Norwich City managers by win % (Championship only)

[nutty nigel 7,645]

8 minutes ago, Ulfotto said:

The amount of games Worthy was in charge for surprises me 3 seasons before promotion and one after surprised how many more games there are.

Like most people who have done well for the football club in the smith & Jones era we were too loyal to him. 

Including Farke?

[Ulfotto 644]

37 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Including Farke?

Yep Farke (err he survived a ten game losing streak!!), Webber (should have gone the minute he resigned), Worthington(after relegation)and Neil (after the Newcastle 6-2) all afforded stays of executions because of credit in the bank. Personally I have no issue with it at all. It’s just how Norwich do things and long may it continue miles better than Watford or Birmingham approaches. Shows there is some sentiment at Norwich  whereas it is usually in very short supply in the rest of the football industry 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Ulfotto

[nutty nigel 7,645]

Worthy also got over 50% more PL points than Farke in their respective relegation seasons.

 

[By Hook or Ian crook 917]

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

I wrote a Masterclass at the time that stated that views of Hughton would be revised and reviewed and that ‘history will treat him kinder than he is now’ or words to that effect. 

He recognised long before many of the fan base that extreme tactics were required to beat the considerable odds to survival in the top tier (which have become significantly longer since). 

Preparing highly routinised defensive structures are a pre-requisite for bottom half Premier Clubs. 

Despite the Sky rhetoric, survival is an unattractive, purgatorial, repetitive, defensive grind for many. Learning how not to get beaten. 

To add to your stats I have referenced many times on Masterclasses that surviving nevertheless entails not winning around 28 games out of 38. A frightening reality that requires quite an extreme approach if recognised and absorbed. 
 

Farke’s way had the roots of a Man City reserves - and the clear pathway to nurturing some of their players not ready for their first team, yet still excellent - and the tantalizing possibility of progress that other clubs have to tread through treacle and spend fortunes to endure. 

Within football we were considered on a good path. Our lack of finance hamstring us considerably and forced us into acts of sporting self-injury that disrupted hard-won momentum. 

These stats will stand the test of time. 

Parma 

I would say at the time Hughton inherited a side built by lambert which did the hard job of staying up twice so broke the camels back of it. It was only when Hughton tried to add his own players and go more defensive he was found out. 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

16 minutes ago, By Hook or Ian crook said:

I would say at the time Hughton inherited a side built by lambert which did the hard job of staying up twice so broke the camels back of it. It was only when Hughton tried to add his own players and go more defensive he was found out. 

Yes the momentum point is well noted. He also certainly made horribly inappropriate mistakes with his choice of striker (looked like buying what was available, rather than what suited). Crouch would have been perfect. 

Nevertheless his achievement was also considerable. Just as the top of the league was really pulling away too. 

His lamented methodology was also totally clear, highly methodical and contextually successful. 

If you watch recordings of it back (pace), it actually mirrors quite a lot of what mid-lower table Prem teams do now (albeit they can now afford more weapon-like quality to offset the prosaic than typically available to such teams then).

Parma 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Fen Canary 871]

8 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

But they're all champ only.

Worthy was good. Those stats over such a long time show it. A championship, a play-off final and never a finish below 10th. 

Yet he was the most hated...

Worthy is the most impressive on there in my opinion. Considering the state of the club when he took over having spent years finishing closer to relegation than the playoffs having a win ratio that high is impressive (and he also would have kept us up if we’d had Ashton for the whole season rather than half.

Neil and Farke are higher but both of those took over teams that had recently come down so had much better squads in comparison to the rest of the division than Worthy inherited.

Wagner needs to work out a way to play without Barnes and Sargent very quickly otherwise he’ll be gone long before Christmas 

[Petriix 2,853]

1 hour ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

His lamented methodology was also totally clear, highly methodical and contextually successful. 

I think most of us appreciated the pragmatism in how we set up for games. It was when we went 1-0 down but still played the same way that caused much consternation, as if he was intent on hanging on to the 1-0 loss. 

[Petriix 2,853]

10 hours ago, NFN FC said:

I'd argue that Smith had a better squad. 

Still...Wagner out!

We still had Pukki, Dowell and Cantwell back then: ¾ of our first choice attack from Farke's (record) 97 point season. If we had that kind of quality available now then I think we'd be doing slightly better. 

[Danbury Yellow 126]

This is an excellent set of stats, I was only thinking about this last night ! 
I always had in my mind that Gunn, Rowder and Grant were periods in our history as major troubles, both on and off the filed.  Yet sandwiched in there is Smith, who I still can’t get my head around as an appointment and, with a concern,  we see our current manager.  The managerial struggles are all in periods of off the field pain and perhaps higher expectations (being a touch general) whereas Lambert and Farke both came in with not much to lose only to gain, and boy did they nail it.  
It feels like we need the off the field issues to be ‘our thing’ for a fresh face to come in, take advantage and become the next managerial hero!! It’s what we do, The Norwich Cycle. Do any other clubs have a similar story? 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Danbury Yellow

[AJ 1,230]

1 hour ago, Petriix said:

We still had Pukki, Dowell and Cantwell back then: ¾ of our first choice attack from Farke's (record) 97 point season. If we had that kind of quality available now then I think we'd be doing slightly better.

Just keeping one of those three would massively improve our current attack which tells us all we need to know. 

[Fen Canary 871]

8 hours ago, AJ said:

Just keeping one of those three would massively improve our current attack which tells us all we need to know. 

Pukki in his prime definitely. The Pukki of last season not so much 

[Robert N. LiM 4,512]

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

These stats will stand the test of time.

They benefit from him being sacked, though. Unless you think he would have replicated them after a second relegation with no Buendía and an ageing Pukki.

And I say that as a bigger fan of Daniel than you are 😉

[AJ 1,230]

1 hour ago, Fen Canary said:

Pukki in his prime definitely. The Pukki of last season not so much 

Whilst I don't disagree I'm sure he's still better right now than Idah or Hwang

[shefcanary 2,466]

14 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

Come on Sheff. None of the things I posted happened to those other managers. Closest was the EEN asking if Smith would last longer than a mushroom. 

Are you talking about message board abuse? That got pretty bad with all of them but none of the other stuff happened. 

I honestly don't understand where all the Worthy hate came from.

Apologies @nutty nigel my comment was only partially explained. Let me try further.

On Worthy, when he was manager social media wasn't taken as seriously by the powers that be as it is now, the number of Norwich supporters regularly opining on club matters has increased considerably since then. For instance, I hadn't really participated online until my career started to wind down, in 2004 I probably didn't even realise sites existed where you could discuss all things Norwich, I was too busy building new museums and taking on lots of new staff. Now the club employs social media "experts" who produce regular feedback to senior managers and the Board on the feelings of the on-line "supporters".

Back in 2004, people didn't vent online as much to dissipate their "rage". For some, meeting down cafes and the pub and discussing issues probably led to more "direct" action, but only after a period of perceived lack of action from the club provoked such things. This manifested in the events you have highlighted, because people were talking across a bar table rather than behind their keyboards. They goaded each other to take some direct action, which was perhaps more difficult to avoid in person than hiding behind a keyboard. Worthy had been in post for a relatively long time, performances had been underwhelming for a correspondingly long period as well.

Nowadays with the pervasiveness of social media I'd argue there is not as long a run in to the club picking up on supporters views before a "sacking" takes place, thus the chances of the events you highlighted during Worthy's reign are reduced. Agreed it doesn't stop the young'uns with a bit more spare time nabbing mum's old double bedsheet and dad's left over paint to send a message to the Board (although much of the impact of that is only because they capture it online anyway), but the chances of a more "organised" rally have diminished.  

You feel let down by Worthy's departure, but the perceived wisdom was his time had run its course, the squad weren't working as hard for him, the club's form was dipping badly (as others have mentioned on here). I agree that what came after was no real improvement at all, but the club rolled the dice. Yes, more entitlement from supporters, but the one thing the Archives have shown me is that a managers tenure at this club has never been long. Worthy had a good shot at it comparatively. 

[nutty nigel 7,645]

Sheff, I don’t feel let down by Worthy’s departure. The writing was on the wall. I just can’t accept the level of abuse he got compared to what other managers who achieved nothing in comparison got. The fact that Grant resigned after a year of taking us backwards is viewed as a badge of honour by those who hated on Worthy. Worthy’s legacy kept us up for two seasons of Grant and Roeder. Ironically the last Worthy Out stick was his signing of Dublin who with Hucks kept us in the champs. After they finished the game was up. There used to be a poster on here called ‘GrantRoederDisaster’…

Yes Social Media is huge now compared to Worthy days but there’s still over 20,000 in Carrow Road every home game. Some are the same people who took part in that campaign against a good man who lifted us into the premier league after taking on the shambles left by Hamilton.

The real echo chamber is social media. Where folk can pretend to be anything they want to be. One of the posters on here who regular calls out ‘happy clappers’ behaves in the same way as me on match days. Even when there’s protests. You can take much of what happens on here with a pinch of salt. 
 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

The old boys used to say something like ‘managers are only as good as their players’.

it would be a brilliant spreadsheet that showed how many players were reasonably-independently considered in demand by - or good enough to get into - lower teams in the Premier League under each manager.

Farke might see us offer: Buendia, Pukki (with Buendia), maybe Krul, Hanley and Aarons at a push?

My memory is ropey, though I think Worthington comparatively had a lot. I think with less money in the game, it was easier for Norwich to buy competitively at the time: Huckerby, Crouch, Earnshaw, Ashton, Francis, Bellamy?..maybe even Iwan, McKenzie, Malky, even Drury? Green, Safri…. There could even be more…

Lambert I think made players transcend, though Holt could be awesome, Wes was class, Snodgrass had a prolonged top level career, Howson, Bassong (for a bit), Surman, Ruddy, Pilkington, Bradley (all maybe)…

In terms of players, isn’t it clear we’ve become less market-competitive over time?

That adds further ballast to Farke and Lambert in my view. 

Parma

Edited October 27, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Monty13 2,252]

On 26/10/2023 at 14:19, nutty nigel said:

But they're all champ only.

Worthy was good. Those stats over such a long time show it. A championship, a play-off final and never a finish below 10th. 

Yet he was the most hated...

Only at the end, and arguably because he was left for far too long when it was clear it was time to go.

On reflection now I doubt he’s close to the most disliked name on that list.

[Chichcan 148]

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

 

Lambert I think made players transcend, though Holt could be awesome, Wes was class, Snodgrass had a prolonged top level career, Howson, Bassong (for a bit), Surman, Ruddy, Pilkington, Bradley (all maybe)…

 

Parma

Bassong and Snodgrass were brought in by Houghton the year after Lambert left I think 

[Ulfotto 644]

Although Worthy is a legend. His success was built on the solid foundations laid by Rioch. Bryan Hamilton basically throw it all up in the air for 9 months and Worthington returned it to Rioch grinding dogged football which was particularly successful at Carrow road. Green, Fleming, McKay, Kenton, Mulyrne, Mcveigh, Roberts, Nedergaard we’re all already in the building Drury and Gary Holt arrived soon after and bang we had the basis of a play off level championship team.

[The Bunny 314]

1 hour ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

The old boys used to say something like ‘managers are only as good as their players’.

it would be a brilliant spreadsheet that showed how many players were reasonably-independently considered in demand by - or good enough to get into - lower teams in the Premier League under each manager.

Farke might see us offer: Buendia, Pukki (with Buendia), maybe Krul, Hanley and Aarons at a push?

My memory is ropey, though I think Worthington comparatively had a lot. I think with less money in the game, it was easier for Norwich to buy competitively at the time: Huckerby, Crouch, Earnshaw, Ashton, Francis, Bellamy?..maybe even Iwan, McKenzie, Malky, even Drury? Green, Safri…. There could even be more…

Lambert I think made players transcend, though Holt could be awesome, Wes was class, Snodgrass had a prolonged top level career, Howson, Bassong (for a bit), Surman, Ruddy, Pilkington, Bradley (all maybe)…

In terms of players, isn’t it clear we’ve become less market-competitive over time?

That adds further ballast to Farke and Lambert in my view. 

Parma

Yes, the quality of players is clearly a factor (and I alluded to that in my original post). Farke deserves a lot of credit, but it's debatable if we'd have won those promotions without Buendia and Pukki. And I'd argue that Farke was eventually fired primarily because we lost Buendia and Skipp and failed to adequately replace them. Recruitment since then has only got worse, and subsequent managers have failed to arrest the decline. How much of that is down to player quality? It's hard to say, but it's definitely a factor. 

That said, the manager does have at least some influence on recruitment. Should Farke have put his foot down and insisted that we retain the services of Buendia? Maybe Wagner should have sent Idah out on loan and pushed for a more proven replacement instead of offering him a 5y contract? And who decided Hwang was a suitable replacement for Barnes?

Edited October 27, 2023 by The Bunny

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

1 minute ago, The Bunny said:

Yes, the quality of players is clearly a factor (and I alluded to that in my original post). Farke deserves a lot of credit, but it's debatable if we'd have won those promotions without Buendia and Pukki. And I'd argue that Farke was eventually fired primarily because we lost Buendia and Skipp and failed to adequately replace them. Recruitment since then has only got worse, and subsequent managers have failed to arrest the decline. How much of that is down to player quality? It's hard to say, but it's definitely a factor. 

That said, the manager does have at least some influence on recruitment. Should Farke have put his foot down and insisted that we retain the services of Buendia? Maybe Wagner should have sent Idah out on loan and pushed for a more proven replacement instead of offering him a 5y contract? And who decided Hwang was a suitable replacement?

I agree.

Though it surely also reiterates my long-standing view that weapons can often transcend merely ‘good players’ ? 

Farke ‘only’ had Buendia and Pukki - plus positional play methodology which he takes full credit for - though they were excellent goal-makers and goal-takers. 

There’s football for you. It’s a low-scoring, momentum-driven game and you trade the weapons of assists and goals at your peril. 

Parma 

[Segura 84]

57 minutes ago, Ulfotto said:

Although Worthy is a legend. His success was built on the solid foundations laid by Rioch. Bryan Hamilton basically throw it all up in the air for 9 months and Worthington returned it to Rioch grinding dogged football which was particularly successful at Carrow road. Green, Fleming, McKay, Kenton, Mulyrne, Mcveigh, Roberts, Nedergaard we’re all already in the building Drury and Gary Holt arrived soon after and bang we had the basis of a play off level championship team.

That's a very fair analysis of Worthy's time here - there were already decent players in the building but he added to them expertly and spent wisely. It wasn't always pretty but it was often effective, as needs must in the Championship.

All these years later I still find it incredible that we secured a player of Huckerby's quality, in his prime, for a what was even then a pretty low fee. Adding his quality to what was already a very decent team was a masterstroke.

Worthy will always be a legend for me. A bit dull and maybe 'not a Norwich manager' as my dear old dad would say, but his record here was impressive, lifting the gloom after so many years of mediocrity. I've also always been surprised that he didn't go on to have managerial success elsewhere, I'm sure plenty of Champs clubs would have taken him.

[nutty nigel 7,645]

I think we find the stats that best support the manager we like best. Unfortunately those same stats often show managers we didn't like in a better light than we remember. So we bring other things into play. Unprovable stuff like perceived quality of players and whether the important players were inherited. For instance I haven't seen it mentioned that Farke's first season included Gunn, Pinto, Klose, Hanley, Tettey, Maddison, Reed, Murphy, Leitner, Hoolahan, Pritchard/Hernandez Stiepermann Oliveira and Srbenny but finished 14th. Worthy never finished lower than 10th. 

So forget the stats. For the fun we had at games I would find it difficult to separate the three. Farke had great honesty and integrity but so did Worthy. Lambert never had a disappointing season.

Despite the lows with other managers, or maybe because of the peaks and troughs, the first quarter of this century has been a great time for supporters.

But then what of the last century? That was just as good!

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by nutty nigel

[Ulfotto 644]

46 minutes ago, Segura said:

That's a very fair analysis of Worthy's time here - there were already decent players in the building but he added to them expertly and spent wisely. It wasn't always pretty but it was often effective, as needs must in the Championship.

All these years later I still find it incredible that we secured a player of Huckerby's quality, in his prime, for a what was even then a pretty low fee. Adding his quality to what was already a very decent team was a masterstroke.

Worthy will always be a legend for me. A bit dull and maybe 'not a Norwich manager' as my dear old dad would say, but his record here was impressive, lifting the gloom after so many years of mediocrity. I've also always been surprised that he didn't go on to have managerial success elsewhere, I'm sure plenty of Champs clubs would have taken him.

Here here and maybe a lesson from history uniformly the fan base wanted him out but things only got worse after he left.

[Fen Canary 871]

12 hours ago, AJ said:

Whilst I don't disagree I'm sure he's still better right now than Idah or Hwang

I don’t disagree there, I was referring more to Barnes and Sargent 

[The Bunny 314]

Ok so here is the same table but based only on Premier League games. I included all Premier League seasons (from 92).

Sorted by Pts/game:

	P	W	D	L	Win %	Lose %	Pts	Pts/G
Mike Walker	65	31	16	18	47.7%	27.7%	109	1.68
Paul Lambert	38	12	11	15	31.6%	39.5%	47	1.24
Chris Hughton	71	18	22	31	25.4%	43.7%	76	1.07
Alex Neil	38	9	7	22	23.7%	57.9%	34	0.89
Nigel Worthington	38	7	12	19	18.4%	50.0%	33	0.87
John Deehan	56	7	16	33	12.5%	58.9%	37	0.66
Dean Smith	27	4	5	18	14.8%	66.7%	17	0.63
Daniel Farke	49	6	8	35	12.2%	71.4%	26	0.53
Neil Adams	5	0	1	4	0.0%	80.0%	1	0.20
Gary Megson	5	0	0	5	0.0%	100.0%	0	0.00

 

Sorted by Win %

	P	W	D	L	Win %	Lose %	Pts	Pts/G
Mike Walker	65	31	16	18	47.7%	27.7%	109	1.68
Paul Lambert	38	12	11	15	31.6%	39.5%	47	1.24
Chris Hughton	71	18	22	31	25.4%	43.7%	76	1.07
Alex Neil	38	9	7	22	23.7%	57.9%	34	0.89
Nigel Worthington	38	7	12	19	18.4%	50.0%	33	0.87
Dean Smith	27	4	5	18	14.8%	66.7%	17	0.63
John Deehan	56	7	16	33	12.5%	58.9%	37	0.66
Daniel Farke	49	6	8	35	12.2%	71.4%	26	0.53
Neil Adams	5	0	1	4	0.0%	80.0%	1	0.20
Gary Megson	5	0	0	5	0.0%	100.0%	0	0.00

Proving without doubt that Dean Smith is a better manager than Daniel Farke. 

I'll see myself out... 

[Soldier on 168]

On 26/10/2023 at 13:58, Capt. Pants said:

Was Lambert really here only 46 games?

The point remains though. Wagner isn't the type of manager who can adjust and pull results out of adversity, either it works for him or it doesn't. His loss rate isn't good either.

Fine margins though, 3 more wins for Wagner and he would be heading to 50%.

Old Nigel Worthington bloody good wasn't he!

Edit - just seen Chump only

Was in league one and the prem either side of champ season