Buendia wanted to leave the year before but agreed to stay for one more year on the condition that he could then leave. There was no way to keep him and we did get very good money for him. I agree about the other players except for Sargent, who did put in a decent effort on both sides of the ball. For me, the critical error was not adding a quality DM, but I don't know if that was down to Webber or Farke. The £24m on Rashica, Lees-Melou and Tzolis could have been spent better, but I still don't think it would be enough to make a difference.
What makes you think it was "down to" either of them? Skipp was the target. We don't know who the short-listed alternatives were, but we do know that Normann had been tracked for some time so he may have been one of them. As time passed, if you remember, we started to hear Farke playing down the need for a dedicated DM and plugging his idea of a role-swapping midfield three. That suggests a dawning realisation of the gulf between what we wanted and what we could get.
If Normann was tracked as a possible DM, something was very wrong with our recruitment. His performances for us showed that he was totally unsuited for that role.
There was never any possibility of Skipp being loaned for a second season with us & certainly not signing him permanently. For some odd reason Webber refuses to sign a DM or CB just tons of wingers
The responsibility was down to Webber and to a lesser extent Farke. The previous PL season we had the Amadou debacle, and last season Webber plumped for Normann who arrived injured and wasn't really fit until after the critical damage had been done. He fitted Farke's shared responsibility tactic, but he also showed that tactic to be flawed as we were ground down in game after game. This season he plumped for Hayden as DM early on, but like Norman, Isaac was injured before he arrived. When he regained fitness, he played only a handful of games before being injured again (also like Norman). To date he has started 9 of our 44 games. His injury record at Newcastle was well known, but Webber took the gamble anyway. Recruiting players is Webber's responsibility, and too often he has failed to deliver. Excuses don't cut it.
I'd give people's views that Farke, Webber, the clubs recruitment was poor and they'd got it very wrong if those people had expressed that view at the time of signing , rather than with the benefit of hindsight
Fair enough, I can remember posting something at the time which praised Webber for getting the best he could in that infamous summer recruitment, a post which would probably embarrass me if I found it and read it now. Like almost everyone else, I got it very wrong. But it doesn't follow that because we didn't express criticism at the time, we have no right to criticise now, nor try to analyse why it was such a disaster in hindsight. I certainly hope the club have done that to try to prevent a repeat.
When players are signed we're all hopeful they will live up to their compilation videos, but they seldom do. Pukki and Buendia arrived under the radar and many were underwhelmed. Teemu was rubbished by Celtic fans and journos for his time up there years before and Buendia was a big unknown, but the underwelming didn't last long. Last season Webber had money available and needed to make it count. Rashica was a big money signing with flashy compilation videos showing him beating defenders and scoring at will. He did little of either for us. Tzolis was a wonder kid who would secure our future and came with a similar flashy compilation video. The loans also arrived with loads of hype that was never lived up to. Sargent was the exception, arriving with a low scoring rate and meager reputation for the money shelled out but with potential to develop as backup to Pukki. He was the only one who really worked hard for the team and his potential is now our best hope for next season, but one partial success is not much to show for the money we threw around. Last summer Sara was the only big money signing and he has now shown his worth and commitment after a slow start. Núñez arrived with the money recycled from Lees-Melou's departure. Hopefully this shows Webber getting back to under the radar signings focusing on actual analysis and character rather than hype and hopeful compilation videos. The test will come this summer as Webber unpicks the squad his group created and tries to give Wagner the players he needs to succeed.
Wrong, and wrong again. This is not how the recruitment process works, as has been explained on numerous occasions by numerous people including Webber himself and all three head coaches he has appointed. Webber does not "plump" for any player; his role is to pursue the signatures of agreed targets. The chief contributors to the process of agreeing the actual targets are (1) the head coach, who decides what type of player is needed (position, role in the team, necessary attributes, etc.) and (2) the head of recruitment (chief analyst working with and overseeing the club scouting network etc.). There will also be input at various points from the club's medical and fitness staff. This entire process takes place within parameters set by the board (finance being the most obvious one) and yes, Webber co-ordinates all these elements in the process. But the idea that he unilaterally decides who, in the end, we sign is, quite honestly, ludicrous, and nobody has ever produced any shred of evidence indicating that Webber on any occasion has over-ridden any process-agreed decision. So what does "Webber plumped for x" actually mean?
It can be true both that the signings we made in the summer of 2020 were "the best we could get" at the time and yet they proved "a disaster in hindsight". But the idea that Webber was somehow uniquely responsible for "the disaster" is simply untrue. There is plenty of evidence that we went into the summer with different priorities (which included e.g. securing Skipp for a further year). But, in the words of Rabbie Burns, "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley.” Analysis of why those original priorities ended up unrealised, and how their doing so led to us making the signings we did, is obviously justified, but knee-jerk laying it all at Webber's door isn't an attempt at serious analysis at all.
And that is the reason that you won't find me slamming any of those signings, I for one was excited about all of them , unfortunately they largely failed but there are no guarantees that a new signing will be a success. Rashica - I was so excited about his signing having followed him for a few years, I am still not sure why we rarely saw him used on the right hand side or up front with someone like Sargent. I can't believe how poor his goal and assist stats were. Tzolis - A very exciting signing for the future as a football manager player I had been aware of him. Didn't expect much last season though as it was made clear he was one for the future. I would however question such a big outlay at the time. Sargent - I had fairly low expectations because of his goal scoring rate but he was renowned for his pressing so I could recognise the value there. I think his confidence hit the floor with the Brighton miss, but he was never played in his best position. Gunn - Great signing and our goalkeeper for years to come in my opinion Lees-Melou - I'd never heard of him but bringing in the Vice Captain from a Champions/Europa League team seemed like quite a coup and would add much needed high level experience and leadership. Also appeared to be able to score from range. Gilmour - High profile signing on loan, that many were amazed we managed to secure. Although I wasn't sure of him when he signed I got caught up in the hype. Kabak - Had a decent pedigree for a young CB, having had a pretty successful loan at Liverpool no less whilst they had defensive injuries. This seemed like another coup. Williams - I was never a fan of this signing as I felt we had good enough left backs at the club already. I also didn't like the fact that he was a right footer playing LB. However, I believe he was probably one of the most successful signings, mainly for his passion. Normann - I knew nothing about this signing but was excited by what appeared to be a strong and dynamic DM option. We had a few good early games from him after his first injury but that appeared to really hamper him for the rest of the season and I believe we never truly saw what he was capable of.
Of course there is a wider process involved, but Webber is the one responsible for that process and picks the people carrying it out, who are now different from those who identified Pukki and Buendia. The buck stops with Webber, whose outcomes and those of his team, have produced many more failures than successes. Farke and Smith were sacked because their teams' results weren't good enough. The same criteria should apply to Webber and his team and a judgement made about when the results haven't been good enough. I'm not saying that time is now, but it's getting near.
So if everything is agreed in this cosy little way that you suggest, why did Michael Bailey say that Farke wanted just three key players in key positions but got none of what he wanted? Please forgive my presumption here, but I would suspect that MB knows somewhat more than you do about Norwich City football club.
The question of whether Webber's performance as Sporting Director is good enough or not is a matter for the Board of Directors. A lot is made of the fact that Zoe Ward is a Director; but she is one of six, and no one can tell me that the other five, Delia Smith, Michael Wynn-Jones, Tom Smith, Michael Foulger, Mark Attanasio, are incapable of reaching their own decision on Webber. I've absolutely no doubt that such an assessment is carried out every single year, and if the Board felt it necessary, between annual assesments too. Before I accept your claim that Webber's recruitment team(s) have "produced many more failures than successes", I'd like to see that documented, together with the criteria for success and failure. Was Moritz Leitner a success or a failure? He played a crucial role in one Championship-winning season but ended the next season "surplus to requirements". And does the calculation of success or failure apply beyond the first team squad, given that our recruitment has a much broader remit than simply securing players for the league side? I'd also like to know how our recruitment stacks up against that of other clubs operating within broadly the same parameters. Have you any idea of where we stand in the table of recruitment success and failure among such clubs? What I think is needed is far greater realism about the constraints under which Webber has to operate, the most obvious of which is the financial straight-jacket of the self-funding model. Money may not guarantee success, but lack of it makes success much harder to achieve. Take our recruitment in the summer of 2020. In an attempt to avoid finishing back in the Championship, the club spent more than ever before, a huge sum by NCFC standards. To no avail. But before criticising the recruitment, people need to acknowledge the factors hampering the process. The fact is that we could not get the players we wanted, Skipp, Ajer, Billing among them. Why did we fail to secure the signatures of those players? Or similarly proven players of like quality? Not because we didn't try, we did try; and not because we weren't looking in the right places, we were. A knowledgeable and experienced contributor to the PinkUn forum posted recently that a Premier League club wanting to strengthen its team has a pool of no more than 100 players from whom to pick. Given that competition for their signatures involves, not just the EPL, but all the top European leagues and further afield, what chance do we have of attracting them to Carrow Road? Can we compete on transfer fees? No! Can we compete on wages? No! Can we compete on expectation of top-level football? No! We have to fish in different pools and for a different sort of catch (Sara and Núñez the latest examples). The big question for me, which I've posed several times and to which I'm still waiting to get any sort of answer, is why we went into that summer of 2020 with a new objective as a club -- to be Top 17 rather than just Top 26. That can only have been a decision of the Board. It had massive implications and carried substantial risk. Why did they make it?
Nothing you say encourages me to change what I've said, Robbie. You can go on and on if you like, but I'll wait to see what happens in the summer. I hope Webber and his team succeed, but I'm not at all convinced they will.
Yes, but what does "the final say" mean in the context? If you think it means that Webber sees himself as qualified to sign players that the Head Coach doesn't want and hasn't agreed to, then I'm sorry, I think you're wrong. What it means is that Webber has the final say on grounds e.g. of affordability. So he might have to say "We can't afford player X" where player X is the agreed No.1 target. We can speculate that something like that happened in the case of Ajer, for example. Or more recently Kone, who reportedly made financial demands that Webber refused to accede to.
It's not that he would sign players that he wants in spite of a coaches wishes, but that he most certainly discusses with the coach and recruiting team which individual players we should go for. SW is not a rubber stamp. He was head scout or something earlier in his career and, I'm sure, is very much involved in deciding who to bring in. I could make a better case against SW than for him, but I don't want to. I prefer to let the club (board) make their decisions without a lot of noise. If he stays, great. If he goes, hopefully that will have been the right decision. Wagner is here because of Webber. I want to keep DW for awhile.
Nothing there I disagree with CS. It's a question of how the Board and Webber choose to operate the D of F/Head Coach structure. On the continent, where clubs routinely change their coaches and 1 year contracts are quite common, the role is interpreted differently. Watford's owners, the Pozzi's, operate like that. Of course Webber is involved in recruitment discussions; "agreed targets" means exactly that. If he wasn't involved he would not be doing his job. But saying, as Rick did, that Webber "plumped for" this signing or that signing has a quite different implication.
