Nobody said we had a divine right to win Munky, but from the outset Paul Lambert seemed to be dismissing this game as 'unimportant' and that is sad. Sorry if I 'do your head in' mate
All the games against the top 6 are bonus games, and so any points picked up are a great achievement. To finish 8th in this league would indeed be monumental. Answer me this though, would you prefer a day out at Wembley with a league finish of around 12th-14th or an 8th place finish and to go out like we did yesterday? Look, I'm more pissed off with the players than Lambert as they only woke up and realised they were in with a chance of the Quarter finals when it was too late. If we had of started strongly, we could of beaten Leicester as easily as we beat Burnley. Leicester were ok, but they were very beatable even without the players we rested.
And in 1986 I ran around the Carrow Road pitch as mascot before the final game of the season against Leeds with that same Dave Watson who was holding aloft the Division 2 Championship and had my first season ticket in 1981 so if that 'dig' was at me you're wide of the mark I'm afraid I also hold the 1992 semi against Sunderland as the worst experience I've ever had at a game and was devastated for a week afterwards. Absolutely gutted I was, but exactly as yesterday we lost that game because we played ****e and our opposition played better on the day which - believe it or not - tends to happens sometimes in football. Thought you'd be used to it by now after almost half a century following the Canaries
I disagree with this entirely... I've just started a thread on it, but after progressing so far in the cup, I thought the players who got us that far like Steer deserved to play, but Lambert couldn't have put out a much stronger team!
The only way we will go down this season is if we lose all our remaining games and the bottom half pick up results they haven't been doing all season. We may not be mathematically safe, but by christ we are safe!
Didn't spot the 'cliches', perhaps you could enlighten me. Yes, we did nearly go bankrupt as you say but that's not an issue now. And BTW, I called you an 'Arse' because I was in no way inferring that PL should go and well you know it !
I can honestly say, hand on heart, I'd rather finish 8th It is that important to the development of this football club that we do. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a dynasty in this county with a football team that is genuinely unique and worthy of more. There will be other opportunities to do well in cups. A poor finish this season may bleed through to the next. Look at how the good finish in league one bled through to a great finish in the champ and then the same with our entrance to the premier league. There will be other chances, this is a marathon not a sprint
not at all. the strongest finish we can muster is the priority, and that shouldn't mean sacrificng the cup, but when it never was the priority. Not in our first season back up.
I just think this whole debate is incredibly disrespectful to Leicester who outplayed us on the day and deserved to win. And all this hypothesising about trading a top ten place finish for a day out at Wembley is ridiculous as well, we take each game as it comes, try to win each and every one and take it on the chin and come back stronger when we don't
I know we will come back stronger next week, even if we lose. I just want my team to do the very best they can in every game. Honestly, I think there are a couple of players yesterday that can't say they did that.
This one has certainly split opinion down the middle and I do agree with elements of both sides. Now I have had 24 hours to dwell on it and watched the draw that would have had us travel to either Chelski or Birmingham I am more calm on the matter at hand. However, I think that some of you are being naive to think it was all down to the players. Yes they are the ones that go over the white line and have to do the business. Yes they are responsible for making or breaking the game... BUT as I have mentioned in previous posts it sort of felt that they were just selected as the best XI who deserved the chance to go and win the game. That I have no issue with - my issue was with the preparation! Like Carra said, all week the rhetoric coming from PL was about the Manure game. What homework did they do on Leicester? Did they bother? Week in week out we are told how training gears towards formulating a game plan to beat the opposition. That was clearly lacking yesterday. There was no plan B which was disappointing as it was obvious it needed changing - Every team has bad games, of course they do and I accept that was one yesterday but a lot of the players lacked self-belief and when they looked over to the bench PL was sitting down the entire second half. That isn't what they or we are used to seeing! Nobody is perfect in any walk of life - that includes managers. Even SAF makes mistakes - the thing is he doesn't make many and you know damn well he learns by them. I think PL made a mistake yesterday. That is all. It isn't the end of the world, and like everybody else on here that doesn't mean I am calling for his head - God no - In fact he is the Messiah and as such I place total and utter faith in him and respect everything he does because I believe he does it for the good the football club. Hopefully if we are ever in that position again PL will view the cup differently. Who knows? I just hope and pray he is with us long term so we get the chance to find out as it is under his stewardship that we will undoubtedly have the best chance. The fact is it is gone now. It hurts like hell as I, like some of the posters on here, would rather have a trip to Wembley rather than finishing 8th in the Premiership. I bet if someone asked you who won the FACup in any given year you would have a lot better chance of answering it correctly than saying who finished 8th in the top division!
Kickitoff, I agree with you entirely. All I hear is "we've got a massive game next sunday". Well, yes correct we do, but, we had more chance of beating Leicester yesterday than winning the "massive game next sunday"! I just can't believe the way we played or the attitude to the supporters, I feel insulted. On the way to the ground there was hundreds of small kids with their mums and dads, probably the only time this season that they would get to watch their hero's, I can't imagine how they felt after watching that!!! I will be at the "massive game", as I've been at nearly all games this season, so no 'fairweather supporter' jibes please! I don't expect us to win as I did yesterday, but I expect a 100% better performance, and I don't expect Morison to be selected. ILD OTBC
The players will run themselves into the ground against ManU. Whether any of us like it or not it IS different
If those players yesterday treated the game any differently from a league game, then we may as well not bother about thinking about a cup run with the current crop of players. I don't think for one minute any of those players didn't put the effort in because it wasn't a league game. However, I do think a couple of them couldn't of given a rats arse whoever we played yesterday.
Then so is this. I was merely saying that if they treated the game differently as you said they did, something is wrong. Then I said, I don't think they did treat it differently.
examples ofcliches - Todays society being more interested in money, footballers are athletes and should be able to manage with a weeks rest, "Don't give me the 'to give young Jed first team experience crap'", "it had better be a 'blood and guts' performance", "One final point, it has been well documented that Paul Lambert has styled himself on a certain Mr Martin O'Neill.", etc. As for nearly going bankrupt not being the issue... http://norwichcity.myfootballwriter...-timely-salute-to-messrs-bowkett-and-mcnally/ "The part of the AGM in which chief executive David McNally took over the Power-Point was when the reason for the crisis was spelled out. Relegation to League One had slashed payments from the Football League (TV money, central sponsorship and so on) by three-quarters and hit every revenue stream except Delia’s Canary Catering. Our team had gone down and so had .income from tickets, sponsorship and commercial activities. Bowkett said this week: “We couldn’t afford to pay our interest and we couldn’t afford to pay the amortisation owing on the loans on time.” So Bowkett went to the banks and persuaded them to suspend temporarily the repayments of both interest and capital. And for his next trick he got them to put the final repayment date back by four years. If you believe Bowkett’s negotiations were straight-forward, try telling your mortgage lender that you intend to stop repayments. Oh, and try it at a time when banks are under pressure to call in bad debts and not to take risks. I am guessing that he told the banks the truth: that if they demanded their money on time then the club would be forced into administration. In that scenario, the banks would get a few coppers for every pound owed. Or Bowkett might merely have explained the details of the new board’s strategy and persuaded the bankers to back it. Whatever he said, it worked." Administration would meant a 10 point deduction, which would have put us level on points with Millwall - assuming that the loss had not hit team moral and the results had been the same. Yeah there is £40million for being in the Premiership, but a lot of that was spoken for due to the previous debts. And no doubt the 'success' of this season as helped negotiating further with the creditors that has allowed us to spend another £5million strengthening the squad. Lambert and the board have a 7 year plan - which they are ahead of. If that turns out to be the equivilent of the 5 year plan that Everton had ten years ago then you can rant all you like, and I shall probably join you - after all I was at Wembley too (not that it can compare to Terry Butcher's missed header and Bruce's goal, with accompanying unbounded joy and hugging more akin to Italy than reticent Norfolk) so I know what it is like to watch the club I love win a trophy (even if a few weeks later 1p5wich got their own back - the only bit of passion shown that day was Asa Hartford having a run in with the local constabulary when he got sent off - and shortly afterwards we got relegated in dubious circumstances). Besides last year we were knocked out by Orient, in another pretty toothless display, so at least we are making progress. btw - you called me an arse because this is the interwebz...so meh...
