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Man City, a disservice and a favour

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The way Man City gifted us the game end of last season did us a huge disservice. It lead to a falsely high finish position for City and blinded many to the reality of the managers style and ability.

Many on this board were sucked in and it has provided oxygen to some fans who have been unable to see the real predicament we were in.

It made it impossible for any change at the top over the summer and has now resulted in our plight being deepened.

At least yesterday Man City did us a favour, nobody wants to see City lose but the manner of the defeat has finally demonstrated to those that could not see what a poor manager we have, it needed a player revolt to actually convince some but there you go.

I hope the outfall of this defeat will result in the sacking of our management team before the next game and set our great club travelling once again in the right direction.

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Oh dear, VW. You''ll be on a sticky wicket with some members suggesting that they were" sucked in " , and "unable to see the predicament". Accusations of arrogance and even worse will be headed your way.

For the record, I agree with the vast majority of your posting. I said at the time that the wins v WBA and Citeh were in danger of being mere sticking plaster.

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How many of our guys did you see playing for the manager yesterday aggy?

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A lack of motivation isn''t the same as the players not wanting to play for him. Would Martin have come out and tried to take the pressure off Hughton? He may not have criticised the manager openly, but he could have made some veiled suggestions, or simply said nothing at all.

I think Hughton clearly does fail to motivate the players, but I don''t think the players are trying to "player power" him out of the club whatsoever.

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And if that is what they are trying to do, they can all follow Hughton out of the door. If they think the best way to retain premiership status is to roll over and hope the manager gets sacked off the back of it, then they haven''t got the sort of attitudes I want players to be having. I''d kick them out of my pub team on a Sunday if they tried that, even if they were premiership standard and winning me games singlehandedly.

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Failure to show sufficient commitment motivation and desire Aggy, that''s probably sums it up.

Maybe not a direct revolt against the manager, I accept that, but their failures show that they are not responding to whatever it is the manager is trying to get them to do. Perhaps lost the dressing room is a more appropriate phrase.

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[quote user="Reggie Strayshun"] I said at the time that the wins v WBA and Citeh were in danger of being mere sticking plaster.[/quote]Would a win against West Ham be  one of these sticking plaster wins?  [:^)]

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nutty nigel wrote the following post at 03/11/2013 6:13 PM:

That disservice, if that''s what it was, earned the club 3m quid!

Would be a shame to throw it all and a great deal more away.

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[quote user="Vanwink"]nutty nigel wrote the following post at 03/11/2013 6:13 PM:

That disservice, if that''s what it was, earned the club 3m quid!

Would be a shame to throw it all and a great deal more away.[/quote]

 

Indeed it would. Whatever we do now has similar risks. Or do you know something....

 

 

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I''ve never really understood this thought that players need a manager to motivate them, especially at international level. It totally baffles me.

Install confidence and belief certainly, but no professional sportsman lucky enough to be paid fortunes to play the sport they love in front of tens of thousands of people should need motivating.

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I can''t even pretend to understand how it happens. Villa lost 8-0 at Chelsea last season. They followed that by losing 4-0 at home to Spurs and 3-0 at home to Wigan. They didn''t win a league game until they beat West ham nearly 3 months later. And yet Lambert/Culverhouse are perceived to be good motivators. The premier league is unforgiving and right now I think a lot of our fans are expecting more than they are likely to get. These sort of runs are not that unusual in the modern premier league.

 

 

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[quote user="Davros from Lowestoft"][quote user="Reggie Strayshun"] I said at the time that the wins v WBA and Citeh were in danger of being mere sticking plaster.[/quote]Would a win against West Ham be  one of these sticking plaster wins?  [:^)][/quote]

I agree with this

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I agree with Vanwink on this. The last two wins were great in that they guaranteed survival but disguised deep seated problems which many were already concerned with. We got lucky that we played two teams who had nothing to play for and both were pretty abysmal. It generated what might be seen as a slightly false league position. How many matches this year have we won against teams which had something to play for? Few I think, we even lost at home to a non League side. We were promised by the head-in-sanders that Hughton had stabilised, it was work in progress and we would see an expansive attacking and progressive Norwich this time round. How far we are from that dream! We now know that the Hughton regime was built on sand and that the alarm bells ringing way back in those turgid 2012 friendlies were a portent of things to come. It is truly sad, I don''t remember a manager who seems almost universally liked but so ineffective, it seems almost cruel to put the man out of his misery. But football is a harsh business and we have been at the sharp end of that too much over the last 20 years to allow sentiment to mask what needs to be done swiftly. I don''t want a return toi the dark days and that means that Hughton and his team must go immediately.

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nutty nigel wrote the following post at 03/11/2013 7:44 PM:

I can''t even pretend to understand how it happens. Villa lost 8-0 at Chelsea last season. They followed that by losing 4-0 at home to Spurs and 3-0 at home to Wigan. They didn''t win a league game until they beat West ham nearly 3 months later. And yet Lambert/Culverhouse are perceived to be good motivators. The premier league is unforgiving and right now I think a lot of our fans are expecting more than they are likely to get. These sort of runs are not that unusual in the modern premier league.

We have had some thrashings from top teams but I think we still need to keep a sence of perspective, next Saturday is a new game and it is not a given that recent poor performances are going to be repeated, far from it in fact! We have good players and I still believe a good manager and they are more than capable of turning this round. I expect whoever is selected next Saturday to go out and try to prove all our critics wrong, with that attitude and the support of the crowd a good result is quite possible.

Things can go down the pan pretty quickly in the PL but equally, especially at this time in the season, they can be reversed!

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Indeed thef buddy. And of course that run of Villa''s last season was from Dec to Feb. At the end of the season they, like us, could have finished pretty much anywhere in the bottom half.

 

I don''t pretend to know if this downturn is terminal. My gut feeling is it isn''t like Villa''s wasn''t. I don''t see a new manager being a better gamble than keeping Hughton right now. Unless the board know something we don''t. So I still advocate holding our nerve and this board this weekend has been anything but that.

 

 

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I see your point nutty, but I think the issues faced by us and Villa are/were very different. PL completely overhauled an underperforming squad and brought in younger and unheralded players (as he did here) playing his counter attacking style. It took a short while but began to pay dividends. I think their issues were genuinely getting those youngsters used to premier league pace football. This year they had a really tough start. We had an overperforming squad and Hughton has strengthened it, yet performances seem to have been initially very average, followed by a decent 10 game run, but now seem to be getting poorer and poorer. Regardless of what is happening at Villa, our players just don''t look fit, or well organised, or just doing the basic physical things well, does this explain why we give opponents so much time and space? Mentally we seem shot- it''s like the look on those England players under Capello in 2010, not enjoyment but fear and trepidation. None of us can have any complaints about the quality of Hughton''s signings, but something is clearly not right and whatever it is, it seems to be getting worse not better. Three years ago a trip to Old Trafford was a joy, every footballer''s dream. Now it seems a nightmare to be endured, when a narrow defeat is virtually a success and a relief of avoiding a whipping. When things get to the stage they have reached, it takes a herculean effort to turn it sround and regain respect and credibility,  I just don''t think Hughton can do it and that means that as far as I am concerned change is urgently required. 

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And I take your point and fully understand where you''re coming from Tumble. But in the end it boils down to taking a gamble. The board have to choose whether to gamble with Hughton or gamble with the new guy. I''m glad I don''t have to make that choice and don''t envy them. But at least they have one advantage we don''t have and that''s they can make an informed decision from the inside. A decision that will be made from factual events and not guesses.

 

It''s great to be able to discuss it on here like this but in the most past that''s not possible. We are split into groups and it becomes a battle. I never shy away from a battle[;)] But on here, on facebook and twitter and even in the stadiums and bars battlelines are being drawn and if the past is anything to go by it will get worse. Posters on here seem to think that if they can get enough others to agree Hughton must go then it will happen. As if!! We ain''t all that! Are we? And today the board are in the firing line. So before long if Hughton stays the next target will be McNally. So he could cave in to save the bother but if the next manager isn''t a success then he''ll be gone too. And then It''ll be Delia.....

 

 

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Posters on here seem to think that if they can get enough others to agree Hughton must go then it will happen. As if!! We ain''t all that! Are we?

A good performance and result on Saturday and a lot of them will disappear into the ether. I''m sure the Board take soundings off here from time to time, why wouldn''t they, it''s a source of information: as far as being greatly influenced by what is said however, well!

The manager is rapidly running out of chances, he will know that more than any of us, I think he has the strength of character to respond.

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The Board will indeed hopefully have a much better perspective than us, as outsiders. We have our own opinions based on what we se on the pitch and we speculate and guess as to what is happening behind the scenes (fun but somewhat pointless!). One assumes that they will be well connected with all sides of the argument, but my own experience suggests that when there is a personal angle it gets much more difficult to be objective. So in that sense, we are truly impartial- all we see are the performances and the results, it is thus a very pure perspective, and we get little true insight into the human aspects, the training methods, the real feelings of the players etc. One thing in our favour is that we have a CEO who has not been afraid of tough action but is not  maverick as many other clubs have to put up with, so we must indeed trust them to make the right call. It doesn''t stop us having our own views though and I agree that weight of opinion on a message board populated by a minority of the club''s "customers" is not likely to make much difference.

 

I am guessing that what scares most people is that long road back- we have bitter experience of being there and are desperate not to return. It''s a really tough one, but a change of manager now might just be the catalyst and kick start to avoiding that fate, because as things stand we may not be going back to the Emirates or Old Trafford or having the luxury of seeing our team on the Beeb every Saturday night for a bit, and that would be heartbreaking after the hard work of the last few years.

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But I don''t think we are better placed Tumble and neither do I think we understand the league we''re in or have realistic expectations. We always think we know best and that''s half the fun of being a fan. But we don''t. We haven''t a clue about players performance or the performance of the board. Delia''s a woman and a cook surely we know more than her? And yet other owners and prospective owners go to her for advice. Not us. We all disagree about individual players for goodness sake! I think if Snodgrass is on the team sheet we have a much better chance of winning points. Others wouldn''t play him unless there were only 10 other fit players. I would have started Grant Holt for every game last season others wanted him run out of the club. It''s endless and who''s to say others understand the game more than me or I understand it more than others. It''s great to discuss it, but when it''s taken further than discussion it becomes disruptive and harmful to everyone connected with the club.

 

 

 

 

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nutty nigel wrote the following post at 03/11/2013 10:53 PM:

But I don''t think we are better placed Tumble and neither do I think we understand the league we''re in or have realistic expectations. We always think we know best and that''s half the fun of being a fan. But we don''t. We haven''t a clue about players performance or the performance of the board.

That really is a complete and utter load of "little ole norwich" forelock touching claptrap Nigel.

There are a wide range of posters on this board and many have skills and knowledge that enable them to make very pertinent and valid criticism of what goes on at Board Level, in training, player performance, and we can all see with our own two eyes what goes on on the pitch. You will get wide ranging opinion on players for example amongst the knowledgable pundits, as you will amongst posters on here. The truth is there there is no black and white in this, and CH''s opinion, while being and expert one is still only an opinion.

Sometimes his opinions will be right, but judging by what we see on the field, most of the time his opinion is wrong.

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

I don''t pretend to know if this downturn is terminal. My gut feeling is it isn''t like Villa''s wasn''t. I don''t see a new manager being a better gamble than keeping Hughton right now. Unless the board know something we don''t. So I still advocate holding our nerve and this board this weekend has been anything but that.

[/quote]

But it''s not just the last few weeks is it, how many games have we won this year?  I can''t see it changing, and however much I have backed Hughton in the past it has now gone too far for me.  He needs to go before it''s too late.

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[quote user="ncfcstar"][quote user="nutty nigel"]

I don''t pretend to know if this downturn is terminal. My gut feeling is it isn''t like Villa''s wasn''t. I don''t see a new manager being a better gamble than keeping Hughton right now. Unless the board know something we don''t. So I still advocate holding our nerve and this board this weekend has been anything but that.

[/quote]

But it''s not just the last few weeks is it, how many games have we won this year?  I can''t see it changing, and however much I have backed Hughton in the past it has now gone too far for me.  He needs to go before it''s too late.

[/quote]

I think you''ve hit the nail on the head, Star. Over the course of the past few months, Nigel and his cronies have changed their excuses /apologies more often than they''ve changed their underpants. One recent one was the poor run of form was a "blip". But, as you say, Star, how long does a blip last ffs ? "holding our nerve" seems to be the latest mantra trotted out. But we''ve been holding our nerve for a good while now.

I''m with you on this Star. I was prepared to give CH till the end of Nov, but my patience had worn thin now.

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[quote user="Mr Brownstone"]I''ve never really understood this thought that players need a manager to motivate them, especially at international level. It totally baffles me. Install confidence and belief certainly, but no professional sportsman lucky enough to be paid fortunes to play the sport they love in front of tens of thousands of people should need motivating.[/quote]

 

Comments like this explain a lot of posts on this message board.  If you or I were to be transformed somehow so we could play football in the Prem, then I can safely say we wouldn''t lack for motivation.  But for Prem players it is, in the end, a job, they have trained for it since they were very young and they experience many similar frustrations day to day that you or I do in our mundane jobs.  Most of them can''t really compare it to an ordinary job.

 

It''s noticeable that someone like Grant Holt who''d come into football late and knows what it''s like outside has a better attitude that someone who has come into the game at top level straightaway, but even he clearly struggled with motivation at times last season (although he always had a good go at it regardless).

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Well put ICF, that''s how I see it. A PL player exists In different world to us and will view things very differently to the way we do. The Holty analogy is spot on.

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