Iwan Roberts with the controversial take..

[cambridgeshire canary 7,798]

https://www.pinkun.com/news/23513914.iwan-roberts-norwich-may-quick-fire-dean-smith/

[Barham Blitz 869]

No.  If anything we were too slow.  Whether Wagner was the right replacement is another question entirely though.

[Google Bot 3,932]

Iwan Roberts realises he owes the Pinkun a story this week and it's Friday...

[Surfer 1,547]

The more interesting opinion would be whether City were too quick fire Farke and appoint Smith in the first place. 

[nutty nigel 7,902]

He's North Korean.

[Canary Wundaboy 1,423]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[king canary 8,755]

It was very clear both from what we could see on the pitch and the underlying stats that things were moving south under Smith. 

His overall PPG this season finished slightly above Wagner (1.46 vs 1.37) but still wouldn't have been enough for the playoffs- we'd have finished 8th or 9th depending if you round up or down.

However, if we'd gone at the PPG rate we'd shown his final 10 games (1.1 ppg) for the rest of the season we'd have finished on 59 points, so probably the same position but 3 points worse off.

I didn't see any great signs he was about to turn it around and go on another winning run.

[Walcombe canary 82]

How has he done at Leicester recently  ?

[AJ 1,359]

4 minutes ago, Walcombe canary said:

How has he done at Leicester recently  ?

He's well on track to make it 2 relegations in 2 seasons so must be pretty pleased with himself

[dylanisabaddog 6,139]

1 minute ago, AJ said:

He's well on track to make it 2 relegations in 2 seasons so must be pretty pleased with himself

And apparently he's got his handicap down to 14

[Mr Apples 1,407]

He should put his teeth back in, it must be affecting his judgement. 😁

Apples

Edited May 12, 2023 by Mr Apples
typo

[Google Bot 3,932]

1 hour ago, Walcombe canary said:

How has he done at Leicester recently  ?

Pretty good by all accounts, become a bit of a trailblazer and developed a new model for performance related statistics, this document was leaked last week:

[(Northern) Irish Canary 48]

2 hours ago, Google Bot said:

Iwan Roberts realises he owes the Pinkun a story this week and it's Friday...

Loved big Iwan as a player but my word, his contributions are absolute gash. Back of a fag packet job. Complete polar opposite to Sutton’s whose are always worth a read.

[GenerationA47 864]

1 hour ago, Mr Apples said:

He should put his teeth back in, it must be affecting his judgement. 😁

Apples

You corrected the wrong typo, wasn’t that “his mug of teeth”

[hogesar 10,762]

I think its an entirely pointless topic because the fans had ultimately turned and the players were being booed when passing it around the back after 8 minutes. 

I doubt we'd have even come close had we kept him with the atmosphere surrounding the club. 

Whether the fans should have turned to that point I guess is a possible debate.

[Ulfotto 798]

I suppose the point is if Smith would have been able to struggle on a bit longer then next season would be a real reset.
 

Whereas what we have now is Wagner is basically in the same position as Smith was pretty much on thin ice. Which suggests to me next season will be the sort of sequel to this season no one wants.

[Capt. Pants 5,008]

I can't see the article as I don't subscribe but I'm not sure Wagner was Iwan's preferred replacement for Smith anyway.

https://www.norfolklive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/norwich-mark-robins-russell-martin-7976684

I suppose this is the polar opposite of an article he could have written supporting Wagner and that he should have been given more time, but not as clickbait 😉

All a bit pointless as we are where we are.

[chicken 3,086]

5 hours ago, Surfer said:

The more interesting opinion would be whether City were too quick fire Farke and appoint Smith in the first place. 

Nope. Not interesting at all. At least not if you saw it on here and social media thousands of times since the moment he was sacked.

Highly doubtful he'd have done much better than Smith in the prem. By that point he had one prem win in something like 15 games. The only argument is that he 'may' have managed a 2nd bounceback.

[AJ 1,359]

18 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

And apparently he's got his handicap down to 14

Has he also upgraded to a Sports Direct mug?

[Mason 47 1,924]

15 hours ago, hogesar said:

I think its an entirely pointless topic because the fans had ultimately turned and the players were being booed when passing it around the back after 8 minutes. 

I doubt we'd have even come close had we kept him with the atmosphere surrounding the club. 

Whether the fans should have turned to that point I guess is a possible debate.

Whether or not the fanbase should have turned, matters not. What matters is that they did. 

In hindsight I think Smith's biggest problem is he never 'arrived'; as in, never had that moment where he gave fans any big moments to get behind. Farke, even in that stunted first year, had those moments; arguably speaking Wagner early on- maybe included Blackburn, Millwall since- has had these moments where the light at the end of the tunnel seems to shine brighter.

Smith stewarded an undercooked squad to relegation, got some negative results playing ok, some positive results playing badly, then seemed to hit a bad patch with no end apparent. With patience in the fanbase particularly short in the current climate, it was only going one way.

[lake district canary 4,830]

46 minutes ago, Mason 47 said:

Whether or not the fanbase should have turned, matters not. What matters is that they did. 

In hindsight I think Smith's biggest problem is he never 'arrived'; as in, never had that moment where he gave fans any big moments to get behind. Farke, even in that stunted first year, had those moments; arguably speaking Wagner early on- maybe included Blackburn, Millwall since- has had these moments where the light at the end of the tunnel seems to shine brighter.

Smith stewarded an undercooked squad to relegation, got some negative results playing ok, some positive results playing badly, then seemed to hit a bad patch with no end apparent. With patience in the fanbase particularly short in the current climate, it was only going one way.

It was hard to buy in to Smith right from the start. I remember trying really hard to get behind him, try and understand what he wanted to do, looked hard to see some improvements, looked hard to see a method, but it just didn't happen. What we really needed was a Warnock style manager to inspire the players - someone with a bit of character, like Alex Neil when he first joined us - someone with a  bit of fire in the belly.  

Smith was like a damp squib and replacing Farke with someone so lacking in "oomph" was bound to fail. Nice guy and all, but bad choice by Webber - and he should have done better, either by sticking by Farke, or ensuring he had the right person in place before sacking him.