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Troy Tempest

IT IS TIME TO FACE THE FACTS!

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Football supporters are typically an aspirational bunch of straw clutchers who want the best for their Club.

This message board is full of who we must keep and who we should buy in addition to how we can still make a go of it this season...but what is the reality?

Financially, we seem to have a small but highly paid squad and are in the last season of parachute payments after which our revenue falls off a cliff. Common sense dictates our wage bill will have to be cut unless we can somehow become a consistent team and gain promotion. Based on recent history can anyone honestly see Norwich City buying the quality in January of else improving what they have sufficient to gain promotion? The most likely result this season is mid-table mediocrity.

Huckerby is a luxury being used as a necessity, he is like cavalry being used before infantry and leaves a midfield so weak defensively a manager has to play five across the middle. Managers love him and hate him, that''s why he has had so many Clubs. That said he is a magnificent character and a Norwich legend. If you play Hucks up front he drifts wide of his strike partner but at least he can have some rein there; as a midfielder, for me, never! Grant will be trying to build a team unit and Hucks doesn''t do team units. He is a player to be brought on once the dirty work has been done or to change a game. I fear Grant will let him go.

Earnshaw, he will get goals and a struggling premiership side will buy him for those goals in January because relegation is such a disaster established Clubs will fork out any sum to avoid it. Expect Earnie to go.

Safri is another luxury player who belongs in a big squad but can''t do the week in, week out thing. He seems to be unsettled and will surely go at the end of the season.

Etuhu is a player attracting Premiership Clubs, for his physicality as much as anything else, he will go at the end of the season.

The worst aspect of all this is that Norwich tied themselves into contracts with under-performers which still have a couple of seasons to run.

It is a shame, a tale of time and opportunity wasted by the Board but, Norwich are due a mediocre and fitfull season where they will sell or release their most valuable assets and Grant, who is trying to get blood out a stone will only fairly be judged by what he does transfer wise next summer and in the season to follow.

I blame the Board for their failure to keep momentum by replacing Nigel Worthington a long time ago when it was obvious he had run his course (a natural cycle in many jobs) but above all else I resent the fact that Norwich has become a Club which routinely gets beaten embarrasingly and has a team which regularly fails to turn up in matches. A thrashing seems to mean nothing these days; players verbally scourge themselves in the media but then fail repeatedly again which is simply disingenuous. Norwich City has lost it''s honesty and it''s sense of perspective. It has become de-sensitised to abusive results like some soccer based victim of domestic violence.

At the moment Grant still has fight in him....woe betide us should he lose that; we''ll be back on the manager merry-go-round again. It is the Board which must change, they cannot see it themselves so it is time they brought in new people who can show them how.

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Tend to agree with most of that.

The irony about Hucks is that he''s a luxury player only if our aim is mid-table mediocrity.  Not if we''re aiming for promotion.  Let him go and that really will signal defeat. 

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PG mentioned 13 players whose contracts are up this season. Apart from Hucks and WLY, there are 11 others - anyone know who they are?

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Never a true word..........sorry, plural words that were written, Ol'' Rudolph - err'' Mr Tempest.

I also think the root cause - is the brand that is Delia plc, and her attentive obedient noddin'' toy dogs, that sit on the patronisin'' Proton parcel shelf inept  NCFC Board. Because of the previous ''post'' Chase years, they have been seen to be ''immune '' to the critics - as they ''do what''s best for the bestest fans''........I feel this board have become stale........  

Has progrees been made on the pitch and with the ''yoof akademmy'' over the last 2 years? Has progress been made off the pitch - with the new constructed nicey East Berlin lookey likey 50''s style Eastern Bloc ''beds for hire'' buildin'' thingy? Eating establishments in abundance, that folk that can barely raise the funds to attend the games, let alone sit down and feast on fancy flambeed food. A ground to be proud of? Yes! But, what about the squad and its future? Where are the rising stars? Ipstitch are skint beyond their means - but utilise their youth policy and to good effect.

What is the product that is NCFC?...... Football? Foody? Finance?

Football is the first foundation.......or so I think.

From a fickle ''troo fan'' who''s had his ears syringed - and been to ''specsavers''............

"Don''t believe the hype!"[:@]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I agree with most of your post but to let Hucks go because the rest of the team is crap would be suicide.

The transfer fee we would get for him would never in a million years represent his worth to the team and we won''t see the likes of a player like him for many years.

Given too, the board''s abhorable investment in the squad I doubt too that releasing him would make no difference .

What sort of message would that be to earnshaw or any prospective decent players.

Without Hucks we will plummet and so will attendances and more revenue lost thus dfeating the supposed objective of offloading him.

 

 

 

 

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What a good post, probably because I agree with most of the points you make ! There is no doubt that the finger of blame points clearly at the Board or, more specifically at Delia because she controls the Board appointments. The root of the problem is that whilst Delia is a Norwich supporter through and through and, undoubtedly, she saved the club from bankruptcy she is no businesswoman and so entrusted the management of the club to businessmen who, in my opinion, have no real identification with the football club. Worthington achieved so much by gaining promotion to the Premiership but was badly betrayed by a Board which was not only frightened of failure but accepted relegation before the Premiership season had even started. There was no way that NW would be able to repeat the achievement and he seemed to accept this lack ambition and, perhaps, after a while actively support the "Ambition with prudence" claptrap crap. After promotion to the Premiership and two seasons of parachute payments plus the income from tranfers (although we have only received a down payment for Ashton apparently !), not to mention full capacity home attendances, it is surprising that we are constantly being told of the dire financial problems that the Cub apparently has - unless the reference is to long term debt. I have a massive mortgage but I don''t regard myself as having serious financial problems ! And, whilst I am at it, what other club which has the chance to expand the capacity of its stadium decides to fill the space with a hotel when the option was available to have both ? The hard truth is that the loyal fans have been consistently let down by the Club, its owners, Board and Manager (NW) and the condescension that we have had to endure has been, farnkly, sickening.

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Can a luxury not also be a nessesity?

I would suggest that this is more than slightly downbeat! Lets look at your examples:

Safri: It has to be said that in two and half seasons he is one of the remaining players that highlights our key failure - inconsistancy. He struggles to play week in week out and has done so for two and a half seasons now. Ok so you could blame the prem season on Worthington but do you think he would not have tried to play is strongest side for the sake of his own career? The truth is Safri has shown that he has the quality but struggles to reproduce it on a regular basis. That said I don''t know of any reason as to why he would leave come the spring/summer unless he isnt offered a new contract.

Huckerby: Has plenty left to offer. Should Earnshaw go (which at this point I doubt) in January at least we are safe in the knowledge that we can return Huckerby to playing up front. What does get to me is that people keep banging on about him not being defencively great. This is the seccond season he has been played predominantly as a left winger - the rest of his career was spent playing as a striker. I personaly believe that striker remains to be his best position. With a fully fit squad I would like to see a 4-4-2 formation with him and Earny up front with Croft and Chadwick down the flanks. That would scare anyone at this level and some in the level above.

Etuhu: Not sure on you evaluation. He is becoming a better player week by week but I am not convinced that many premiership managers would have been impressed by his overall performance on Sunday, he didn''t play badly but in a midfield that distinctly lacked flare you would have expected him to shine and he didn''t. Managers will worry about that especially if your a London based team and have several derbies that you have to prepare for every season.

I don''t think Etuhu or Earnshaw will go anywhere untill the summer, quite simply there is no point either of them sign for the likes of Shef Utd, Charlton or Watford whilst their prem status hangs in the balance. Earnshaw has been there done that and sunk he knows he is no better off than where he is at the moment, and will also know that whilst he keeps scoring goals bigger more established clubs will come looking for him. West Ham anyone? Etuhu is in a similar boat, having been on the books at Man City he wants to go back to the prem with a team thats a little more comfortable, maybe a Fulham or Villa?

What I havent added here is that there is still a season left here, we can still make the play-offs quite comfortably and we can also still make the automatic spots. 11 points as this league has proven this season and on countless other occaisions, is achievable. Whats more incuraging is that its not 11 points to 2nd its 11 points to 1st! If these guys stayed with us untill the end of the season and made say the play-off final their value both in terms of a fee and in wages would increase and it is likely bigger clubs would become interested. Should the best possible outcome happen they could even get a season in the premiership with us where they would get to attempt to keep us there and at worse well and truly put themselves in the shop window.

Why all of this doom and gloom? This club is more financialy sound than a lot of others yet they prove you can do well. We were after all beaten by a financialy struggling club on Sunday who have had to invest in cheap journeymen and inexperienced youth. Get the mixture right and you can at least survive at this level as we for many a season in the late ''90''s. Its just that as fans since then our expectations have risen and rightly so. We have finally had what we can genuinely call world class through our doors again, not just one cap wonders!

Is there reason to be possitive? As long as there is a county a city and a football team like Norfolk, Norwich and, well Norwich then I will always try to be possitive. If I''m not then the flavour of life in the county will have died long before.

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[quote user="Mello Yello"]

Never a true word..........sorry, plural words that were written, Ol'' Rudolph - err'' Mr Tempest.

I also think the root cause - is the brand that is Delia plc, and her attentive obedient noddin'' toy dogs, that sit on the patronisin'' Proton parcel shelf inept  NCFC Board. Because of the previous ''post'' Chase years, they have been seen to be ''immune '' to the critics - as they ''do what''s best for the bestest fans''........I feel this board have become stale........  

Has progrees been made on the pitch and with the ''yoof akademmy'' over the last 2 years? Has progress been made off the pitch - with the new constructed nicey East Berlin lookey likey 50''s style Eastern Bloc ''beds for hire'' buildin'' thingy? Eating establishments in abundance, that folk that can barely raise the funds to attend the games, let alone sit down and feast on fancy flambeed food. A ground to be proud of? Yes! But, what about the squad and its future? Where are the rising stars? Ipstitch are skint beyond their means - but utilise their youth policy and to good effect.

What is the product that is NCFC?...... Football? Foody? Finance?

Football is the first foundation.......or so I think.

From a fickle ''troo fan'' who''s had his ears syringed - and been to ''specsavers''............

"Don''t believe the hype!"[:@]

 

[/quote]

Mello . . . so I''m not the only one who thinks Rude Old''s blown his cover . . .

 

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Great post Troy, hope you dont mind but Ive copied it onto the official board with all credits going to you.

Hope they take note [:)]

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[quote user="Fat Barman"]PG mentioned 13 players whose contracts are up this season. Apart from Hucks and WLY, there are 11 others - anyone know who they are?
[/quote]

Contracts expiring in June 2007:
Dublin
Fleming
Henderson
Huckerby
Louis-Jean
McVeigh
Thorne

Contracts expiring in June 2007 with further one-year option:
Cave-Brown
Doherty
Drury
Eagle
Fisk
Halliday

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[quote user="Web Team - Pete"]

[quote user="Fat Barman"]PG mentioned 13 players whose contracts are up this season. Apart from Hucks and WLY, there are 11 others - anyone know who they are?
[/quote]

Contracts expiring in June 2007:
Dublin
Fleming
Henderson
Huckerby
Louis-Jean
McVeigh
Thorne

Contracts expiring in June 2007 with further one-year option:
Cave-Brown
Doherty
Drury
Eagle
Fisk
Halliday

[/quote]

I''d let all but Drury and maybe Eagle go.

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Lots of good points, put into a well explained post.

But I can''t help sensing that we are feeling a little bit sorry for ourselves following on from Sunday...

Lots of good points though...

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Excellent....could not agree more.  You can see that Grant has already got Huckerby worked out, Sundays game was typical.....I know they were all bad but in those situations your so called "big" players should stand up and lead from the front,Huckerby as he has done many times loses interest if he cannot beat the fullback for speed and so therefore his contribution to the team is poor  

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An intelligent and thought provoking thread if ever there was one. Hopefully a few more people might asking some questions about what we are being served up.

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Nothing to add other than blind faith for the sake of it will get us nowhere. Some answers to searching questions now could save us all a great deal of pain later on.

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Can I just reiterate that my original post is not a wish list. I don''t want to see our best players go its just that I fear this to be a consequence of wasted time and indecision by the Board. Let''s not kid ourselves, unless a big financial rabbit gets pulled out of the bag this is the route we are presently on and Grant might need to sell to bring in his own players.

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