Brilliant OCF - I was having the same debate with a fellow fan this morning. Quite a few fans I've spoken to since Saturday are all agreed that we need a major clear out of players as well if we are to really progress.
Thought I would pop on and add my tuppence worth, Alex Neil must remain. He was a relatively inexperienced manager with obvious talent. The fact that he had never played in the prem or managed was unfortunate but I think we have seen enough to recognise with this season behind him he will know exactly what is required 1. to get back asap, like next season and 2. to get a team together that can at last make us an established team in the top league. Despite the failings this season I am of the belief that as long as we keep the management team in place and keep the core of the team things will be better in the coming years.
Take your point, Catalan, but (and sorry to bring it up yet again!) what about being happy going into this season with just Bassong, Martin & Bennett as CBs? He said early on that that would be sufficient Naively, week in week out playing people in far from their best positions, Brady at LB [WTF?] Howson wide right, etc. And identifying Naismith as the answer, while letting Afobe slip away unchallenged? He may have learned in spades from this season but the cost to the club of allowing him his learning curve - well, the reward for finishing bottom of the PL next year is circa £100m!
I'm teetering on this point, Continuity with the right manager is a good thing and you can really build. With the wrong manager it is a downward spiral that wastes money and time. Which is AN? Even up to the Sunderland game I was probably still in the AN will only improve and we should keep him. I'm firmly on the fence now though. We look so clueless going forward it is difficult to defend him and our recent form. Granted in a more condensed period, it reminds me of the much maligned Mr Hootun. We played defensively, offered nothing going forward, still shipped soft goals and were demoralisingly dull to watch. Now Hootun has had a good season in the championship, which I believe is his level. Can ALex refind his mojo? Time will tell. But if he were sacked at the end of the season I could not find it either a poor decision or upsetting as since 2nd January we have been pretty abject and he has floundered with the team. Bah!
He had to say that would be sufficient. He had no choice. He could hardly start the PL season predicting doom. Rather more honest assessment from him was that we tried and failed in the transfer market in the summer, which let us down. Given what McNally has done for this club, I think the board must have felt that he was responsible for this season in order to accept his resignation. The bottom line is that recruitment has been an abject failure and it's difficult not to look at our clear efforts to sign Afobe which were not good enough, as well as other CBs we chased. I think it's obvious to me that the ultimate blame for the way we conducted our transfer negotiations does lie with McNally. I personally think he took the right attitude but didn't quite want to risk enough and his bets (e.g. pay over the odds for proven Naismith rather than over the odds for unproven Afobe) ultimately did not come in. He gambled and we lost. It's a shame, because I would have liked to see him stay due to his historical performance. But it's pretty clear that the board consider the responsibility for this season to lie with McNally not Neil, and with hindsight I'd agree.
The advantage of the Championship is that we can test Neil again. We do have time. If he's not up to scratch (by which I mean getting us competing in the top two) after 10-15 matches, then he has to go and we will have enough time to recover.
BRILLIANT posts Canary Rob and very well said. I think the first thing we need to resolve is our scouting network (or lack of it) and move on from there, as very few of our recent signings have been any good!!!! IMO, I'd like to see AN given a chance to show what he and Frankie etc can do to get NCFC out of the mess we're in. If he doesn't deliver by day the beginning of December, then he's out!!! I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I want to go to Carrow Road to be entertained and to be able to hold onto a lead!! It's that too much to ask????
Chris Goreham Retweeted Phil Daley @Phil_Daley Just off the phone with #ncfc Chairman Ed Balls. McNally resignation out of the blue. No succession planning in place for his role.
That statement just about sums up this shambles of a board, supposedly running a multi million pound business and they don't have any succession planning for the key post in the whole set up! Ffs he's been there seven years! It's either a lie or they are bigger tools than I thought they were.
