[king canary 7,609]

15 minutes ago, hogesar said:

There's the argument we thought those scars would effect us for our second title win but Farke surpassed that with flying colours.

However he did also have Emi (plus Skipp) and I suppose it depends how vital we think Emi was for Farke.

Yeah but I'd suggest it's harder to get the same team going again for a third try, especially as in his 11 games he was getting precisely nothing from the new signings.

I just think psychologically it's hard to keep asking the same group to keep replicating the same achievements. Obviously very difficult to say as I don't think there is much precedent for a team yo-yoing under the same manager like we would have done.

[king canary 7,609]

20 minutes ago, AJ said:

I do agree to a point but that in itself is the issue isn't it, the manager was almost immaterial last season, we were always coming down because the squad wasn't good enough. It was more about getting them going again this season which is something Farke had shown he was good at and I've no doubt would have done okay this season. Smith wasn't, evidently. But I agree we'd probably be in a similar position, the manager can only do so much if the squad isn't capable 

Sure but that is something we can say with hindsight.

I've said before that with Webber signing these players he clearly believed he'd built a squad that had a chance to stay up. It would be odd if after 11 games he threw up his hands and said 'well I've signed a bunch of ****e, 5 points from 11 games is the best we could possibly have hoped for' and just left it at that.

[Dean Coneys boots 1,400]

Yet another thread arguing who is to blame Webber or Farke when the real answer is Delia. The owners held on too long and refused to allow the promotion seasons to lead to fresh ownership and investment. The chronic lack of funds offered to Webber (and therefore Farke) made the task impossible. Our wage structure and kitty was so lacking in terms of premiership survival that the best anyone could do was roll a dice, sign up from the bargain end of the bargain basement and hope for the best. Unsurprisingly it didn’t work. 

In champs we can compete which makes this season more embarrassing. But we now have an ageing squad of tired players who will subconsciously want to avoid another drubbing via promotion. Hence we stagnate and retreat.

The hope is that new ownership being courted steps forward and moves us to next level else we will become a lower champs team very quickly as others continue to overtake us. We have 1990s national level ownership in a global age - it’s not working 

[All the Germans 1,078]

28 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

Yet another thread arguing who is to blame Webber or Farke when the real answer is Delia. The owners held on too long and refused to allow the promotion seasons to lead to fresh ownership and investment. The chronic lack of funds offered to Webber (and therefore Farke) made the task impossible. Our wage structure and kitty was so lacking in terms of premiership survival that the best anyone could do was roll a dice, sign up from the bargain end of the bargain basement and hope for the best. Unsurprisingly it didn’t work. 

In champs we can compete which makes this season more embarrassing. But we now have an ageing squad of tired players who will subconsciously want to avoid another drubbing via promotion. Hence we stagnate and retreat.

The hope is that new ownership being courted steps forward and moves us to next level else we will become a lower champs team very quickly as others continue to overtake us. We have 1990s national level ownership in a global age - it’s not working 

You cannot blame someone for not being enormously wealthy, and if you think that is reasonable, it says a lot about you. They have lived within their means, we as a society blame people and companies for excess spending that they cannot afford but expect it from football clubs... why? Football clubs should be following their lead, not the other way around.