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Ambition

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The board showed last season the ambition to get us into the prem. Unfortunately after the failure to sign a striker yesterday it appears they will not show the ambition needed to keep us in the prem. To send Worthy in the prem with a lesser striker force than last season is quite frankly ridiculous. I can''t believe that we have not replaced Roberts, Doherty is a defender and in the Spurs fans words a terrible one at that. It is no good trying to follow WBA method of going down and coming back up (it sounds easy doesn''t it). I know we have to be realistic and clear the debts, put money into the stadium etc, etc, but lets even it out a bit more. Would £4m on players have been unrealistic??

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well surely the corner infill could wait....................

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Don''t get me started on the New Stand. Having been to many gorunds in Div 1 & the Prem the new stand is very poor quality, especially for the money we paid. Someone at Carters actually told me that Norwich did not even put the contract out for bid - straight to carters is this correct??

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we did buy three strikers last season though. and also Jonson and Bentley were bought as strikers, maybe NW should try Jonson up front and see what he is like. I think he looks a bit lost out on the wing

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What''s wrong with the new Jarrold Stand exactly?

I''ve been seated in it since it opened and have a great view. What did you expect, something akin to the Guggenheim in Bilbao?

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The way people try to trot out the old "ambition" excuse every time is painful. Lets face it, for many people whatever the club does it is never going to be enough. If we had signed a striker the same people would be moaning about not spending money on someone else as soon as we lose a game.

The way some people keep saying "we''ve only spent just over £2m" shows how little they know about the finances of a football club. Have you any idea how much our wage bill has increased this season? The wages of the new players in the Prem will be relatively high to encourage them to sign for us, particularly if they then have agreed to a divisional related contract which would drop their earnings if the team gets relegated (especially Doherty and Helveg, and Bentley''s probably costing a fair bit this season in wages). Every squad member''s wages increase as part of their divisional related pay. How much is Hucks on this season? £20k say some (I''m not saying he isn''t worth it by the way!). How much did we give Greeno to stop his agent leading him away from the club at the end of a season in the Prem for nothing? He''s probably on a five figure sum per week.

Then you have the fact that the only way we could gain promotion with people like Hucks is by agreeing to transfer fees which require additional payments, specifically in the event of promotion. Another £250k here, another £250k there all adds up in the outgoings of a football club spending it''s Sky money, even though it doesn''t appear on the Transfers In column and therefore some fans can conveniently forget about it.

Worthy was given his budget, and he knows as well as anyone at the club what we can and cannot afford. Frankly, it''s the cowards way out for supporters to turn around all the time and say "well we could have spent more money if we had wanted to but we didn''t show ambition" rather than accept that we''ve spent what we can afford (and surely no true fan wants to see us spend more than we can afford). Transfers are always affected by other deals like a ripple effect (Rooney wouldn''t be holding a Man Utd shirt this summer had Real Madrid not bought Woodgate resulting in Newcastle trying to get him and forcing Man Utd''s hand at least four months earlier than they wanted, if not a year) . Johansson probably would have signed had Di Canio not left Chalrton and they had been able to buy someone else. But what is the alternative other than acepting it? Overspending on what you think the player is worth to try and get your man? Panic buying someone else for the sake of it? Proper management is about getting the right player for your squad, at the right price and whether you are succesful or not in the deal doesn''t just come down to money.

Would we be better off with Harewood upfront with Hucks? Of course. But then if he is out of our price range (and in truth no fan can claim that he isn''t-because how do you know what we can afford and what West Ham want?) you might as well say, we would be better off with Ronaldo upfront! The cup is still half full to me. As has been stated, we have lots of attacking options to create chances and to take them (seeing Fulham play Pompey showed that a lot of defences aren''t so great in this league either). Maybe the key now is to find a way of harnassing it away from a rigid 4-4-2 with Hucks alongside a target man.

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It''s like going back 10 years, not the same league as the barclay stand. One massive area of block work, cheap fittings, no lounges, just basic but for a massive £8m. I thought that because of the small size of the stand it would be a quality construction given the amount of money spent on building it.

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I don''t think we''ve got a lesser striker force than last season. I don''t think the Doc was bought to replace Roberts either, but now that he''s got here if he finds himself in that role- GREAT!! We''ve got backup goalkeepers for when Greeno goes, a much stronger defence with the inclusion of a Captain of his Country, a much much stronger midfield with grit, determination and that little bit of quality AND a strike force which has scored in evey game this season!!

I was a little disappointed that we didn''t sign anyone yesterday but not gutted. IMO we have the nucleus of a great squad already. If January comes around and we''re crying out for a centre forward or big guy at the back I''ve no doubt in my mind that we''ll go out and get one

Keep the faith

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Mcsncfcmcs I seem to remember stating before that you make a lot af sense and you have done it again. Keep it up and you will have a place on the board!

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Which board? this one, or are you a club official sending out a feeler!

I''m just trying to inject a bit of realism into proceedings. Yes I want to see the club going forwards, I don''t want to see us resting on our laurels. But as a fans I''ve had to endure nine years of mostly rubbish and I''m not about to spend this season moaning about "could have beens". The simple truth is that through no fault of Norwich City Football Club, the gulf between the "Championship" and the Premeriship is huge. Indeed you could call it insurmountable without having someone of great wealth involved in the club who can put significant money (in football terms) into the club time and time again. The difference in terms of revenue is absolutely staggering as everyone knows. What sort of viable, well-run business can completely shift between the two seamlessly? One year you are getting about £1m from TV, the next you are getting about £14m (over the course of the season). You cannot adjust yourself completely to the second sum because whatever money you spend there is always a chance that you will go down again (3 clubs have to!) and you are then left with a host of contracts and commitments you cannot fulfil.

Yes you get parachute payments. But their effect depends on how you approach the season in the Prem. If you put people on large contracts and spend large sums on transfers then all your parachute does is stop your club falling apart financially (whilst you have to accept small fees to get players of the wage bill, leading to a mass changeover in squad personel which is why teams like Sunderland and West Ham were not quite strong enough over the course of the season-and why Leicester, Wolves and Leeds are struggling at the moment). If you are sensible with your spending then you can use your parachute to attempt to get back to the Prem.

To "show ambition" and to keep the club moving forward without potentially fatal risk you have to set your targets high, but then work out a way to get there in manageable steps so that your position (eg as an established Prem club) is a real, substantial one, not a flash in the pan move that''s built on sand. Moving straight from Div One to the Prem does not really constitute a step at the moment. With a lot of luck you can stay up and then work your way from there, but getting relegated whilst being sensible with the money will still be a big step in the right direction in the long term.

That''s not to say as supporters we shouldn''t keep completely behind the team and remain positive that we can defy the odds and stay in this league. But at the same time we shouldn''t see relegation as the greatest tragedy known to man. I can''t see how anyone who kept paying their hard earned money week in week out to watch the Blarneymeister''s team perform so badly only four years ago can be so doom and gloom today. Perhaps the answer is that many complaining today were not following the team with as much dedication as they are now. I do feel we are moving in the right direction the way we are going. Overspending is more likely to mess us up rather than building sensibly. It''s easy to sit here and say spending another £2m (plus wages) on a striker wouldn''t be overspending, but how do we know that''s not the case?

Anyway, I''m happy with my life as a NCFC fan at the moment, so that''s good enough for me!

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"basic but for a massive £8m"

Can you enlighten us on what you think such a stand should cost then please? Or do you think we should have spent £12m on one that had fancy brickwork and comfy lounges for the away fans?

Are you saying the construction isn''t quality? Do you think there are problems with it then, or are you talking about cosmetic quality?

And how come Ipswich spent £25m on two (was it?) stands then? Are they top quality? Cos a fat lot of good it did them in the Prem, and now they sit mostly empty.

What''s your point?

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Leeds 16,000 East Stand cost around £10m to build. I have actually been in that stand last season and it is quite superb. The fact that we had basically sold out in the last 3 seasons of Div 1 football it was madness to build a stand with......wait for it an extra 2000 seats. So what are we left with?

Thousands of fans locked outside.

£8m stand with an extra 2000 seats than the old one.

Rumours that a second tier can no longer be built because of foundation problems. (which is probably why ND has stated that the City Stand will be the next to be expanded (that will be cheap!)

£4m Corner infill...yes £4m

So basically what I am saying is that Leeds have a state of the art 16,000 seater stand built for £10m and we have a bigger version of the city stand and a corner infill that will total £12m.

I just hope that every avenue was explorerd before the club decided on the new stand but I think we all know the answer to that one. If the club wanted to build a new stand lets give some extra seats not a shabby stand with a couple of extra.

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Well done Mcsncfcmcs
You wrote 100''s of words and I see sense in all of em, but instead of the negative acceptance of being relegated why not set an attainable and positive target of 4th from bottom, that would be a major victory equivilent to our promotion last season.

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Mcsncfcmcs, I think you make a good point about being happy with life as a Norwich fan right now.

I don''t care about the "this board has no ambition" gang, I don''t care about the state of our squad because we have the strength in depth to work it out. I don''t care about the Doc playing up front, because when Sven recovers his mojo he''ll do a good job.

However, I do care that some of our players may be affected if this negativity (which for some reason is so prevalent at Norwich) filters through to the team.

Thanks to some generous friends, I have sat in the home crowds of quite a few grounds when we played there, and i have never heard such negativity in any of them. Not even at Wolves!!! Now that is a sad state of affairs, and if I could change anything at this club, it would be the "we''re doomed" attitude.

We may get relegated, but two others are coming with us, and I guarantee we''ll be in a better position then than whoever joins us!

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bloody hell, it is a nice day, sun is shining and i come home for my lunchtime sarnie to a mass wrist slashing exercise!!

i am not a businessman or a maths genius - what i am though is an optimistic fan

so we haven''t signed anyone, so, maybe no one decent is available, do you want us to buy someone just to keep up with meglomanic megson who won''t be content until his donkey sanctuary is bigger than the one near fritton lake? come on, we are all better than this surely, yes, last year i was on this damn board night and day pleading the case for hucks

now is different, we are in a different league, we don''t have a miracle man in the wings, all we have is a limited budget and we are here, don''t forget that, we are acutally here and here is where we will stay, we don''t need to spend millions we don''t have .... remember the binners golden year and what happened next?

so we stick with what we have got - i am okay with that, we have just played three top teams, there are the rest yet, where we will get points....

corner infills etc are all irrelevant, we planned to do those ages ago, and yes, i do want them to go ahead, i have a s ticket, but want those that don''t to be able to see the games - yes i want a 30 goal a season striker, but so do man u, and we are not them! I have seen nothing yet to persuade me we are doomed, far from it, i am encouraged by all performances so far

but god, am i gutted we didn''t get rooney!!

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