I disagree, the “salient” difference was that Norwich did not get acquired mid-way through the season. The new owners, new expectations and new plans - by far and away the most important difference. The other important difference is that Farke’s first season did not tail off badly and by all accounts he retained the support of the dressing room. That was underlined by very successful cup runs. So the downsides of Farke’s first season were heavily mitigated - unlike Thorup’s - and lest we forget there were a lot of people calling for Farke’s head.Hindsight is a beautiful thing. There is absolutely nothing in the way of cold, hard evidence to suggest Thorup would have replicated Farke’s second season success. And an awful lot to suggest he was higher risk and less likely to do so, given the lack of mitigants. People can try to point to changing expectations and demands on Thorup if they like. I don’t disagree. But the bottom line is six points from his last ten games was a long way from good enough. And I don’t know that I need to repeat it, but it does seem to keep getting forgotten: sacking a head coach is not indicative of a change in strategy in the way sacking a manager would be
I agree Rob. IMO, any season we're in the Championship we should be targeting the playoffs - otherwise we're just going through the motions.
Don't disagree with such an ambition but what worries me is that our new owner, like Watford and others, sets such a target but if not achieved he sacks the Head Coach and staff and starts the merry go round all over again.
I can't speak for the owners, but I felt that there were too many 'don't expect too much' concessions made before the season began. The Pinkun journos bombarded us with these and in turn told us that we should should be really excited by the new 'transition'. I wasn't, but I remained hopeful, having reached the playoffs the previous season, but the transition turned out to be in a downward direction. Six points from the last ten games said it all and it was a painful watch. As for the players, this from Jack Stacey says a lot: "First of all on paper, maybe we're biased but we've got two players in the team of the season, we've got other players who you would put in most of the teams in this league so I think that the squad on paper is a good one, plus the young players coming through. That's why it's probably so frustrating that we feel like we've really underachieved what we could have done this season. But there have been some good performances from young players that have showed what they're capable of. You just hope that next season that consistency can be brought and that we can get the best out of the squad that we have and really challenge in the way that we think we can." https://www.pinkun.com/sport/interviews/25144195.norwich-city-jack-stacey-wilshere-community/
Again, I cannot disagree with much of what you are saying but it still does not allay my fears regarding our new owner.
I’m suprised that there hasn’t been any comments about this last video from the club. It seemed eye opening and explained the final performances of the JHT for me. Senior figures such as Duffy saying that the playoffs were unrealistic with 7games to go in a team meeting felt damning.
