Having seen the response of many supporters on this and other social media platforms to the Oxford game and events since, I thought I’d post my views on the coming season and beyond. I feel that many fans either deliberately, sub-consciously, or through a lack of understanding have failed to appreciate how significantly leadership changes at the club are going to impact the team and fan experience over this season and beyond.
I think the 3 most significant changes are
Club Ownership – With Delia no longer in control of the club, the gap between the clubs owners and fan base is going to get wider. Decisions are no longer being made by a fan of the club. The vocal Delia out, foreign investment in fans, have got what they wanted. Mark Attanasio is now at the helm and he is not going to throw loads of money at the club. He’s already taken a hit with parachute payments coming to an end and buying Delia out. Everything we’ve seen suggests, that whilst a lot of his values about how a club should be run are similar to Delia’s, he will not be making decisions as a fan, but as an investor, who takes a long term approach. He won’t be focused anywhere near as much as Delia was on results on a game by game basis. He’ll be looking for steady improvement over time.
Sacking of Wagner / Appointment of Johannes Thorup – Why sack a manager who has achieved promotion to the PL in the past and despite inconsistent results and particularly poor luck in terms of injuries, still manages to get the team to the play offs ? Only to replace him with a young coach who has no experience of English football let alone the championship, but has a reputation of developing young players. For me the answer is clear forget any serious promotion challenge in the short term.
Team / Squad changes – The view the club seems to have taken from our recent yoyoing experience is that it’s not enough to go up, you need to go up playing a certain style of football if you want to stay in the PL. Whether or not this is the case, is arguable, but that is clearly the clubs current view. How long will this experiment take ? We don’t know, but unless we get extremely lucky it’s not something that’s going to be quick. Looking at the age of our recent signings and that most seem to be for 4 years, should give you a clear idea what the clubs view is.
Many fans appear to want to fool themselves into thinking that these changes along with the appointment Ben Knapper meant the end of Stuart Webber's influence over the club and a greater focus on youth. Both of which in my view are nonsense.
Stuart Webber – Again not a fan of the club, but a professional looking to use his time at Norwich as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. If anything where the club is now, is in my view much nearer to Webber’s ideal approach, than it ever was with Delia at the helm. A significant part of Webber’s DNA is infinite game theory, made popular by Simon Sinek in his 2019 book, which was based on an earlier book by James P Carse, called “finite and infinite games” about leadership & business. Something worth reading if your interest in what makes Webber tick. Webber had a massive positive impact on the club whilst he was here. I suspect that what Webber wanted to do at the club was to a certain extent constrained by Delia being a fan. Webber was instrumental in bring in Mark Attanasio because he fitted in with Delia’s / the clubs values and because of how he operates as a business man, which in terms of sports teams, seems to be steady consistent growth over time. Could Webber’s introduction of Attanasio to the club be the best thing Webber did ? We’ll have to wait and see, but I don’t doubt that many fans expectations in terms of match day experience are going to be much further down the list of priorities than they have been in the past.
Young players – The idea that there has been some sort of fundamental change in terms of the club developing youth players is nonsense. Certainly since Webber arrived there has been a very strong club focus on young developing players and we have done very well over time. Under Attanasio / Napper / Thorup I don’t think there is any doubt this will continue. The main difference I can see is a bigger part of player development will be with the first team, rather than the youth system / players going out on loan. Whether this is best for the players concerned is very debatable. What It does mean there will be less reliance on experienced players, which means it will be cheaper and results be much more variable. Yes, player / team development may speed up over time, but in the short term the cost will be performances and results. Any fans whose sole focus is whether or not we win a football game, can expect a lot of heart ache over the next few seasons.
Whether or not the clubs current intended route to becoming an established PL team is the best option, is a pointless discussion, at this time, as the club have clearly decided the route they intend to take. I think a major concern is whether we have enough fans who have sufficient patience and understanding of how the clubs current approach will impact on their game experience going forward, to give the Thorup and the team the kind of support that will make a positive outcome more likely. My main fear is that we have too many people that think that buying a ticket, shirt etc is the only thing required to make you a supporter of a football club.
