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nu_matik

Steve Downes article 'Rather we got relegated'...?

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Thanks Sparctacus, very kind. To be fair to the piece, it''s provoked debate and it''s an interesting viewpoint. Would be great if we could properly invest in a cup run.

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You miss the point.

Steve has written a deliberate counterpoint blog a la "the Chelsea Defeat is your fault" thread I wrote. It is what is not said, rather than what is said, where the true point lies. The ijuxtaposition of his argument us that we must all accept the reality of success equating to a finish between 17th and 9th for the foreseeable future.

As previously observed this means we are going to not win around 26 games a year. The difference between 17th and 9th will be 2 wins (12 instead if 10).

Many of you characterize Hughton as negative. It is very difficult for any manager - after the first free roll of the dice year with little to lose - to manage the expectations of the fans when lack of wins is the norm.

Steve is pointing out to those of you who complain about this scenario that the alternative to this is Lambert-esque dominance in lower leagues.

Deal with the reality of surviving in a league where the majority of the teams are better and richer, forcing you to adapt your game to this de-facto scenario (and in time have the chance of catching up) or burn ephemerally in time-honoured English heroic failure and return to lower "more exciting" (?) level.

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Parma, even that argument is missing the point. The key issue here is not so much our placing in the league - relegation aside - but whether the team is consistently playing to the best of their ability. If they are not, and I suspect this is that case, we need to know why.

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In the internet age, I believe this article is called trolling, an attempt to provoke an emotional response. Shame that Archant should choose such tactics to drum up traffic.

Perhaps Archant should consider giving First Wizard a regular spot as he is rather more adept at the game?

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I strangley agree about this being possible trolling. I hope it was a stupid decision of the site editor.

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[quote user="ron obvious"]It was utter twaddle. Totally illogical. So what do you do after relegation? Desperately hope you don''t overperform, just in case you might get ............. PROMOTED!!!???? And you''re bound to do better in the cups, because you''ve now got a better squad ......... Has it never occurred to him that we might, you know, quite by accident, somehow or other, actually do BETTER & actually EXCEED OUR EXPECTATIONS ........ IN THE PREMIERSHIP???? As for the bonkers crew applauding the post as a well written (!) work of near genius .... If ever there was a ''Little Norwich'' mentality, then this sort of attitude exemplifies it.[/quote]

Only one word comes to mind but I''m not allowed to use it

 

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Get me back in league 1 signing players like anthony mcnamee and oli johnson than having an england international, 2 dutch internationals and many more. Be careful what you wish for.

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I thought I would have a look at the Premiership table for the end of the 2004/5 season and it makes for interesting reading.

The top 5 are the usual suspects, with Everton at 5th, then 6th is Bolton and 7th is Middlesbrough.

11th is Charlton, 15th Blackburn and 16th Portsmouth.

My point is that it is very hard staying in the Premiership, as Bolton and Middlesbrough show, and I do feel that staying up has to be our priority. Our second priority has to be staying free from debt and only after that should we start to worry about how we play.

Will Birmingham and Wigan fans really feel, a few more years down the road, that it is better to win a cup and get relegated?

Swansea have made it into Europe this year, but their domestic form seems to have suffered, for whatever reason.

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pete_norw wrote:

"Only one word comes to mind but I''m not allowed to use it."

???

I''m sure you could think of an acceptable alternative.

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I just want to see Norwich City play year in and year out in the best league in the world. If this results in being 17th every year then so be it. Yes a piece of silverware would be great but never at the expense of being a self sufficient club signing quality players playing against quality opposition.

I never want to return to the Championship although I suspect that at some stage we probably will.

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[quote user="Felixfan"]I just want to see Norwich City play year in and year out in the best league in the world. If this results in being 17th every year then so be it. Yes a piece of silverware would be great but never at the expense of being a self sufficient club signing quality players playing against quality opposition.

I never want to return to the Championship although I suspect that at some stage we probably will.[/quote]

 

Tom Cavendish gets it in the neck for just suggesting we move to the outskirts of Norwich and you want us to relocate to Germany?

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Rock The Boat wrote the following post at 13/10/2013 5:45 AM:

"In the internet age, I believe this article is called trolling, an attempt to provoke an emotional response. Shame that Archant should choose such tactics to drum up traffic.

Perhaps Archant should consider giving First Wizard a regular spot as he is rather more adept at the game? "

+1

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Naturally promotion campaigns are going to be more fun than mid table finishes but at the end of the day the only League to be in is the top flight and the reason the lower Leagues are so entertaining is cause teams are desperate to get to the Premiership!

 

Us older fans well remember the uphoria surrounding Ron Saunders promotion team in 1972 and how the late 70''s with lower mid table finishes wern''t as entertaining.The same scanario is happening now and if we have another no fuss mid table finish this season, which is likely with our current team then it will job done but probably without the excitment of Paul Lamberts two promotion campaigns!

 

If we have 10 more seasons of mid table Premiership finishes then the club would be in a much better state than it would be if it yo-yoed!

 

Thats life!

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[quote user="Daniel Brigham"]Thanks Sparctacus, very kind. To be fair to the piece, it''s provoked debate and it''s an interesting viewpoint. Would be great if we could properly invest in a cup run.[/quote]

 

 

To be fair Daniel, this oft used phrase that a Journo "provokes debate" it hiding behind the fact that anyone can provoke.  It doesn''t take much skill or reasoning. I could run into Portman Road on matchday and sing On The Ball City, and I''m sure I would get plenty of "debate". This is either an unbelievable piece of Little Norwich sydrome (And Downes should immediately go and support someone else for fear of me ever having the embarrassment of meeting him) or simply lazyness. I hope it''s the latter.   

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That article is beyond belief. If Mr. Downes was trying to provoke a reaction then he certainly achieved it. Getting relegated is clearly the worst thing that can possibly happen to any Premiership club. We may well win fewer games in the Premier League and be fighting down the lower end. But the wins in the Premier League taste so much sweeter than in the lower leagues. Even in the first few games of the season we know how crucial 3 points are and each win makes me feel ecstatic knowing its a step closer to survival. Wins against the Elite teams are even better. Why is mere survival so important? Well so far it has just seen us have the most exciting summer we have ever seen. We have the power to sign world class players, and every year we survive we will see the strength of players brought in improve. Our club, who were just 4 years ago in League 1 and contemplating financial melt down are now in the strongest financial position we have had possibly in all of our lifetimes. The squad we have is simply outstanding and we are in a completely different class to the likes of Ipswich. I don''t even get that much pleasure seeing Ipswich lose now as they are just so irrelevant to us now. Relegation however would see us take a giant step back towards the level that Ipswich are at. Immediate promotion would be essential or the wonderful players that we now have would soon disappear. And trust me - they are wonderful players. Just compare our squad to any Championship club, bar maybe the just relegated sides.
OK, so at the moment we do not have any realistic hope of winning the League, but we can at least compete in the Cups. Look at Swansea last year. That could have easily been us had we been able to beat Villa at home. We also have hope in the League - the hope that we will continue to improve, possibly along the lines of Everton who once battled relegation most years and now sometimes flirt with the idea of Champions League qualification. Our board are clearly ambitious bringing in the likes of Wolf and Fer, both of whom I have no doubt will prove their class. Succeeding in the target of improving 1 League position per season would see us winning the Premier League in just 10 years time - now that''s ambition!
Anybody that wants to see relegation for us is very very misguided.

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I was shocked to even see something like that on the front page of this site. Totally embarrasing. However, he makes one comment which I agree with - it is a mindless march to mediocrity and I am *bored*!

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Exactly right Stig! I bet you weren''t bored as we went down and then up the leagues. But then think how boring it is for the binners! 11 consecutive seasons in the champs doing nothing. Of those seasons we have spent 4 in the prem, 6 in the champs and 1 in league one. However if we spend 11 consecutive seasons in the prem doing sweet fa I reckon you won''t be the only one bored. But what is the answer?

 

 

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What is the answer? Well, what is the problem...  I cant get my head round why people have a problem with us simply competing in the worlds best league against some of the best teams week in week out. Or are we hitting glory hunter, only want to see wins or it''s pointless type territory?

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Until we''re in the top half of the table the football we play won''t be so attractive, and we might not ''enjoy'' losing to big teams on a regular basis. But times are changing, we are where we need to be and the football will improve as we grow as a club.

Anyone ''fan'' wanting us relegated is deluded.

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[quote user="nu_matik"]I cant get my head round why people have a problem with us simply competing in the worlds best league against some of the best teams week in week out.[/quote]This would be perfectly fine if we were playing attractive, entertaining football and getting some decent results along the way even if we finished 17th in the end, but when you accompany a potential relegation dogfight with god awful football and the realisation that finishing even 9th would be seen as a huge achievement, it does take a hell of a lot of gloss away...I don''t think you''ll find any fans out there who genuinely want us to be relegated, but on the flip side, I do know that you''ll find plenty of fans who are fed up of the dire football on display from us most weeks, which combined with the ever increasing issue in the league whereby to actually challenge for the title you almost need to spend 100''s of millions on new players, then I think you have a developing problem that''s only likely to get worse if we continue in the same vein.Would I rather watch us in the prem - absolutely (although maybe that''s because if we were back in the Championship I''d be stuck with 30 seconds of highlights instead of the 3-4 minutes MOTD give us), but am I utterly bored and frustrated with the type of football we are playing - absolutely.Back when we finished 3rd and had the UEFA cup run, I didn''t see Mike Walker complaining about inequality in finances or resorting to playing horrible, defensive football most weeks to try to ''steal'' a draw, we played for the win and didn''t give a damn how much money the likes of Man Utd were spending on players like Cole etc. I also think this is why so many fans had such respect for Lambert, as he employed a very similar approach and didn''t give two hoots about anything apart from trying to get the result even if it meant playing 5 upfront for the last 10 minutes!From a financial perspective we''re in the best position we''ve probably ever been, but from a football perspective it doesn''t like quite so rosy, and that''s despite having brought in genuine quality players like Fer and RVW...

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The bloke is a total berk.

The assumption that if we go down we will start winning more games is ridiculous. There is every chance that if we go down we could end up mid table in the Championship, the same sort of position than we finished last year - only one division lower. It''s happened to us before and for many others its been worse. For every Lambert there is a Roeder

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Typical.

Someone has a different opinion from a number of posters and instead of constructively criticising the article the writer is abused and name called.

I''ts people like this that give us people from Norfolk such a bad stereotypical view.

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I don''t agree with a lot of what Steve is saying in the article, he is being deliberately sensationalist and reacting to comments made by Bowkett about our aims for THIS season a little to hysterically.

I certainly would never wish us to be Relegated, it is the single most painful experience Football can offer a supporter imo, and no matter the consolation (a cup win) it would never be big enough to offset that feeling.

There is however an underlying and lost point to what he is saying due to his overreaction, if Norwich can only ever aim to be a club aspiring to a top half finish then we do lose out as supporters. I am unsure what can be done about this though? The PL is so entrenched that breaking into that elite pack requires 100''s of millions of investment. No amount of board ambition can get passed that fact. It is sad and it irks me as a supporter, but its not NCFCs fault.

I believe there will be cup runs and there might even be Europe in our future seasons and that''s where my "hope" is.

I do agree with some other comments however that if your ambition is to stay in the league, as top half or not that is the effective the sum of your achievement, then the manner in which you do so becomes increasingly important to supporters. I think CH is on his way to achieving this, with the last two performances in particular, and I hope that evolution continues.

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[quote user="Hairy Canary"]The bloke is a total berk. The assumption that if we go down we will start winning more games is ridiculous. There is every chance that if we go down we could end up mid table in the Championship, the same sort of position than we finished last year - only one division lower. It''s happened to us before and for many others its been worse. For every Lambert there is a Roeder[/quote]

 

Exactly - after we were relegated in ''95 we had plenty of seasons of mid-table mediocrity in the pre-Lambert era which featured just one promotion campaign and the dire years leading up to relegation to L1.  Why do people suddenly think it would all be rosy if we were now to be relegated to the champ?

 

This is just fans having short memories.  The reality in football is that most teams, most years, don''t win anything and aren''t in serious contention.  If you have a problem with that you shouldn''t be supporting a team like Norwich.

 

Also I find it odd that people are still complaining about our "dire" style of football.  It makes me wonder if they''ve seen our last 3 games - a thrilling cup win over Watford, comfortably out-playing Stoke at the Britannia stadium, and an excellent display against Chelsea where we could have taken a more cautious approach at the end and almost-certainly come away with a point, but went for the win and ended up losing.

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Id rather we got relegated and had more of the academy players come through.Just imagine, in a few years are midfield could have been Murphy, Smith ,Adeyimi (sp?), Murphy

Strikers could have beenLoza and MorrisGk can be Rudd.Defence im not sure about!!

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