Worthy Outers - how long ago did you conclude that he's not the man?

[Ken Aries 0]

I had been quite happy with Worthy as the manager of NCFC up until just after Christmas. Then a combination of pitiful hoofball, and the realisation that our team was really stagnating under his control, made me feel that it was high time for a change of management and coaching staff. Speaking to a City fan in the pub just recently, I was surprised to hear from him that he had never liked Worthy, even in our wonderful promotion year! So Worthy outers, are you recent converts to the legions of the disaffected, or have you never liked the man as a manager?

[Norfolkn Good 0]

I''ve never been happy with the style of football Worthy is capable of creating. First season he did a good job of uping the work rate and keeping us up based on that but he never returned to the passing style we all used to love and be admired for. Even the promotion season was a bit dull and based on hard work rather than skill with a few notable exceptions such as Hucks. The last 2 seasons have really exposed his ability - with a few exceptions, there''s been a complete lack of entertainment. Players with high workrates rather than any notable quality have been valued  and he''s managed to coach any spark out of some quality players.

And don''t even get me started on his transfers recently............

He''ll do a good job for any club that doesn''t have the resources we have and needs average players to work hard and grind out results. Not what I want from a Norwich manager though and never will be.

[still holding out for new heroes 0]

Fulham sowed the seed then last summers transfer dealings did it for me

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

I had always supported him, even though I always thought him very negative, and his treatment of certain players (like Libbra and McVeigh) was awful.  I have supported him fully even during he year we finished 8th, other factors meant that we didn t manage to build.  However these last 2 seasons have been truely dire, with managerial errors occuring almost weekly. The first major worry I had was the signing of Gary Doherty, I said to my mate, If he is up front or at the back all season we will get relegated, why have we sold Malky and replaced him with a short bloke and a donkey??  

I stopped supporting him around the 2 nil capitulation against Derby and 1 nil beating at Millwall, it was becoming obvious the season was going to be an utter shocker and the players brought in were abysmal. We then went on a five match unbeaton run and I was willing to change my mind (although the 1 nil win at leicester got me worried again having more than an incling of luck about it).  The month of January was the killer, it reaffirmed that lady luck was shining on us in december, and reality was back.  Etuhu''s signing was a large nail in my opinion of him, a player so poor on loan unyet we paid half a million for him....

we suddenly had 4 crap central midfielders and a left back playing midfield!!!  Shocking.  This wasnt management it was mismanagement.....

Worthy Out

[Trent Canary 0]

I dont see why people get so negative about last season, dont you all remember us being praised all the time for our passing football?! And of course our games had the highest goals per game ratio (Too many in our end but you get the drift!), so surely we were somewhat entertaining?!

I had my doubts from September, and wanted him out around Christmas. However I still have the knowledge in the back of my head that two seasons ago Worthy turned around an average team that finished 8th into a title-winning team. It probably wont happen again, but who knows?

[Salopian 1]

I was concerned when we started to the Premirship season with a few late and not very good acquisitions, but the spirit seemed good at first. By mid-season I was becoming more concerned about the goals we were leaking, especially in the light of the defenders we had sent packing in the summer.. As the seaon went on the tactics and team selection became a real issue, especially persevering with Holt when it was clear that he was out of his depth.A growing sense that we had missed the boat was reinforced with an even poorer set of acquisitions after relegation, a poor set of friendly results and a lack of spirit as the season started. The small squad had to be bolstered by loans, and tactics now seemed to be "kick and rush".I predicted, I think, a final position of 10-15 in the table, which would have happened, I think, if we had not been gifted goals at very importantmoments and encountered sides in poor form.For me the writing was on the wall early in our Premiership season, and became clearer as time went on.

[Mark .Y. 352]

I had some concerns over tactics and handling of certain players during last season but was always willing to give NW the benefit of the doubt as I felt it was a learning season for him too. My fears really intensified though during the defeat to Fulham, I felt that no manager worth his salt would not be able to motivate his team for that game. My feelings are that NW is unable to maintain good relationships with players, don''t know why but I think that the Fulham capitulation showed us a team (not just the odd one or two) that simply were not willing to play for their manager.

Pre-season was just about the final nail in the coffin but I was prepared to give him half a dozen league games in case we had been strolling the pre-season games and were just getting ourselves ready to go. That, of course, was not the case and the pre-season games turned out to be a good indicator of what was to come.

So, short answer is: six games into this season.

Mark .Y.

   

[We need a Manager 0]

November of the Premiership season , by which time it was clear he was way out of his depth and still playing his favourites every week. Last season was no a success Trent , in fact untill Worthington decided to give everybody a game so they could not moan we were nothing short of pathetic, (how many games did it take to get a win) and usually 2 down after 10 mins . Nothing much has changed this season either has it , if he had a ounce of decency he would walk.

[Tumbleweed 106]

My alarm bells started to ring when he bought Doherty and stuck him....up front. That smacked to me of the Deehan era when Rob Newman became our main striker for a while, and the thought of us going into Premiership games with Gary as our target was just so excruciatingly awful that I really questioned his judgement. On top of that he bought Helveg and didn''t play him, stuck Jonsson on the right wing, persisted with a limp midfield and refused to bolster the defence which was overrun at times. Conceding to Paul Dickov with a free header 5 minutes from time in the Blacburn home game summed it all up for me.

The whole Prem experience was so badly handled that he himself undermined the good work he did to get there in the first place. Since then its been downhill and the nature of the defeat at Fulham led me to believe that unless things got better 15 games into this season he should go. It didn''t- it got worse- and so my opinion was set.

[Jimaldinho 0]

Its find it really hard to see why people could have wanted him out in our promotion season.....but anyway i first wanted him out after the away match at Derby, he should have been sacked on that match alone we were dire!

[Jim Smith 2,317]

I have never really liked him in the same way I remember liking our managers in the late 80''s/early 90s. I did not think he should have got the job and right from the start of his reign I have always had concerns about the way we have played under him, particularly sitting off the opposition midfield and playing far too deep. Having said that i tolerated these flaws at the time on the basis that he was a young manager who would learn and also because, at that time, the good seemed to outweigh the bad and in general he was turning the club around. He is a decent manager wto come in where a team is struggling and needs a bit of a kick up the backside. Where I think he struggles is taking that next step up in quality and dealing with better players.

I think the promotion season could have actually turned out very differently had Abbey and Neilson not got injured as we would have struggled with those two up front. As it was Hucks came in and fired us to promotion and since then i think Worthington has been a total and utter failure. As someone has said above, the writing was on the wall that summer with his approach to the transfer market and a fairly shambolic pre-season and that was borne out in the premiership. Too negative, tactically naive and out of his depth. I would have get rid of him at Christmas that season and how he is still at the helm now is a mystery to me!

No in answer to your question - have never really liked him but propoerly turned on him midway through the prem season.

[gazban 0]

I had doubts from the start, but results proved that he was worth perservereing with as he should! learn from his mistakes. I thought the league cup defeat to Northampton was a low point, but the loan signings saved him and we went on to get promotion, but I was never convinced that we would be successful in the Prem. However seeing how woeful some of the other sides we were fighting relegation with, we should have stayed up. I felt Worthy just wasn''t managing the team at all and when he finally realised his errors it was too late. ie a target man in Jan, and playing Safri and helveg in their proper positions.

This season has been pathetic and he has not learnt from his mistakes. We still play to deep with players out of position and quality only being introduced by loan players who then get dropped or leave.

I think the Charlton model has been exhausted and its fine if the manager can develop with the club. This manager is going backwards not forwards.

 

[First Wizard 0]

I''ve had grave concerns about Worthy since day one, when he revealed his mentor was Howard Wilkinson.

That alone should have set the alarm bells ringing, and the fact that it took Blackpool ages to recover from his reign there speaks volumes. I also find his arrogence quite appalling, and why he hasn''t been sacked for it is beyond me.

[Ken Aries 0]

Gazban, I see you mentioned that awful cup game at Northampton about 3 years ago, I was one of the poor unfortunates who was there. It was one of Worthy''s cup "specials"; totally depressing and lacking any effort, cohesion and most of all excitement - the sort of non-performance we have become accustomed to in recent times. I can remember immediately after that no-show this message board was flooded with posts calling for Worthy''s head. Ironically I posted in support of Worthy then, pleading with people to give him more time. He''s certainly had more than enough time since and the time is overdue to freshen things up and have a change at the top.

[chicken 0]

Safri and Helveg were not good in their first few performances - and Helveg was not a better option than Edworthy in my opinion and right back was his position.We only started to do well when the board realised that we needed to fork out big money if we wanted to get anywhere. Look at the reccord before christmas - the thing that really lacked was goals. Along came Ashton and priovided the edge that we had missed. If we had scored one more goal earlier in the season we would have been there. Thats all it would have taken - one of those draws into a win.I doubted Worthington in the first instance because of his previous reccord and he was brought in by Hamilton who had also signed nothing but dros. But his performances since have bought my confidence in him.I would agree that for the first two or three seasons he made the team work and earn the right to win matches. Something that the team had lacked for years, a real passion and a real ability to want to fight for the colours.I am not totaly against Worthington nor do I want him to go - however one thing that has worried me is that those factors mentioned that gave us a real fighting and no matter what some of you say, a real footballing, team  have simply not been recipricated this season as much as before. Yes that is worrying and yes something has to be addressed.I dont think that there are many that didnt have doubts in the first instance but then seeing that he did exactly what we would have expected from a bigger name manager many of those doubts were swepped aside.Having witnessed much of the promotion campaign - we did play good passing football when we could. People seem to forget that there is less time and space in this league and it is much more combative. Mainly because you have got teams who have just come up from the lower divisions where it is battle and grind, and teams who play like that because they can not afford the quality to get the players that can incurage/play passing well.As I have said - this season has been incredibly inconsistant on all parts and has caught the WO brigade out on several occaisions. My song to sum up the season would be by the Zutons (I think) " You say you will but you know you wont".OTBC

[Trent Canary 0]

[quote user="Nigels Tic-Tacs"]November of the Premiership season , by which time it was clear he was way out of his depth and still playing his favourites every week. Last season was no a success Trent , in fact untill Worthington decided to give everybody a game so they could not moan we were nothing short of pathetic, (how many games did it take to get a win) and usually 2 down after 10 mins . Nothing much has changed this season either has it , if he had a ounce of decency he would walk.[/quote]

Ok, nowhere did I say it was a success. Just pointing out that we played good football, and not the "hoofball" everyone keeps going on about. And pointing out to the person who said we werent entertaining that, indeed we were quite entertaining. Especially to the neutrals.

[Bernard Futter 0]

Totally agree Wizard, how could anyone have faith in a fully paid up member of the Howard Wilkinson school of football artistry. From day one, there was no way Worthinton could get his head around the Norwich City footballing culture/heritage. As I''ve pointed out before, he got the job because he was cheap and on the spot. For a marker of earlier Delia inspired ''rigorous personnel selection processes'', you only had to look at the way in which Bruce Rioch was handed the job. Did anyone at the Club ask to see his CV which I think from memory, effectively encompassed 4 sackings out of his previous 5 managerial roles! (And let''s not even go near the Bryan Hamilton saga!) Defending too deep (still happens and from an ex defender) and the Cardiff penalty shoot out farce where only the opposition had a plan, confirmed my initial doubts.

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

I''m with your mate from the pub in never having been keen on Worthington. He certainly wasnt the appointment I was hoping for and I would have been happy to see him go at any point since, including after winning the Champ although that was obviously never going to happen.

This season has provided many good reasons to sack him but my major objection to him has never been results, but the dismal football he produces. My view may be coloured by the fact that, as a long distance supporter, I see at least as many and probably more away games than home ones. Throughout Worthington''s time we have been an absolutely dire team to watch away from home (and often pretty grim at home as well).

Sadly it looks like we''re stuck with him for the foreseeable. Of course I like us to win but I go to football to be entertained and I cant think of any city manager where I have enjoyed my football less than under Worthington, so for that reason I will always rank him as one of our worst managers even if his points tally suggests he was better.