You wont agree.....

[Saint Canary 0]

but I am concerned about how we are going to avoid relegation. I know i''m going to get "Trust in Worthy, when has he ever let us down?" and "We can''t spend, at least if we go down again we will be stronger financially" and so on but I don''t care, if i''m wrong I will be happy to admit it.

I really don''t think our signings have been great, all of them would have been the sort of players I would have expected us to gone after if we were still in the First Division. We look like a good First Division side. We have a good team and that may be our saving grace but we are going to have to fight for every game, every point. People keep pointing to Greece as an example of how to play, they deserved to win Euro 2004 but I don''t think they would have won if it had been over 30 odd games in a league. We can''t play every game like a cup game, it''s just not possible.

I would love to see just one player with a bit of class because I really can''t see where any creativity in midfield is going to come from.

I will enjoy next season whatever happens but I just can''t get excited about the players we have and are trying to buy.

[bananaman 0]

Don''t try and get excited about the names we are signing, just be excited by the prospect of playing top-flight football, and pitting our wits against the other fans in the country.

It''s going to be great!

[Temp the Revelator 0]

We already have two players with a ''bit of class'', as you put it - Huckerby and Bentley....

[0Amarillo<P><FONT color=#cccc00 size=4><EM> º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ Amarillo ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°<EM><FONT><P>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><FONT color=#cccc00 size=4><EM> º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ Amarillo ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°<EM><FONT><P>True 0]

There''s a reason we look like a good First Division side. Because we are. Which side that has been promoted in recent years looked like a Prem side at the start of their first season up? Most come back down again, and then get stronger for the next run at it.

We seem to have shifted from knowing we''ll come back down but enjoying ourselves anyway to really expecting to stay up and then being disappointed if we don''t. I blame Rick Waghorn.

Let''s try and see things in perspective. We are and will be one of the weakest sides in the Prem. End of. Enjoy the football, hope out team spirit gets us through and hope we can emulate, say, Portsmouth or Birmingham. But let''s not get all depressed before the season has even started, else what''s the point in getting promoted?

As for the quality of signings... I have to say: what did you expect? There was a lot of talk of famous names coming here, but never from the club. Just a bunch of fans who are used to playing fantasy football and CM, and who think we can just make signings and ''release money'' when it ain''t so simple.

And when Drury, Holt, Edworthy, Francis, Cooper, McKenzie arrived, did they seem like players to set the first division alight? Only Hux, maybe Svensson, Brennan would fit into that category, but they turned out to be excellent signings that were more than capable at that level. Who''s to say the new signings, and a couple more that might come aren''t the same?

Ama

[Saint Canary 0]

I will very much enjoy next season in the Premier League, I just think that one class player would make it easier to finish 17th. I refuse to accept that Bentley is class player, he has potential but his first team experience is limited to say the least, it may be at the end of the season he is a class player but at the moment he isn''t, saying that I am excited to see what he can do. As far as Hux goes, i''m confident he will be great in the PL but you can''t expect him to have the same amount of impact as he did last season.

Amarillo, about whether we expected certain players to perform in Div 1 or not, from what I remember Edworthy has played PL football and he along with Cooper played big parts in Wolves promotion, so I would have expected them to be up to the task. I also remember Francis being quite highly rated in the division, while Holt is exactly the player we were told he would be and had international caps. My biggest concern about signing players like Safri is that we are already hoping that a large number of our squad can make a step up in quality, without adding more to that number.

I''m not expecting us to sign international star players for big money but I just don''t see how the long-term future of City is assured by 1 season in the PL,being thrifty and then hope to get promoted again. I''m sure we all remember how hard it is to get out of the 1st Div? The board had faith in NW and went with him on Hux and look what we achieved, why not just release the purse strings just a little bit more for Worthy? I know you can''t buy success but I trust NW enough to think that if he had just a few £mil to spend he would keep us up.

[Temp the Revelator 0]

Since when has spending guaranteed survival in the Premiership? Did Leeds survive? No. Have Everton spent millions on players? Yes. Are they still a good tip for relegation, with massive debts on their shoulders? Yes. Quite frankly, I am getting sick to the back teeth of people expecting too much too soon. What the board are doing (and Worthy to a certain degree) is ensuring that while we give staying up a good go, relegation will not hurt us, in fact we would become one of the main players in Div 1 with some money to spend and an already strong squad. The long-term future of the club will be assured because we are still operating like a First Division club, so reverting to being one will not cripple us financially. The bonus is that all the extra money from the Premiership will still be there as we won''t have frittered it all away trying to live beyond our means.

I personally think the policy of this summer has been spot on - who knows, we might survive this season in the Prem, but if not, you must admit that our squad now looks far too good to stay in the First Division the season after. And I don''t think too many of them will disappear if we are relegated, because none of them are ''big-time charlies''.

[Saint Canary 0]

Templeton, I don''t believe I said that spending money guarantees survival but I do believe that if NW could aim a bit higher in the transfer market he would keep us in th PL. As for Leeds and Everton, I can see your point but Leeds demise is a whole different thing to us spending a couple of £million. I''m not saying that we should just blindly give NW money to spend but if it was really worth it, for the right player then I think why not take a chance at staying up rather than expecting to get promoted again. Could we really afford Hux and his wages? Did we buy him? Was it worth the risk?

I''m sorry that your "getting sick to the back teeth of people expecting too much too soon" but I don''t feel I''m expecting that, I was hoping that City might have taken another calculated risk on 1 player, not a whole new team.

[Temp the Revelator 0]

And I do take your point SC, but I just don''t think we will ever know how big a rsik bringing Huckerby in actually was - had we not been promoted, Green, Drury and possibly Francis/McVegh would almost certainly have to have gone (not to mention Hux), and we probably wouldn''t have been able to bring in any new players to replace them. In that case, I couldn''t see Worthy sticking round either - then where would we have been?

No, I am just of the opinion that one gamble is far enough for the time being, I just don''t want to be back where we were in 96 - it takes a whole long time to recover, as we well know.

West Brom (much as it pains me to say it) set a good example - take the rewards, go back down, be strong enough to go back up, then have a little punt on staying up......that is what we should be aiming for, survival should be an unexpected bonus. For me, even being in the Prem is an unexpected bonus, and I am damn well going to enjoy it. I had almost resigned myself to us being First Division forever!

[Saint Canary 0]

I remember having a conversation before that after buying Hux we couldn''t have afforded not to get promoted. I agree that I wouldn''t ever want to be back to where we were a few years back but I do also believe that if we could aim a little bit higher in terms of quality players, for example don''t spend money on a transfer fee for a player like Scowcroft, spend it on wages for a year-long loan for Joe Cole or someone similar.

[Temp the Revelator 0]

I guess so, yes, and I certainly wouldn''t be complaining at that kind of deal, but the down side to that would be that at then end of the year Cole would go back to Chelsea, we would have spent what £1.5m? and have no player for it for the next campaign......which is where signing Scowcroft works out better (if you see what I mean!)........I think most of us would like to be looking at better quality, but if we can''t afford it, that''s all there is to it I guess!

Plus you just never know what being in a quality team like ours will bring out in other players, it''s happened before after all!

[bananaman 0]

As I said earlier, I''m just a bystander to this conversation, because I''m going to enjoy this season as much as I can and know we will be safe if we go down. Then we will be even more likely to come back up, and have loads to spend in 2006.

And if we don''t come back up, at least we still have a football team. Sorry if that seems my ambitions are low, but I look at most other teams in the country and their supporters and I feel blessed to be from Norwich.

[Jumpers for goalposts 0]

Everyone is making a fair point here, but I can''t help but agree with Saint Canary. Whereas most city fans are realistic enough to accept that a spending spree was never going to happen I too cannot help but feel just a little underwhelmed by our transfer activity. I hope Bentley is the player everyone says he is because, my god, we''re gonna need him to be. I can''t really see that we are following West Brom''s blueprint either - don''t remember exact figures but I read somewhere that they spent something like £8m on new signings pre season a couple of years ago when they won promotion for the first time (Koumas, Hreidarsson and Gregan spring to mind). I would imagine Worthy would be salivating like Homer over a pile of doughnuts if he had that sort of money at his disposal!!!
Nope - I think the pre season transfer activity is a sobering reminder of how delicate our finances still are, even considering the obscene amount of money we''ll get this season. But,like Saint Canary, I just hoped that Nigel would have had just a LITTLE more money to play with this year.
I hope the "we''ll surprise a few and finish comfortably mid table" brigade are right and I''m proved wrong. But I''ll be thrilled and amazed if we finish higher than fourth bottom.

[who ?2 0]

I think our example and that of Charlton, is the perfect model for clubs to follow.

After winning a shock promotion 2 years ago, we didn''t know what to expect in the Prem, having talked to hundreds of WBA fans, we all thought that players like Moore, Clement, Johnson etc. would be able to cut it in the Premier league, and even though that season we only signed 1 striker, 4 midfielders and a Goalkeeper (although at the time players were far more expensive than they have been in the last two seasons) Hughes for £2.5m, Koumas for £2.5m Marshall for £700,000, Gregan for £1.5m, Ronnie No-work on a Bosman and Murphy for approx £750,000. I think that''s about £8m, and what a waste most of that money was. Hughes, although he worked his socks off, and often got into good positions didn''t score a single Premiership goal, Marshall told SGM to **** off and never played again and as for No-work, Fergusson has never been further from reality when he described him as "The best bosman of the summer!"

However Koumas has proved to be an inspirational signing, Gregan is a superbly solid player, although sometimes beaten for pace easily, and Murphy is an incredible back-up keeper. So about half of our budget was spent wisely. However you have to consider that when we did win promotion, we were in a very strong financial position, being one of the only clubs to make a profit that season after the collapse of ITV digital, while this season, I think you may have made significant losses, correct me if I''m wrong, as I don''t know all the facts. So your resources will be quite restricted, while now because of the way in which our club was run we can splash a bit more money about.

Relegation isn''t the worst thing that could happen to you, you still get parachute payments, and you''ll definitely get at least £1m for finishing 2nd from bottom at the worst (if you do go down that is) so by spending money on extremely good first division players (e.g. Gaardsoe) you can bounce back up and have a lot of financial clout in the following season.

[susie b 0]

You write a lot of good sense here, who ?2. As I said on another thread comparing our two clubs, we need to remember that we are two years behind you in many respects. That doesn''t mean that we won''t be busting a gut to stay up, and what a bonus it would be to achieve it. (Would love to see Rodney Marsh have a chest wax or something equally painful if/when we manage it!) Personally I am happy that we are being prudent with our finances as the last thing I want is to be in the same position as Leeds, Bradford, the Binners, etc. in a couple of years. There are others who would disagree, I''m sure, but for me a healthy existence has to come before anything else. Staying up would be an added bonus and speed up our overall progression, but, as you say, relegation wouldn''t be the end of the world either.

[beelsie 0]

Susie B" you are so right when you sum up the reasoned discussions on this thread, there have been some very good points made. Realistically there is a very big deficit in the clubs funds and not far removed from the position those clubs mentioned were in three years ago. The big spending sprees, with huge wages to pay, on an income and business strategy, that was not able to support the financial demands made against that income. For me it''s too easy to get in that position and very hard to escape. Let''s leave it to Worthy and his board to judge what''s possible and what''s not, and whatever they come up with, support the team selected with all our heart and soul.OTBC!!!!

[kdncfc 0]

I''m firmly in the should have speculated more than we have state of mind. Its easy to say how we will be in a strong position to come back up if we go down, it''s much harder to put it into practice and actually do it. What if we go down and DON''T come straight back up again? The parachute payments last for 2 years, if we stay down for another ten years we are back to square one. The trouble is I don''t see us spending a large part of the parachute money as others have done to make us stronger. I think we had to be cautious but feel that we are being over cautious and relying to much on the if we go down we''ll bounce back up mentality.

[bananaman 0]

It''s also easy to say "Spend, spend, spend!!" but it ain''t your money.

And your "what if we don''t come back up again" theory doesn''t work either, because what if we spend a barrel-load of money, STILL have a bad season, THEN go down and don''t come up???

Simple.

We have to find a new club to support. And I would rather watch Norwich fight for another promotion in the Coca-cola championship than drive to Peterborough for a football fix because the bayliffs have taken the seats from Carrow Road.

[kdncfc 0]

Don''t seem to remember saying that we should spend spend spend merely that we should be spending a bit more than we have. We all know that it would be madness to go mad and spend to big on players but to be over cautious could prove as costly as spending to much in the long term. The fact of the matter is that u cannot argue with the figures and promotion to the prem is worth between 35 and 40 million if u include the parachute payments should we get relegated. The club have already said that they will not be clearing the debts as they are structured over manageable long term payments, the south stand has been paid for by the land deal. The 3 million for the infill and the 650k for the pitch as well as additional payments for the Hucks, Svensson and Mckenzie transfers and increased wages will have to come from the money. Lets say all that adds to 15 million. We would still be 20-25 million in pocket, even if Worthy was given a ten million transfer kitty we would still be 10-15 million better off. I feel more worried about losing our prem status than the club spending to much cos I know for a fact that they''re not likely to overspend anyway but it has been a nightmare to escape div 1 and if we go down it would be just as difficult to get back up. If this happened in the long term the very existence of the club would again come under threat.

[0Amarillo<P><FONT color=#cccc00 size=4><EM> º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ Amarillo ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°<EM><FONT><P>ddMMyyyy0Falseen-US<P><FONT color=#cccc00 size=4><EM> º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ Amarillo ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°<EM><FONT><P>True 0]

SC, you said the board should ''loosen the purse strings'' which suggests either you think they are holding money back and stashing it for a rainy day or you''d like them to borrow more - i.e. take on more debt. I doubt either is true, and I''d suggest Worthy has as much money to play with as is left over after existing commitments. So its up to him really whether he spends it or sits on it, and do you really think he''s going to sit on it and watch us go down?

No, so if its there he''ll spend it, either now and/or in January. If its not, its not.

Ama

[Tacklebury 0]

Well said Ama, we shouldn''t forget that Worthy is still trying to bring in new players. I have a hunch that we''ll see some bigger money being spent before the start of the season....