I know I might be at risk of getting flamed for this but bare with me...... The question has come about after a remark on another thread saying something along the lines of...............young and hungry players will only take us so far. I gave this some thought and believe that statement is totally spot on. Sure, we have a group of talented young players (mostly young at any rate) and some seem to have adapted better to Premier League life better than others but although we could possibly survive this first season back in the 'big time' what about the following season or two? Let's assume we finish 17th this season - an amazing success story when you take in to account where we were 2 years ago but will that be acceptable the season after? Will the club want to be merely a survivor or do they want more? If they want more then something will probably have to change and that something is likely to be the players. Paul Lambert, as we all know, has in his mind exactly the type of player he wants - young and hungry and little or no ego problems. That has served us well up to this point but if he needs to start bringing in older and more experienced players, probably with higher wage demands and possible larger ego's than we currently have - will Paul Lambert be the right man to continue the job? I am not saying we need to look for or even thinking about another manager but am curious if people think PL could continue with his recent success if he had to break the mold he created and change his philosophy in the transfer market.
personally i don't see why we can't continue to grow in the same vein as we currently are using the same template. i think its nonsense that we will ever need players on massive wages and big reputations to have success at this level. we cannot compete for honours at the top, its impossible in this day and age but we can mix it as newcastle are showing, and they have followed a similar path to ourselves. we could challenge for cup competitions. sorry thai, i think its a bit of a daft question to ask. whoever initially suggested it doesn't understand lambert or our club. lambert is probably the best manager this club has ever had and to suggest that one day his philosophy might not work for us makes no sense whatsoever to me. no need to change anything at all
Not true. I suspect you are confusing players from the lower leagues with young and hungry players with lower leagues/less expensive players. I don't see people saying players like Jack Wilshere/Rodwell aren't young and hungry, but they are definatley good enough to play for top 4 teams. David Silva, arguably the best player in the league is certainly a team player. So is Paul Lambert the right man for the job long term? Yes.
Survival is everything this year. Get the ship on an even keel before putting up all the sails. I am sure that given funds (which he surely will be should we survive) Paul Lambert is VERY capable of fitting together a team to push on. Whether they are players we have heard of or not, Hunger is still important. Do you think Fergie would ever sign a player he thought would go to United and sit in the comfort zone? PL will sign players with the right personality, ability & attitude to push us on. Whether they come from Colchester United or Real Madrid doesn't matter.
Excellent article, I had started writing something similar myself but gave up through concern of being shot down. My thoughts were something along the lines of... if we are an established premier league team in 3 seasons time, comfortably mid table, the "chip on the shoulder" attitude which has seen us do so well will be gone. Players won't have so much of a point to prove, they'll be content and happy, and although PL is clearly an excellent motivator, there's only so much he can do with the type of squad we've got. I love the squad at the moment, but are they a squad capable of maintaining a mid-table premier league place? Possibly not. "Youngry" (love that phrase) players are a commodity, and to get them with the technical ability to maintain us will be very very expensive. Just look at the likes of CWick, he's young, hungry, and obviously a very talented footballer, he cost Sunderland £8m! We can't afford that, and it's very unlikely that we will ever be able to spend that sort of money on a single player for a long time. That having been said, I have absolute total faith in PL, he's still a young manager and has done the job set out for him with confidence and relative ease. He hasn't had the chance to demonstrate that he can build a squad capable of maintaining a Premier League place in the long term, but when that is his challenge, I think he'll nail it. Hope that lot makes sense? I'm a happy Canary anyway! OTBC PC
The thing you seem to have overlooked is that our young, hungry players from the lower leagues will, next year, be players with some premier league experience, we wouldn't need to buy them, they are ours already, and they are learning and improving all the time
I think that Lambert is the right man for the job long term but ultimately think he will leave for a job at a bigger club such as Villa/ Everton/ Spurs. The long term plan would be to survive this season and next enabling the club to build a ground big enough to compete with the middling teams in this league and to wipe out the debts. Lambert has shown an ability to improve the team each transfer window and I can certainly see that continuing with replacements for the likes of Barnett, Bennett and Ruddy enabling the team to survive more comfortably. Ultimately though Norwich have to buy players that have the potential to improve over the course of their contracts. The Sunderland and QPR models are not sustainable in the long term and would lead to problems with relegation. Hopefully by the end of the second year we should be at a stage where we can begin to have a better quality of up and coming player to push us on.
Well said Dave, and what was that famous/infamous quote from a few years ago?.......... something along the lines of "You'll never win anything with kids"
Perhaps the wrong question to ask regarding this issue. These great premiership players had to start somewhere. They must have been young an hungry. I'm not talking about Rooney and others like him. But players like Henderson , Barton and Adam. The last two don't quite fit the young category any more but it's about development. It's easier for the young to develop and they are hungry to play and willing to learn and improve. Look at Bale. A youngster at southampton and is now one of the premierships best players.
ok, lets take the word 'hungry' out of the equation. PL has always bought youngsters (I can not recall anyone over 24 that he has bought?). Yes, Man Utd won the league with youngsters following Alan Hansen's famous negative statement about the possibility of it ever happening but I think that was very much a one off
Why would we not be able to afford 8m? IF in 3 years time we are comfortable mid table side then we wil be in a similar position finacially to Sunderland. As far as I am aware, there is no 'mega-rich' sugar daddy at the Stadium of light (I might be wrong????). Remeber, we would have and extra 2 or 3 payments of 45m in the bank.....
The thing is, it is not just Lambert, it is McGnarly too. I honestly think that if the ambition of the club ever got beyond Lambert's ability then McGnarly would sack him, right away without a thought of sentimentality. VERY unlikely, as I think Lambert actually has the ability to go further than it is possible for the club to go and so much more likely to eventually end the other way.
Can not believe someone is questioning Lambert you guys have been a credit to the Premier League this year and will be around about 14th, which is a creditable 1st year back in the Premier League.
If we survive it will do the players confidence the world of good, we can only improve but to compete I think Lambert might have to get out the cheque book and buy the odd luxury player, it won't go against his philosophy too much as we'll still have a lot of young hard working players who'll be in the squad, but at times you need that bit of quality. As club if we establish ourselves I think the squad will improve, this squad hasn't been together for years with the exception of Holt, Hoolahan, Crofts, and Russell Martin, once they are familiar and work on things it can only get better. E.g. A lot of Barcelona first team came from their youth system most of them have been playing in the same squads since they were teens.
First post after defecting from Snakepit so be gentle with me. Watching yesterdays game on the internet, I kept phoning my son with updates. When we went 1-3 down I said I thought we had been outclassed for a 20 minute spell (two games running now that Naughton has been given the runaround). He gave the simplest and most natural reply which was what do you expect. They had Agbonlahor, Heskey and Bent up front. Tasty indeed. They brought on Jenas and Ireland. Not to foul. Next season, our lads will be a season wiser of what you can and can't do in this league. Lesson one is of course, don't make too many mistakes. I don't think PL will allow them to be complacent and sure as sucking eggs, he will have replaced up to half of them with more hungry young players, although the cost will have gone up for a seasoned Prem club. So in answer to the original thread, which really had two parts, yes, young and hungry is better than old and complacent and Paul Lambert is just the man to repeat it time after time.
It is not so much questioning the man and his ability to get the best out of our players - we know he is more than capable of that, more do we think he can change the philosophy if he needs to.
The mind boggles at how anyone can begin to doubt, either Paul Lambert´s merits as manager (short, medium or long term) or the merit´s of his squad. We ought to be bloody delighted that he, and his squad have got us where we are today, and if they should manage to keep us here beyond this season, we should regard it as just one more miracle, in the long line of miracles they´ve already performed. Rome wasn´t built in a day, this is our first season back in the top flight, the way that he has strengthened the squad was the only way he could possibly do so. Relax, and enjoy more of the entertainment they have so far provided.
Where has it said that there is any doubt? The question was do fans believe if we need to adopt a different philosophy, can we? That is not doubting anything as far as I can see, just gauging how people see PL based on what we have seen in 2 years & 3 months
PL has been excellent, and I am 100% confident that he will continue the excellent work he's done so far. Think the thread was just questioning whether or not our current squad/transfer policy is sustainable in the long term! Perhaps the thread title is a bit misleading? OTBC!
