Good start to the season...

[Juggy 0]

At risk of being accused of playing Devil''s advocate. Perhaps I am, a little. I have a point to make though. 

And the point is that our 4 points from 4 is better than our start last season (3 in 4), and better than our start the year before (2 in 4). As McNally said, our objective is "continuous improvement". If points talk, then looks like we are on course. 

I made the decision yesterday never to go to a Norwich away game again under Hughton unless it is a stadium/ground that I have never before visited. That means 3 more away games for me this season if I can get the tickets unless we get some interesting cup draws. I did 15 last season.

But the fact remains that we have had a better start to the season this season than we have in either of our two previous seasons, and the Worthington season, so could this just be our best start to the season since some point in the early to mid Nineties? Looks like it to me.

I''m as frustrated as the next man with our away tactics / lack of bottle away from home. Frustrated enough to decide to stop putting myself and my wallet through it, but talk of sacking Hughton just four games is frankly ridiculous. It is actually embarrassing. 

We do have to face up to the fact that at some stage in the future if we want to win something or want to see attractive attacking football at our club then a managerial change is likely to be required, but to jeopardise our stability and allow another man in to write off multi-million pound players at the drop of a hat a month into a season or halfway through a season would be the stupidest thing we could do at this club. A new man would want new players, usually lots of them.

If there is any time for this to be revisited it is at the end of the season, that is the only acceptable and sensible time to part with a manager or review priorities/strategies at any club based on anything other than performance where performance is judged on points and league position. In simple language, if Hughton is winning a sufficient number of points to see us survive/consolidate then his job should be and is safe.

The only sensible point of view that an anti-Hughton Norwich fan could have with respect of him losing his employment is a sacking at Christmas if we are in the relegation zone or a gentlemanly pleasant parting of ways at the end of the season upon review a la Pulis, a la McLeish. 

In the meantime it would be stupid to do anything other than shut up, support the team and the manager, cheer our results, bemoan our losses with balanced and philosophical reason, and keep an eye on the points tally. This team will improve, we will win points away from home. The approach won''t change, away games won''t become any more fun, but Norwich fans simply need to come to terms with the fact that if they go to a home game they stand a good chance of a decent display and a result and if they go to away game ''fun'' is unlikely under Hughton.

If you aren''t enjoying away games then don''t pay for them, or don''t watch them. That''s what I''m doing from now on (not paying for them). Couldn''t be any more simple, could it?

Who exactly would you fervent anti-Hughtoners want to come in at this stage in the season if he were sacked tomorrow? There isn''t exactly a dearth of proven managerial talent out there on the dole queue. Until there is one I just wouldn''t be able to bring myself to utter the words ''Hughton'' and ''Sack'' together without feeling like a moron, and those who do so prolifically without presenting some sort of viable alternative look like morons. 

Di Matteo is the only man out there who is an attractive proposition to me. I can''t think of a single other candidate, but what sort of calibre of manager would a club who sacked there manager in early September be able to attract exactly? We aren''t Chelsea. 

If you sack a manager in September with 4 points on the board you become a laughing stock in the football world, it would probably end up badly, and no manager worth their salt would be keen to sign a contract with a club who treated their last man so dismally, particularly one who is so well respected and well liked by fellow managers in the LMA. Unless you want Harry Redknapp. I don''t. 

A club who parts ways with a manager at the end of a season in a dignified manager after making a sensible and well thought out strategic decision about what kind of manager gets to spend the next big lump of TV money? That''s the way that a club like ours should do things. We aren''t Newcastle, we aren''t QPR, we are Norwich City. A gentleman''s club, with a gentleman as a manager, gentlemen as players, and - on the whole - gentlemen and women as fans.

Just think about these things a little before you log on to the PinkUn five minutes after closing your first row stream to slap your keyboard in anger - advocating the sacking of a manager in mid-September? Go and support Newcastle if you want us to do our business like that. 

[city-till-i-die 7]

Good read.

I''m in agreement if we are struggling by Xmas the managers position needs looking at seriously and I''m sure McNally will have no problems in finding a suitable replacement if that time comes.

Gus Poyet could possibly be another candidate (no prem experience I know) but plays a good brand of football.

Love the bit about bashing the keys as soon as the stream is turned off lol.