Really pleased with this, because I think its a terrible move. Dyche has got Burnley out of the championship twice, and has very much built a squad to suit him. Seems like a desperate attempt to roll the dice and hope for a "new manager bounce" that keeps them up. 10/24 of their squad are out of contract this summer, with a further 7 entering a final year. Average squad age of 30. And owners who gutted the support staff of most senior figures from the previous, successful regime, and have made flashy signings rather than attempting any kind of squad rejuvenation.
Cornet and Weghorst? Not sure why you'd consider those two to be "flashy signings". And surely a 29 year-old (Weghorst) replacing a 34 year-old (Wood), and signing a 25-year-old (Cornet), are moves in the direction of "rejuvenation"?
Fulham promoted from the Championship, their third promotion in 5 seasons as they yo-yo again. Funny how they don't seem to get the same criticism as Norwich each time.
That’s probably because Fulham “take it seriously” by “spending properly” (and racking up potentially unsustainable debts, with no clear difference between us and Fulham in terms of ultimate results…)
Burnley strongly implying that there is a better time to change your manager that’s 25% of the way into the season…
Ha - no… the timing there was about three/four matches too late. And totally the wrong appointment as manager if you’re going for a new manager bounce. Good god that was a bad decision, there is no way we should have been relegated that year. I think we would have scraped by with Hughton in charge. Still, no point crying about it now.
Review of this season’s new players: Gunn - permanent this season. Few chances this season so hard to judge Gibson - permanent after loan period ended. Probably as good as we expected Giannoulis - permanent after loan period. Second fiddle to Williams but more in favour recently (Williams injured?) Williams - loan from Man Utd. Has played well most of this season. Return to Man Utd once we are relegated? Kabak- loan with possible permanent from German club. Not a regular starter and now injured and back at loan club. Unlikely to be permanent Gilmour - loan from Chelsea. Mixed reactions from fans who tended to feel he is a liability. Will return to loan club after relegation. Lees-Melou - permanent start of season. Has played regularly all season and seems to be 100% committed. Normann - loan with possible permanent from Russian club. Played most of the season, but seems to have gone off the boil in recent weeks. Unlikely to be permanent? Rachica - permanent at start of season. Probably the best of the newcomers having played most games this season. Tzolis - permanent at start of the season. Started of well, but went into decline once a few EPL matches had been played. Possibly out of his depth in EPL Sargent - permanent at start of season. Has been in and out of starting team most of the season. Four goals this season but has missed as many, if not more chances including an open goal against Brighton. So which players have left their mark on this season? Some will argue against my selection: Gibson, Williams, Lees-Melou, Normann and Rachica.
To be unusually brief, the absence of any of those players from a teamsheet does not make me think "ooh going to be extra tough this week", in a way I would if Pukki or Hanley were missing. The only other players who come close are Aarons, Krul and then Rashica. Pretty damning that not one new signing is clearly a step above what we already had. PLM, Gibson, Williams, Normann have all shown the occasional flash of quality, but none look like bona fide Premier League players.
Have people seen the front page of the Norwich Evening News? Seems I wasn't being quite fair when I accused the local press of being pusillanimous.
I wonder if we persevered with Tzolis giving him the same amount of game time and chances as Sargent, might he have found his feet in the team? Same goes for Sorenson.
I've wondered the same. Tzolis genuinely starred in the cup game against Bournemouth, but then there was the penalty incident and Farke put him on the naughty step and things never recovered from there. Smith came in and probably felt he didn't have the time, or couldn't take the risk, of trying to develop him. I suspect we chose to prioritise Sargent because of what went wrong in 19/20 and the subsequent feeling that could no longer play possession football in a 4-2-3-1 in the PL, so Sargent's ability to run and press and hassle became more important than Tzolis's raw ability on the ball. Perhaps another wrong decision in a season where almost every single decision has been wrong???
Tzolis is two years younger than Sargent, who has far more top level experience in the Bundesliga. He is also very much a left winger and thus competing against Rashica for playing time. Against a Bournemouth second team he scored two good breakaway goals, but Sargent also scored twice in that game. It's revealing that Christos has been dropped to the Greek U21 team for some time which may indicate that he's not living up to the early wunderkind hype he received a year ago. My hope is that the Championship season will allow greater scope for the development of all our younger players, including Rowe as well. This is their chance to really step up.
