2022-23 Season

"Norwich City were winners of the 'Best Club Marketing Initiative' at the Football Business Awards on Friday, May 26.
The award win was due to the club's commitment to raising awareness of mental health through various campaigns."

 

Haven't seen much (any?) discussion on here about Narcís Pèlach, ex Girona and Huddersfield (Corboran, not Wagner), joining the first team coaching staff. I've seen him described elsewhere as a specialist in positional play. If that's right, I'd say it makes a lot of sense.

 

I thought it was interesting that he's been interviewing for head coach/manager roles, at Blackpool for example. I wonder if there's an element of planning for the future there.

Only thing I could find on positional play is this:


A Spanish speaking coach could be handy if recruitment from South America is likely to continue.

 

Courtesy of Google:

"Positional Play is a style of play where the football pitch is divided into zones and each player is assigned to a zone. Each zone has a different role which means that each player has a different task to execute. If a player moves into another zone, a teammate has to take his place, which is what we call rotations. The goal of Juego de Posición is that the zones and the tasks within them can be occupied and used by different players. Styles of play in football are like languages, and positional play, more than any other style of play, must be spoken in the same way by every player on the pitch."

If this is the new direction, the key will lie in whether we can get all of our players on the same wavelength and speaking the same language all of the time. Presumably Barnes was recruited to fit into this style, having been coached by Company at Burnley, who was coached for years by Guardiola at ManCity, the master of positional play. It's a big ask to make this shift in a single pre-season, but it should be interesting to see how it goes.

 

Not really setting "a new direction", more a question of improving an aspect of our play which we aren't currently very good at (comparable to bringing in e.g. a set piece coach).

 

Fair enough, but it's far more than set piece organisation. In positional play, players have to take on the role of the player they're replacing. A player like Stiepermann blossomed when he moved up behind the striker because he knew when to move forward or sideways to create space for players behind him while also taking on the role of the player he replaced and freed to move elsewhere. That's going to be new to many of our younger players and how they respond will be crucial.

That's partly why older players like Barnes and presumably Duffy too are being brought in to provide experience and encourage confidence in the younger players.The tactics Wagner has introduced have been a first step towards positional play (eg. McLean dropping into the back line to allow the FBs to move forward), but this will be an even bigger step for all concerned.

 

Article on BBC website re the revenue across European Football market

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65901519

This is what it says about Championship

Championship clubs net debt 'significant'

The Championship, League One and League Two's combined revenue was more than £1bn in the 2021-22 season.

England's second tier had an 13% increase in revenue to £676m, League One's rose by 71% to £220m, while there was a 32% rise to £124m in League Two.

Despite wage costs falling for a second consecutive year in 2021-22, wages in the Championship remain higher than the revenue earned with a wage-revenue ratio of 108%.

Championship clubs' net debt in 2021-22 was £1.7bn, which Bridge called "significant" and said "long-term decisions" needed to be made to combat the "glamour of Premier League promotion" which drives Championship clubs to "overstretch financially".

Unfortunately club owner & officials get no brownie points from fans for being a well run self financing club, which doesn't let the bright lights of the premier league cloud it's better judgement . Everyone moans until it all goes wrong and then they all moan about clubs going to the wall.