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Hartsons Gut

Life has been difficult since Francis left

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I stuck up for Damien Francis as a stupid rumour and Petulant fans forced him out of this football club!

anyone who slagged him off and jumped on the bandwagon of a stupid rumour should be ashamed of themsleves!

hope your all pleased.. forcing him out was part of the decline.

jas :)

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well Francis was great but when he knew we were going down he was the first person to go head down and then jump ship.Someone like Francis is the last person we need right now.What we need is another Dion Dublin type who has been there done that and just wants to play football. But hopefully get a guy under 30.Id be willing to consider any number of Prem / top table Championship reserves who want to proove themselves and work hard.

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Just to add to my previous post im talking more about player mentality than positional. I agree we need a attacking midfielder we lost 3 good ones over the last couple of seasons. And to be honest none have been properly replaced.Anyone else get the feeling that Grant went about the transfer market thinking.. Oh, Rusty and Curo were good lads, fun to have a beer with, ill bring them back.Surprised we didnt see Andy Marshall (and any number of others )  re-apear from obscurity.

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He is about a month away from fitness.

To be honest I was not greatly impressed by Francis last season despite the few goals he got but maybe I just expected too much in a side that was always going to struggle.

Maybe he will be more determined to make an impact on his return.

 

 

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Life has been difficult since Francis left. That''s exactly it - he left. He didn''t want to play for Norwich anymore. It wasn''t that we miss Francis, it''s the fact that we never replaced him. We should have splashed the cash there and then and brought in a quality midfielder whilst we had the funds. Jason Koumas was available at the time I seem to recall but we just didn''t seem to be interested.

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Francis was never that good. He was lucky to have a fit and lung-busting Gary Holt alongside him, doing all the dirty work.

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[quote user="jas the barclay king"]

I stuck up for Damien Francis as a stupid rumour and Petulant fans forced him out of this football club!

anyone who slagged him off and jumped on the bandwagon of a stupid rumour should be ashamed of themsleves!

hope your all pleased.. forcing him out was part of the decline.

jas :)

[/quote]

 

Sorry for interupting but... its unbelievable how familar this all sounds. Exactly the same sh*t happened when Ipswich got relegated after finishing 5th. Rumours about players private lives, losing key players (maybe because of those rumours) - ours was Scowcroft and Wright.. Have a sh*t load of money but then totally slashing it all away. Giving a manager too long to try and turn things around. Boo-boys. Crap expensive signings. Being very rich, then hard-up. Blaming the board.

Narwich and Ipswich''s fortunes have mirrored one and others very closely over the pass few years. Its quite wierd when you think about it....then i have had a couple of fat ones this evening.

What goes around, comes around.

Enjoyed Sunday btw. Good atmos. Plenty at stake. Good game of football. Plenty if p*ss taken both ways. What its all about for sure.

Still can''t wait to see you relegated though! ;)

 

 

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[quote user="Delias Devonshire Dirtbox"]When Malky left that is when it started going tits up.[/quote]

 

Thats what I thought at the time. You did an Ipswich and dismantled the team spirit. Players like him mean more to a football club than how he kicks a ball, if you know what i mean.

Just an outsiders point of view.

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I would say that when we came down,of the players we lost 4 were pivotal to our chances of going back up that season Francis,Svenson,Mckenzie and Ashton. (i dont think it was ever likely Helveg or johnson would relish a championship clog fight,Holt possibly could have had another season in him at that level) of those we only replaced 1 with like of the same quality.(earnshaw).

I would take him back in a flash,in fact i would take all four.

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This is funny, me and my girlfriend were arguing about Francis today, shes his cousin and always winds me up about the fact he left city when we went down, so i said, wigan nearly went down and watford did. hes quality though, id defo have him back, hes injured till april with a cruciate knee ligament damage.

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Whoever said things started going wrong when Malkay left was spot on.I think Huckerby was quoted as saying before the Premiership season started that he wished and thought that the team that got City promoted rightly deserved the chance to have a go at the Prem without too many new faces being brought in, which would say a lot about the team spirit they had built together since the Play-Off Final.Mackay was a key figure on and off the pitch. The amount of important goals he scored will make him a player long remembered by Norwich fans, and he and Fleming were a better duo imo than any of the defensive partnerships we actually fielded during our Premiership season.Getting shot of Svennson and replacing him with Peter Thorne when we did finally go down was another blow too - we replaced a 10+goal a season striker with a 1goal a season strikerGary Holt could have done a job for us when we went down too - much more so than Andy Hughes did. Holt was always in the papers that season for Motm awards at Forest.Edworthy! Argh! We should never have got rid of Edworthy.I could go on, but in short - in dismantling the team that had turned a huge corner together for City from the Play-Offs to the Promotion Season, we also destroyed the team-spirit, morale and sense of achievement that the players had. So it was a case of "Cheers for getting us to the Prem, lads, but now we''re going to bring in someone to replace you, because we''re in the Premiership now," for many of them. And it didn''t work.

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[quote user="MK Canary"]Life has been difficult since Francis left. That''s exactly it - he left. He didn''t want to play for Norwich anymore.

It wasn''t that we miss Francis, it''s the fact that we never replaced him.

We should have splashed the cash there and then and brought in a quality midfielder whilst we had the funds. Jason Koumas was available at the time I seem to recall but we just didn''t seem to be interested.
[/quote]

Yes you`re right. Also Sidwell was unsettled at Reading at the time and yet no bids from Prem teams were forthcoming. The word was that £2.5m would seal his signiture and, whilst i initially thought it was unrealistic, when we sold Jonsson and Francis for about that sum and it was said that he was Hughes`s best mate i honestly thought we would try to get him. But it seems that Hughes was the extent of our "ambition" to go straight back up......[:(]

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Delia''s Devonshire Dirtbox                 When Malky left that is when it started going tits up

Agreed 100%, there was still plenty left in him for a season or more as a premiership player at that time. I remember travelling back from Sunderland on the night we won the Championship having a conversation with someone about building the team around Mackay the following season I was gobsmacked when I heard he''d gone.

 He maybe wasn''t the quickest but he made up for it with the positions he took up.

 

Would not quote what DDD said for some reason

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[quote user="breaker2"]This is funny, me and my girlfriend were arguing about Francis today, shes his cousin and always winds me up about the fact he left city when we went down, so i said, wigan nearly went down and watford did. hes quality though, id defo have him back, hes injured till april with a cruciate knee ligament damage.[/quote]

Damien Francis Cousin is Alesha from Mystique, currently on Strictly come dancing.. is she your missus Breaker?

jas :)

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I guess that Etuhu was supposed to be the replacement for Francis but for whatever reason it never really worked out.

This thread has seen the many players mentioned who have been sold/released since our brief adventure in The Premiership and you have to ask how many of our current squad are better than those who have left. Is Otsemebor better than Edworthy? Are Brown and Strihavka better than Svensson and McKenzie? Is Brellier better than Holt? Is Russell better than Safri? Is Marshall better than Green? Have we found a better centre back pairing than Mackay and Fleming? I won''t even bother asking if any of our strikers are better than Ashton.

In every single area we are worse than we were four seasons ago when we were promoted and you have to question why that is. The board must take a large proportion of the blame for their insistance on putting off field activities before the football team but is everything their fault? Look at the names mentioned above, Edworthy, Svensson, McKenzie, Holt, Safri, Mackay and Fleming, how many of those players broke the bank? This thread was started about Damien Francis, how much did we buy him for?

If the board had have shown more ambition at the start of The Premiership season and signed Dean Ashton then we probably wouldn''t be having this discussion. However, why is it that once we got relegated we couldn''t find the type of players that got us promoted in the first place, and helped Watford and Reading to get promoted a couple of seasons later? Even this year I doubt Watford''s net spending has been that huge (they sold Young to Villa for £9million and Bouazza to Fulham for £3million last year) but they''re running away with the league.

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[quote user="ob1"]

[quote user="Delias Devonshire Dirtbox"]When Malky left that is when it started going tits up.[/quote]

Yup - I agree entirely.

[/quote]

Yes and since we sold all our quality players after getting promoted until this season.........discraceful!!!!!!!!!!

OTBC

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Malky has looked totally out of his depth in the Premiership. Three promotions, no succesful seasons in the prem - what does that statistic tell you? (i sound like CJF!)

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[quote user="Confused Des"]

I would say that when we came down,of the players we lost 4 were pivotal to our chances of going back up that season Francis,Svenson,Mckenzie and Ashton. (i dont think it was ever likely Helveg or johnson would relish a championship clog fight,Holt possibly could have had another season in him at that level) of those we only replaced 1 with like of the same quality.(earnshaw).

I would take him back in a flash,in fact i would take all four.

[/quote]

i''d bite your hand off to have all of them back at the moment!!!  holt included!

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[quote user="Mook"]Malky has looked totally out of his depth in the Premiership. Three promotions, no succesful seasons in the prem - what does that statistic tell you? (i sound like CJF!)[/quote]

he had one shot in the prem not three. when we got promoted we sold him to west ham because he was to old(in worthy''s opinion), that season they got promoted and then sold him to watford(prob for the same reason), next season watford get promoted with him in the team. they decide to give him a shot in the prem two years later when he probably was a bit old. the fact that he got promoted twice after we let him go makes me think we should have given him a chance.

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[quote user="Mook"]Malky has looked totally out of his depth in the Premiership. Three promotions, no succesful seasons in the prem - what does that statistic tell you? (i sound like CJF!)[/quote]

that he had two good seasons left in him? in a promotion winning side three years running is no mean feat.

I think he would have made a useful squad player,certainly would have given us a bit of hieght at the back,which cost us dearly early on.

I''d of kept both him and ewan in the squad for their character and leadership.

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[quote user="jas the barclay king"]

[quote user="breaker2"]This is funny, me and my girlfriend were arguing about Francis today, shes his cousin and always winds me up about the fact he left city when we went down, so i said, wigan nearly went down and watford did. hes quality though, id defo have him back, hes injured till april with a cruciate knee ligament damage.[/quote]

Damien Francis Cousin is Alesha from Mystique, currently on Strictly come dancing.. is she your missus Breaker?

jas :)

[/quote]

I wish!hah

i didnt even know that, there family tree must be ridiculous, shes also 2nd/3rd cousin of Darren Bent, but yeah basically shes met him 2 or 3 times at big occasions.

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[quote user="Confused Des"]

I would say that when we came down,of the players we lost 4 were pivotal to our chances of going back up that season Francis,Svenson,Mckenzie and Ashton. (i dont think it was ever likely Helveg or johnson would relish a championship clog fight,Holt possibly could have had another season in him at that level) of those we only replaced 1 with like of the same quality.(earnshaw).

I would take him back in a flash,in fact i would take all four.

[/quote]

If I remeber rightly Jonson was gutted to leave - He wanted to show us what he could do, but Worthy thought it was good business to sell him for 700k.

He would of been brilliant in the championship - still played for Sweden in 2006 world cup

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