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YankeeCanary

The Board Has Spoken - Volumes!!!

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At a time when many may be feeling quite disappointed with what has ( not ) transpired with the closing of the transfer deadline, I actually feel quite positive about the future for Norwich City. Allow me to explain.

First of all, my opening sentence does not mean that I fail to share in the disappointment of our lack of squad building activity. However, having expected that we would end up on the short end I am still surprised that my expectation was not only realized but that the squad was actually weakened. The reason I’m disappointed is only with respect to this season. I believe the club is making a clear, silent statement that promotion is not the objective this season. I do not believe the club will spend a small fortune on bringing loans in and, as a result, we will in all likelihood finish well below those who have strong  aspirations for promotion.

I now believe that Nigel Worthington’s tenure with the club has a limited time to run. More importantly, I believe our owners came to this decision at the end of last season. Imagine that, like our owners, you are a majority shareholder of NCFC and also a fan. You have an avid desire to see your club achieve ongoing participation in the Premiership. What would your learning be having spent the past several years trying to move the club in that direction ( including what we learned the season before last )? Here’s what I would have learned:

 

  • Nigel Worthington ( decent fellow that he is ) is not the caliber of individual to manage us to achieve ongoing Premiership participation

  • We will have a very difficult time financially attempting to achieve the objective by recruiting seasoned players at the prices required on the Norwich budget

  • Our choices, therefore, are either a) to seek more significant financial investment into the club and relinquish ownership or b) maintain ownership and develop a new plan over the next 2-4 seasons by building a squad founded on talented youth with the right kind of leader who would be best positioned to facilitate this.

 

I believe our owners would not have wanted to prematurely capitulate to the emotional wishes of the fans. However, if I were an astute owner ( I believe our owners are not fools as some seem to suggest….I believe they are astute ), neither would I allow any personal stubbornness to get in the way of necessary changes to improve the clubs fortunes over the longer term. That is why I believe they weighed their options at the completion of last season and decided they wanted to continue their control of the club and that an approach based upon talented youth was the way forward. Not easy to achieve I agree, but neither are the alternatives. Ergo, a talented coach/cum manager with inroads to youth was to be hired with clearly stated direction to Nigel as to how the club would proceed and give him an option to participate in that currently while we monitor the progress being made. Past Norwich administrations were not liberal with excessive spending on levels of management and, I suspect, neither will the current owners be once they feel their new choice/direction is demonstrating the right stuff. The right stuff is to get the team to play attractive football and be competitive in matches ( win or lose ) and hopefully hold on to the high level of fan support while we blood in more and more talented youth over time.

 

In summary, I believe there was much more behind Delia’s comments in saying the fans were correct to protest against what was being witnessed on the pitch last season. The difference was that she was saying it both as a fan and an owner. The future may be bright, but it''s going to take us a little longer to get there than many would like.

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I don''t think that any of us needs to worry about anything as YC has worked it all out for us. There is a plan, ''our owners'' have it all worked out (that intervention from Wigan bit was brilliant, YC you must explain how they manged to engineer that). We''re not going for promotion this year but in four years we''ll be an established premiership club.

 

 

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YC I have to say that all your thoughts have been through my mind recently.

The football club has to survive and in order to achieve it, they had taking control of some of the decision making. Do we have to be thankfull to Worthington for employing Hunter, or to the board for appointing him? 

I am glad in some sense that how the events folded yesterday. The only certainty is that we could have end ed up with a panic buy. The fool did not have a plan B or plan C . And if he did then , I am reassured to know that the board has taken control .

PS: Remember you owe me a drink, next time you on these shores..

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My ''mole'' at the club told me last week that no new faces would be coming in, which has proved to be correct. Norwich are holding back the cash until January because if Worthless is replaced, the board (i.e Delia) wants to give a new face some cash to spend.

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[quote user="komakino"]My ''mole'' at the club told me last week that no new faces would be coming in, which has proved to be correct. Norwich are holding back the cash until January because if Worthless is replaced, the board (i.e Delia) wants to give a new face some cash to spend.[/quote]

That does not fit YC''s 2 to 4 year plan.

 

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[quote user="komakino"]My ''mole'' at the club told me last week that no new faces would be coming in, which has proved to be correct. Norwich are holding back the cash until January because if Worthless is replaced, the board (i.e Delia) wants to give a new face some cash to spend.[/quote]

..but your ''Mole'' was wrong, on any other day, and any other season, Cotterill would have joined us for £2m, football''s like that sometimes, so I don''t feel it''s the board dragging their heals because Worthington is about to leave?

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i''m sorry, but you, your little mole (who i imagine is about as existant as roadkill) and everyone else who believes this, really needs some perspective and some knowledge.

Martin hunter has been bought in under worthington with a view to replacement should this season go tits up. Else we''re going with the current management till the board sees necessary. We lost out on mcleod, due to the player being priced out of the market (much like we did with mckenzie, but coventry were stupid enough to pay it). Halford, and eastwood, as you should know we''re way overpriced, and a few clubs turned theyre nose up... after seeing this its hardly a coincidence that worthy didn''t bother and follow up with these players.

Worthy is on a tightrope at the moment, and he''s scared of signing players because he''s trying to prove himself as a manager, and because of the actions and opinions of a lot of fans, he needs to make about 10 good signings to counteract every average signing... and then hunter will get the credit for the good signings and worthington will get the blame for the bad signing. At the moment, worthy cant do anything right in most fans book, so he''s not going to panic buy and bring in a bunch of average players (even though its what we need, as the squad is so small that we just need numbers to cope with injuries). Worthy is going to get less stick if he signs no one, than if he just signs some cheap squad players so we can cope with injuries.

Worthington wasn''t given a ''budget'' so to speak. He was simply told that money is available to a point if he thought a player was really right for the club. The board don''t want to and cant waste money. we''re not chelsea, and we dont want to be leeds/ipswich. All worthington can do is pick targets and ask the board if they can make the funds available. On this occasion worthington decided on the targets and some we''re overpriced, and some we''re signed by other clubs. We got unlucky, but i guarantee there will be at least 3 million available to spend in january probably closer to 5 million (and thats a fact), and players will be being scouted from now untill then (Alan wood has been at bolton today looking into loan players). Just bear in mind that we''re playing well at the moment so as long as we dont get too many major injuries we have a good chance of being in the top 2 in january.

People are too eager to shout down the manager and the board recently. we''ve bought in a brilliant new coach (and anyone whos been to colney for training will know what i mean), and we''ve bought in crofty who will make as big an impact as huckerby did when he first arrived! This season, everything is coming together nicely. People should ignore all preconceptions about worthington, and ingore expectations of the club. Provided we dont get too many injuries, we''ve got a very good chance of promotion this season. Look at the club as a whole, not just look at the manager, and instead of shouting rubbish, come and watch training, come and watch the reserves, and see for yourself how the team are performing from the ground up... not just from carrow road/pinkun.

 

 

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LOS, you really need to pay more attention when reading thoughtful prose otherwise your responses convey the same content as your name. Regardless of the seriousness of our pursuit of the young man foiled by the Wigan intervention it does not take genius to ascertain that, had we been successful, this recruit was not the solution for a serious promotion bid this season. This acquisition would have been more consistent with my stated premise for the future. How much we actually bid I''m not sure of but I doubt that anywhere near 2 million pounds was on the table from us. We will also miss out on other attempts in the future but that does not change what I believe our overall approach will be, and sometimes we will be successful. With respect to the comments from Oz, i.e., we can get promoted this season if we stay clear of injuries ( and suspensions I would add ) that is, with all due respect, akin to saying if we vote in a new party to govern then we may see a significant reduction in taxation. We may, but don''t hold your breath. No sir, the evidence is clear for anyone who wants to open their eyes....this has now been turned into a building season and we almost certainly will have hiccups along the way ( including losses due to injuries and suspension from a painfully thin squad ) but, hopefully, while continuing to show a newly invigorated approach on the pitch.

P.S: S1, I appreciate that a drink or two is still owed from my account. Given that Norwich City in the Premiership on television next season is now a longer shot than a drive from Tiger Woods, I may well have to come over towards the end of this season and show my face. 

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IMHO ncisa have it spot on with their bit on the site....the club are taking a massive gamble the same gamble that cost us staying in the prem...as their hadline suggests ''where are u?

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[quote user="YankeeCanary"]

LOS, you really need to pay more attention when reading thoughtful prose otherwise your responses convey the same content as your name. Regardless of the seriousness of our pursuit of the young man foiled by the Wigan intervention it does not take genius to ascertain that, had we been successful, this recruit was not the solution for a serious promotion bid this season. This acquisition would have been more consistent with my stated premise for the future. How much we actually bid I''m not sure of but I doubt that anywhere near 2 million pounds was on the table from us. We will also miss out on other attempts in the future but that does not change what I believe our overall approach will be, and sometimes we will be successful. With respect to the comments from Oz, i.e., we can get promoted this season if we stay clear of injuries ( and suspensions I would add ) that is, with all due respect, akin to saying if we vote in a new party to govern then we may see a significant reduction in taxation. We may, but don''t hold your breath. No sir, the evidence is clear for anyone who wants to open their eyes....this has now been turned into a building season and we almost certainly will have hiccups along the way ( including losses due to injuries and suspension from a painfully thin squad ) but, hopefully, while continuing to show a newly invigorated approach on the pitch.

P.S: S1, I appreciate that a drink or two is still owed from my account. Given that Norwich City in the Premiership on television next season is now a longer shot than a drive from Tiger Woods, I may well have to come over towards the end of this season and show my face. 

[/quote]

YC, if you paid more attention to thoughful prose (obviously not from anyone as humble as my goodself but from those who are in possession of the facts) you wouldn''t use the headline figures in transfers as the basis for an argument.

All of this supposition that you cleverly word as if you''re ''in the know'' should be left in your head as its foundless nonsense.

 

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I respect your views above many others Yankee...but this post contains way too much supposition...stuff of sense and nonsense...assertions perhaps made from frustration. One thing we should have learned over the last couple of years is that we cannot second guess the board...even Worthy.  Frustrating maybe, but its still a very well run club compared to most. To say that you believe the club is making a silent (?) statement that promotion is not the objective this season is frankly bizarre.

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MC, I respect your views also. You will generally give the basis for why you disagree as compared to too many posters who basically post by attacking without indicating what their point of view is.

If I were to post in a manner suggesting that I have the facts MC then I should naturally be held to account in a critical manner. My original post, however, clearly states a number of times throughout that I am expressing what I believe, not what I know. We fans may never know what the facts are but I BELIEVE the ensuing months will show that my opinion is not far off the mark. Incidentally, my thoughts are not based upon frustration. I am not particularly frustrated by what is occurring. I think those posters that sometimes do get frustrated arrive at that point by setting false expectations such as statements ( at the beginning of last season ) that Ashton and McKenzie will be scoring goals by the hatful without thinking through what we needed to fix within the rest of the squad in order to supply that possibility.

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Try using some facts to back up your beliefs then you wouldn''t be called bizarre, oh no you can''t use facts because that would allow you to be criticised and I''m not sure thats allowed.

Go back to the subject of 9/11 if you want to start conspiracies.

 

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Having had time to think about our lack of transfer activity and the fact that Cotterill slipped through the net I wondered whether we should have taken a punt on him at the beginning of the season (so that he was part of the squad preparations for the fortcomimg season), given we have kept tabs on him for a while, safe in the knowledge that we could "balance the books" through the sale/release of say Green/McKenzie/Thorne later in the year. My fear is that we will become the most finacially solvent club in the Championship but destined to stay there for the rest of my life!! (and to draw a comparison,  much as I like fish and chips the occassional bit of steak would not go amiss!!)  I am not suggesting for one minute we should gamble everything and just splash the cash, but trying to get out of this division with a small squad is as big a gamble in my view.

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