The Wilderness Years Revisited ?

[Yorkshire Canary 118]

Sad to say but after watching this club for over 20 years and accepting fortunes go in cycles i have a distinct feeling we are due a few seasons in the wilderness years. We have had several marvelous seasons thanks mainly to Lambert and his impact. we have totally lost direction since his departure other than a short lived cameo by Hughton in his first season. When McNally arrived the first thing he did was bring in Lambert and everything got better rapidly and i thought at long last we have someone at Boardroom level who knows what he is doing.sadly to me that seems to have been one of the last good things he did. The appointment of Hughton at the time seemed a sensible thing and indeed worked that first season. managerial and many many transfer decisions since Hughtons first season have been a shambles. The Board seem to have reverted to the all too familiar clueless bunch of clowns that has characterized much of the last 20 years. The appointment of Adams has been done to death and speaks for itself. Many of the recent signings,Jerome apart seem to be mistakes. The performances after an unexpected good start have collapsed.

What then of the future? are many out there optimistic that our board will steer us successfully through troubled waters. My prediction is that Adams will go in the the near future and that they will appoint Phelan who has no managerial experience and that we will be stuck in a rut for some time to come, with the financial benefits of the Premiership and the lambert era wasted and the no debt situation will be a thing of the past

[Barclay seats 4849 the 3rd 0]

Although Yorkshire people are notoriously pessimistic and dull ,, I am afraid I agree with you on this one ,, the repeated mistakes are dulling any hope I had of us doing a Southampton ,, or even a Swansea ,, in any degree .

Quite a depressing start to the week ,,, again .

[TCCANARY 263]

[quote] user="Barclay seats 48/49 the 3rd"]Although Yorkshire people are notoriously pessimistic and dull ,, I am afraid I agree with you on this one ,, the repeated mistakes are dulling any hope I had of us doing a Southampton ,, or even a Swansea ,, in any degree . Quite a depressing start to the week ,,, again .[/quote]

 

You need to get that comma key fixed before you post again.

 

 

[Reggie Strayshun 0]

As with Barclay Seat, I too have to agree with the bulk of what YC says.I''m afraid all the recent evidence points to a prediction that this Board will dither yet again for a while. Results will not really improve, and when Adams is finally removed, they will again go for the cheap option and shoehorn Phelan into the job.Usually by the Monday morning after a defeat, I''ve had time to calm down, and look at things in a more sanguine manner. Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case today . It''s really, really difficult to see anything positive about our current plight. I guess the only possible bright sparks on the horizon are either that the board could come to their senses and appoint an experienced manager who is well versed in grinding out ugly 1-0''s, or Phelan really does turn out to be a Lambert-esque appointment and injects the necessary belief and application in this vastly underachieving squad.Frankly, I''m not confident about either of the above scenarios coming to pass, so have to conclude that we are faced with a period of mid-table obscurity at best and years of internal strife. All very depressing.

[Jacks Back 0]

Other than the top 8 of the Prem, most teams are vulnerable to these highs and lows over the seasons. It looks like its our turn again to be a mid-table championship team for the next 5/6 years, in the hope we get a wonder-manager who can get us up.

[ricardo 7,400]

[quote user="Jacks Back"]Other than the top 8 of the Prem, most teams are vulnerable to these highs and lows over the seasons. It looks like its our turn again to be a mid-table championship team for the next 5/6 years, in the hope we get a wonder-manager who can get us up.[/quote]Many clubs of similar status recycle between mid Prem and mid Chumps. Only the arrival of a Canary loving billionaire will change that.It''s no fun when you hit the downswing but we''ve been there before, many many times. Somewhere in the future there''s another upswing.All we can do now is moan about it and find someone to blame.Tom Parker......OutLol Morgan......OutDeehan.......OutMegson.......OutRioch...........OutHamilton........OutWorthy..........OutGrant............OutRoeder..........OutGunn...........OutHughton.......Outand now Adams OutWill the next one be a Legend or an Out.[:D]

[Two penneth 0]

I agree with the op to a certain extent. The chants of

"We''ve got our Norwich Back!" seem a tad silly now, unless it means the Norwich that languished in the nether regions of the Championship for years.

[Reggie Strayshun 0]

[quote user="ricardo"]Many clubs of similar status recycle between mid Prem and mid Chumps. Only the arrival of a Canary loving billionaire will change that.

[/quote]I''m not even sure that makes a lot of difference in actual fact, Rick.Tan , Fernandes, The Venkys and The Thai bloke behind KingPower are not short of a bob/dollar or two, but you''d hardly call Cardiff, QPR, Blackburn and Leicester  PL fixtures, would you ?. There are plenty of other examples.In the main, there is something in what you say, but I think what has got up people''s noses is that by any reasonable view, this current position we were in was oh so avoidable. It wasn''t like we went into Administration, our sugar daddy walked out on us ,or the guy in charge was found with his fingers in the till à la Glasgow Rangers. It has merely been down to a series of errors of judgement. On their own, they were insignificant, but in  series, they add up.

[kantata soul 0]

Blaming everything on the absence of a billionaire is daft. We''d have done a lot better over the years if Delia & co stopped regularly shooting themselves in the foot. Things might have been tough when she joined the club but we''ve made no overall progress in the years since.It''s the same ridiculous managerial appointments, the lack of organisation, the lack of forward planning repeated over and over which is what people are complaining about. Pointing out that many other clubs are poorly run is just making excuses for complacency and a failure to adapt.

[Highland Canary 76]

Pretty much agree Yorkshire. We would be top two at the mo - hopefully at the expense of those down the road - if we''d appointed a manager of McCarty''s experience. Instead, we look set for years in the Championship wilderness again and unless form improves even that might prove a hope too far.

[ricardo 7,400]

[quote user="no future"]Blaming everything on the absence of a billionaire is daft. We''d have done a lot better over the years if Delia & co stopped regularly shooting themselves in the foot. Things might have been tough when she joined the club but we''ve made no overall progress in the years since.It''s the same ridiculous managerial appointments, the lack of organisation, the lack of forward planning repeated over and over which is what people are complaining about. Pointing out that many other clubs are poorly run is just making excuses for complacency and a failure to adapt.[/quote]What progress are you expecting us to make and why are similar clubs in the same boat. Surely they make the same sort of decisions that we do, some are successful and some are not, else there wouldn''t be a constant stream of ex managers.We are simply now entering the downswing part of our status. In this we are no different to Derby, Forest, 1p5wich etc who all go through the same sort of cycle. We can blame bad decisions and complacency but so can numerous other teams at our status level. Some hang around the top division for several years while others go straight back. There are probably less than a dozen teams who can claim more or less permanent membership in the Premier League while the rest of us simply go round the cycle.When everything is in sync we can hold our own in the top division but its wishful thinking to expect the right decisions to be made every time. When we get it right everything is unky dory but history should show that nobody gets it right 100% of the time. When things have gone tits up it doesn''t take a genius to claim that they could see it coming all along. Hindsight is no sight at all.When we succeed the manager, Board and players are treated like hero''s. When it all falls apart you get a situation like we had at 4.55pm Saturday. There is nothing very strange in the fact that if you look hard enough you can always find someone to blame for it. This may all be new to some people but I''ve seen this happen many times and only the names are different.Ex City players as managers have no better record than non ex City players and no City Owner, Chairman, Board or whatever can claim a totally unblemished record despite what some people like think.

[Jim Smith 2,339]

Over a long period of time Ricardo I might agree but this season is painful because of the feeling (or in my case the belief I have) that we have well and truly shot ourselves in the foot. Im not expecting the board to pull a lambert outbid the hat every time, just to act competently and make vaguely justifiable decisions. There is no credible justification for their appointment of Adams this summer. I can handle the fact we will flit between the prem and the championship ;and possibly even league 1 occasionally) over a period of 10-15 years if I feel we''ve given ourselves the best chance we can each season. We same down in almost uniquely good shape from the prem last year. We had a significant advantage over most other teams in this league but we have wasted it from the off through the Adams appointment. I cannot just shrug my shoulders and accept that as part of the natural cycle. Sometimes the natural cycle can be reversed through good decisions. Sometimes it will be accelerated through bad ones. We have done the latter.

[Highland Canary 76]

It was an egregious error of judgement to appoint a youth team manager insider to a relegated team with the biggest budget in the Championship, and a planning horizon of promotion this season or, if not bust, the wholesale disposal of those players with high realisable values. Unforgivable.

[ricardo 7,400]

[quote user="Highland Canary"]It was an egregious error of judgement to appoint a youth team manager insider to a relegated team with the biggest budget in the Championship, and a planning horizon of promotion this season or, if not bust, the wholesale disposal of those players with high realisable values. Unforgivable.[/quote]This is true, they gambled and it has failed. I remain amazed that they haven''t acted after Saturdays debacle. How they now get the crowd back on side will be interesting to see. Personally I don''t think its possible, things have gone too far.

[ricardo 7,400]

[quote user="Jim Smith"]Over a long period of time Ricardo I might agree but this season is painful because of the feeling (or in my case the belief I have) that we have well and truly shot ourselves in the foot. Im not expecting the board to pull a lambert outbid the hat every time, just to act competently and make vaguely justifiable decisions. There is no credible justification for their appointment of Adams this summer. I can handle the fact we will flit between the prem and the championship ;and possibly even league 1 occasionally) over a period of 10-15 years if I feel we''ve given ourselves the best chance we can each season. We same down in almost uniquely good shape from the prem last year. We had a significant advantage over most other teams in this league but we have wasted it from the off through the Adams appointment. I cannot just shrug my shoulders and accept that as part of the natural cycle. Sometimes the natural cycle can be reversed through good decisions. Sometimes it will be accelerated through bad ones. We have done the latter.[/quote]But it was always thus and its always painful. Its pointless thinking that things could have been different if only we had made a different decision.Being a great advocate of Multiverse Theory, I console myself with the thought that somewhere out there is another me gazing at the League table with us top and Neil Lennon as our manager.And strangely enough I always see myself lying back in a deck chair in a sun drenched tax haven........but then I wake up.[:D]