A fitting goodbye from Stuart Webber

[Mutley 76]

Looking back, the appointment of a SD was a brave decision that should have given the club a stability in its set up with a distinctive style of play from the youth teams right through to the first team. 

I will always be thankful that SW brought in Farke and the next coach should surely have been lined up to continue that style. We were given the impression that when Farke left us there was a list of candidates that would fit the style and direction of the club with the SD continuing to enforce this moving forward.

The Smith appointment threw that out of the window for all sorts of reasons - he was in post when Farke was sacked so could not have been on the list - and he did not fit the previous style, set up and feel of the club. The reasoning for the appointment was that he was a coach who had secured another PL season (fair enough) with Villa but that completely abandoned the philosophy of the club and the point of a SD. Wagner's appointment was closer to Farke but the damage had already been done. It would be so interesting to know who was on SW's list to replace Wagner.

As others have said the recruitment ahead of the last PL season was abysmal with a number of unproven and 'potentially good' players signed. And most notably we never made any serious attempt to replace Skipp with a quality CDM. In fact the greatest bug bear for me is that SW appeared to not grasp the nettle in replacing Tettey full stop and this continues to be a gaping hole that needs to be filled. 

Overall his time with us brought some incredible moments - promotion really against the odds in 18/19 and the sublime class of the 20/21 promotion. And the delivery of a world class training centre will be invaluable moving forward but I'm not sure if SW can take all of the praise for this with the supporters yet again digging deep to help fund it. 

Everyone makes mistakes and at least his goodbye statement did not contain digs at the fans.

[Jim Smith 2,322]

1 hour ago, hogesar said:

Yeah. But as Norwich fan, with what I've generally seen in my supporting life, if you offer me two championship title wins playing scintillating football but it comes with a couple prem relegations plus a couple average championship campaigns I'm generally snapping your arm off for it.

Just look at our history and how many times we've won the championship!

Well for much of my supporting lifetime being in the championship was seen as failure. Yes it’s a success and those seasons were enjoyable but ultimately it’s the second division and finishing 23rd. It’s a shame that our current ownership have managed to lower aspirations so much that this is now dressed up as a huge achievement rather than what should be the start of a period of success. 

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

11 hours ago, Cantiaci Canary said:

We should've just kept yoyoing and improved millimetre by millimetre.

Yup, once we scrapped     ' marginal gains '  and went for ' pragmatic     football '...  we were and still are ****ed. ...... I preferred good footy, win  draw or lose.  This dross hasnt even produced results.  

[komakino 272]

Webber is a man who met his limitations, yet couldn't accept them. Would have been sacked at any other club in the Football League due to his passive aggressive/narcissistic behaviour and that clearly overshadowed any of the good things he achieved in his earlier years. Not a good example of how a Sporting Director should be.

[kenfoggo 247]

In his farewell press release , which read mostly as a “look at how good I am” C.V , I thought it was magnanimous of Webber to acknowledge his failings and to accept responsibility for two disastrous relegations from the Premiership, appalling recent recruitment of players and Head Coaches and the financial crisis he leaves behind. We now have a squad where 11 players are over the age of 30, most of whom have constant injury issues, a Head Coach who cannot get that squad to play for him with awful team selections and bizarre substitutions, a normally loyal Supporter base which has been deliberately alienated, and a league position which reflects 6 years of Webbers “improvements”. I really do not care if the overpaid , failing players now have a nice swimming pool at Colney or a comfortable suite to relax in as they get their “hurty knees” rubbed. Give me entertaining football not the dross spewed up for us in the last two and a half seasons under Webber’s watch. Goodbye.

[Petriix 2,843]

I think it's a reasonable goodbye/self eulogy which focuses on the positives while providing a very political non-apology for the negatives, despite the cons clearly outweighing the pros by this point. Let's face it, he was never going to come out and apologise for getting pretty much everything wrong since June 2021 so this is as good as it could have been. It beautifully betrays the arrogance which let us to this point.

I think it's fair to say that he got most things right in those first years, in spectacular contrast to the final two and a half seasons. I'll always think of him as a gambler who won big but then lost it all on the next spin of the wheel then continued to chase his losses while becoming increasingly desperate. 

Between Webber, Farke and the players we had, that 2021 Championship title was the culmination of something very special. How I wish that Stuart could have recognised what we had and not thrown it all away.

"There ain't no mountain high enough..." 

[Michael Starr 519]

17 hours ago, By Hook or Ian crook said:

 

 

At the time our academy was at risk of being downgraded because of chronic mismanagement and a systematic failure to bring players through on this club’s famous production line.
 

Even in his goodbye he couldn’t help but have a pop at McNally. 

I think it's more of a pop at Ricky Martin

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

2 hours ago, hogesar said:

Yeah. But as Norwich fan, with what I've generally seen in my supporting life, if you offer me two championship title wins playing scintillating football but it comes with a couple prem relegations plus a couple average championship campaigns I'm generally snapping your arm off for it.

Just look at our history and how many times we've won the championship!

Spot on. I could never see the reasoning behind the moans when we were in the EPL. I would take promotion and relegation every two years in a heartbeat. One you have had a brilliant season and two you get to see all the so called stars.

[astro 360]

12 hours ago, Cantiaci Canary said:

I adored Webber until:

1) he broke what Farkeball had matured into during the summer following our 2nd promotion - by choosing not to replace Skipp & Buendia and trying to convert us into a counter attacking side (Tzolis, Sargent & Rashica). We should've just kept yoyoing and improved millimetre by millimetre.

2) he went to war with the local media for no good reason and hasn't communicated candidly with the fans since.

Overall, I'm glad he was hired - the Farke years were special - but it was sad and unnecessary to see how sour, muddled and angsty things became.

This is spot on. He should’ve stuck to his mantra and ‘ignored the noise’. All of the rubbish from the media and other clubs fans about Norwich not ‘deserving’ a place in  the PL - it mean’t nothing and I’m sad we seemingly bowed to it and tried to change. 

[Robert N. LiM 4,394]

3 hours ago, hogesar said:

Yeah. But as Norwich fan, with what I've generally seen in my supporting life, if you offer me two championship title wins playing scintillating football but it comes with a couple prem relegations plus a couple average championship campaigns I'm generally snapping your arm off for it.

Just look at our history and how many times we've won the championship!

Totally.

But I think we're also going to have to wait and see how the next few years pan out. There's every chance that Webber has left us in a pretty precarious position with an average-to-poor squad (compared to our average squad over the last decade or so) and a financial situation that seems to me (far from expert in such matters) somewhere between concerning and catastrophic. If the worst-case scenario of those two things plays out, then the equation is somewhat different from what you mention above.

[AJ 1,223]

14 hours ago, Cantiaci Canary said:

I adored Webber until:

1) he broke what Farkeball had matured into during the summer following our 2nd promotion - by choosing not to replace Skipp & Buendia and trying to convert us into a counter attacking side (Tzolis, Sargent & Rashica). We should've just kept yoyoing and improved millimetre by millimetre.

2) he went to war with the local media for no good reason and hasn't communicated candidly with the fans since.

Overall, I'm glad he was hired - the Farke years were special - but it was sad and unnecessary to see how sour, muddled and angsty things became.

Exactly this, I loved the setup until the moment we sacked Farke. I think if we had taken the time to bring in someone to take us forward under the same model then great but too many mistakes were made from that point onwards given we'd worked so hard under Farke to bank the money from two promotions to really give it a good go. Just like managers his time has come and I'm glad we're moving on. Hopefully his successor can get the recipe right, but it needs to start with solving the Wagner shaped problem, and a squad with far too little depth and quality

[TIL 1010 4,753]

2 hours ago, Michael Starr said:

I think it's more of a pop at Ricky Martin

Exactly what i said earlier in this thread.

[yellowrider120 765]

1 hour ago, Robert N. LiM said:

Totally.

But I think we're also going to have to wait and see how the next few years pan out. There's every chance that Webber has left us in a pretty precarious position with an average-to-poor squad (compared to our average squad over the last decade or so) and a financial situation that seems to me (far from expert in such matters) somewhere between concerning and catastrophic. If the worst-case scenario of those two things plays out, then the equation is somewhat different from what you mention above.

Indeed. It beggars belief that a debt of '£96M' (!!) is seemingly 'airbrushed' by a number of posters as somehow being 'ok' and 'perfectly serviceable' and 'much of this is owed to a director (MA) so doesn't really count'!  It may be true that we are not owing this money to a 'bank' like Lloyds or Nat West for example who could 'pull the plug' but debt is debt however you dress it up.

If you examine pages 63 and 64 of the accounts I can see no way that all the final parachute payment (c£45M) will be used to pay off the loan secured against it. Our current wage bill (£56m) will have to fall by a huge amount to enable that to happen.

[mrdi 373]

This is now becoming a fitting farewell to Stuart Webber from the team. 

[Ken Hairy 3,773]

This performance is a very fitting farewell for that fraud.

[shefcanary 2,410]

47 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

Indeed. It beggars belief that a debt of '£96M' (!!) is seemingly 'airbrushed' by a number of posters as somehow being 'ok' and 'perfectly serviceable' and 'much of this is owed to a director (MA) so doesn't really count'!  It may be true that we are not owing this money to a 'bank' like Lloyds or Nat West for example who could 'pull the plug' but debt is debt however you dress it up.

If you examine pages 63 and 64 of the accounts I can see no way that all the final parachute payment (c£45M) will be used to pay off the loan secured against it. Our current wage bill (£56m) will have to fall by a huge amount to enable that to happen.

All your criticism of our present financial position is true, it is down to a change in philosophy which sits at Webbers door. You are right about the repayment of the debt, I stated in the accounts thread it will only be cut by half by the end of the current season after further reduction in the salary bill. The fact remains the debt will be with our shareholders, not 3rd parties. Will they have pleasant memories of Webber and his recruitment failings in years to come?

[nutty nigel 7,539]

15 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Who planned the training ground improvements and along with many others who were shunted out (most notably Broughton) played a role in developing pretty much all of the young players who subsequently broke through into the first team.

Hudds shut their academy after Weaver’s reign there as it was not producing any players. If you want to see an academy that is not competitive, take a look at our U18s results this season!

 

Indeed it's pretty clear it was Broughton he was talking about. McNally moved Ricky Martin to technical Director in 2014? 

A review of the Canaries' academy structure saw Broughton depart Norwich on 12th October along with a number of other positions although the only one officially announced was that of Darren Huckerby. Sporting Direector Stuart Webber said about the academy review being undertaken at Colney that things had not been good enough. “When we reviewed it, it was obvious to me there was an issue with the discipline of players .A lot of these lads maybe don’t come from fantastic backgrounds, so we have to give them manners, where they might not have had a role model or a parent to look up to. We have to make them rounded individuals and from that the football builds. Players generally fail because, mentally, they are not in the right place. They all have the same physical and tactical capabilities. I believe we can teach players to be good professionals. You look at how the academy is measured and audited nationally and in terms of producing players we are not good enough. The facts are there. There are reasons for that. When you are in the Premier League it is not easy to blood young players, because the priority is to stay up. The same applies when you are in the Championship and going for promotion. It is a bit of vicious circle, hence perhaps why I am here now and able to look beyond Saturday to Saturday.!

I thought Ricky, Gregg and Hucks were quite harshly treated but the new broom swept clean and all was forgotten when we started winning games again. It always is.

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,434]

In the subject of the academy , I’m looking forward to reading Colin Watts’ book. If he ever writes one! 

[hogesar 9,692]

18 hours ago, Ken Hairy said:

This performance is a very fitting farewell for that fraud.

Lots of goals and an exciting win.

Yeah, it is pretty fitting for a SD who has generally overseen that in the championship. 

[Corbs1 89]

My take on Webber was our custodians gave us what a large section of our fan base wanted, a new start under an arrogant, ruthless executive i.e the Costa del Conley jibe. Appointing Farke was a master stroke, one of my top 4 City managers, sacking him the beginning of decline into mediocrity. Losing the fans is one thing, but I suspect he also lost most of the employees at Carra, those that weren’t sacked outright. I’ll never know but I guess he never passed the “tea lady” test.