As well as us looking to pick up enough League points from our yuletide dates, To make Alex Neil´s life slightly less tough There´s plenty more left on our plates Mr. A Bowkett departing his post As chairman of our noble board, Leaves it wide open to find a new host With foresight, who we can applaud No change in ownership though, which to me Is good, in such turbulent times, We need to make sure Premier League it´s to be Before pursuing foreign climes Even if such an option is likely Which frankly I seriously doubt, Foreign owners come with no guarantee Even if they have financial clout Then there´s the small FA cup matter too In round three, Man City at home, Just for once a real mouth-watering do In a jam-packed Delia Dome So often Rotherham or Barnsley away Or even less glamorous than that, Has been our wont on FA round three day So good for once to break that stat. OTBC - INIT
Morning RBF. The ownership of the club has always to me been best summarised by your sign off rhyme and long may it remain so. As for the cup, at least we are not facing an embarressment as e have suffered in recent years, although Man City will no doubt ensure that we concentrate totally on the league after a home defeat. I go back to our debate of last year and wonder if you are still happier with this season compared to last? A moot point possibly!
Speaking as an exile, THURNBY, with no chance of ever seeing them live again, I would always want them to be in the Premier League, along with all which that entails, and competing with, and against the very best. But I do understand that there may be those who preferred riding last season´s wave of triumph to this season´s damp squib. It really all depends on how you approached the season, and what sort of expectations you had with you. I dare say if I still lived in Norwich and paid whatever it is you pay these days for a season ticket, and turned up faithfully every other weekend, then I might think differently, but I don´t think so, because quite honestly I expected us to struggle. For me, ending up 17th will mean that the season has been a success, as it will, if we can repeat the feat for the next two or three years. It takes a long, long time to get a foothold in this division, and even longer to become established here, so it will be a laborious, and tedious journey if we are to become established, but that surely has to be the objective for players and fans alike. Yo-yoing between the PL and the Championship ( if that were to be the case) is all very well, but it would always be a case of one step forward, two steps back, so, no thanks to that. Two or three years of hanging on here, with hopefully then, two or three more years of hanging on more easily, suits me.
Spot on with both the poem and your latest comment RBF. I have also felt that we have a solid club with solid ownership but this season was always going to be a struggle so I'm not panicking yet. Everton will be a big test for both AN and the players.
I'm not sure that I entirely agree, with the right plan, management and investment it is possible to do it fairly quickly. Southampton, Leicester, Swansea have all made rather rapid transitions from promotion to a foothold and possibly established (When are you established? back to back midtable?) The difference in those instances were in Swansea's case structure, in the others I'd say a modicum more ambition. Some of it is certainly luck, for every failed RvW in a hard luck story you may have a Pelle or Michu who excel. But has our board been too small time for too long? Where are the foreign gems that we perhaps should have unearthed in our 4th of 5 PL seasons? I know our squad is significantly better on paper than that promoted under Lambert but after 3 and a bit seasons in the land of milk and honey, might we not have made slightly greater strides to be strnger than we are? Going in to the 3rd season of PL footy after two midtable finishes, I couldn't help thinking we had that foothold but dropped a bottle of fairy liquid under ourselves to take a step back. Bah!
Actually Melchy, I wouldn´t call any of Swansea, Southampton or even Leicester (despite their lofty perch) established Premier League clubs, whereas the three at the bottom, Sunderland, Newcastle and Villa, I would. I suppose it just depends on how you define established. - doesn´t mean they can´t be relegated though, established or not
Look at Leicester's precarious position early this year - and they were where Villa are now and almost 'nailed on' for relegation. IF we can make a couple of decent signings in January and AN doesn't tinker too much with team selection, I still feel we can avoid being in a relegation scrap. Mind you, that could all change if we fail to pick any more points before celebrating the arrival of 2016!!!!!
Absolutely - something we were on the verge of doing too, but unfortunately we slipped off our perch at the wrong time.
I would contend that we did have afoothold but like many clubs we made bad decisions that relinquished that foothold. Holding on to Hughton in the summer was one for me, mid-table we may have finished but the second half of the season was a portant of what was to come. On top of that our recruitment obviously didn't work out even though by our standards we pushed the boat out. A poor PL manager with poor recruitment ended in tears. A lack of investment this summer could be the main reason that we don't get the chance at gaining a foothold. I know that there are claims about players who didn't want to join and other difficulties in recruitment but I think most of us would agree we probably had as bad if not a worse window than everyone else (Maybe with the exception of Villa). So now we have a rough diamond of a manager, who understandably has struggled with the jump in class at PL level, hamstrung to an extent by our inability to recruit well. Unfortunitely footholds can be bought and sold to a large extent, invest heavily with some wisdom (Obviously not like QPR!) and your chances are improved, fail to invest (Us) or sell all your best players (Villa) and barring a miricle working manager (Bloody Sunderland!) and you're toast! Bah!
EXCELLENT summary General and I've a feeling that our league position will hamper our January recruitment - we will see!!!
It can hardly fail to do so Braveheart, but then January is never a great time to recruit anyway, we missed the boat in the summer I´m afraid, in certain respects at least. Neil naturally felt a loyalty to those players who had got us here last season, and rightly so, but perhaps he was a little bit too loath to look too seriously elsewhere until it was almost too late.
I don't disagree about the hanging on in there and slowly imnprove because the Premiership is the ultimate aim for all clubs. The fundamental problem with the league is that outside of the big 8 say, every other smaller club be it Leicester, Swansea, Southampton, Norwich, Watford etc are always susceptable to relegation and can never relax. One poor run like Swansea this year and a seemingly established club is looking in difficulties. Bigger clubs always seem to be able to buy their way out of it, watch Newcastle in January!.
Morning THUIRNBY - the fact that one can never relax at this level certainly doesn´t make it any less enjoyable imo, and yes, you´re right, the ´money clubs´ will always have an advantage over the others when it comes to digging themselves out of a hole, but then all the more fascinating, competing against them, with a relatively small budget, and managing to survive, as nine of the other twelve clubs will have to do.
