We were never going to bounce straight back again IMO Dave, so as far as I'm concerned that's a moot point. McNally has overseen a dreadful season, with dreadful player recruitment and he has to be held accountable for it. I'm not denying that he saved our club but you can't dine out on past glories forever. He tried to stay up on the cheap and when he did loosen the purse strings it was too late and the money was wasted on dross. Many on here were rejoicing when we signed that over the hill donkey from Everton for £8.5M, but I bloody told you all that it was a complete and utter waste of good money but was lambasted for it. Our club is now in complete turmoil and unnecessarily so, **** knows where we go from here Ed Balls
You know KIO, I´d have expected absolutely nothing better from you, and true to form, you didn´t disappoint, but just because my opinions, my expectations for the club, my ambitions for the club, don´t necessarily coincide with yours, does not make me any less of a supporter than you or anyone else on here. There are still a few of us who don´t live in cuckoo land, and who don´t expect Norwich to take the PL by storm, whenever they make an occasional appearance there, and who don´t throw their toys out of the NCFC pram in disgust, at each failed attempt. As much as we all might hope, and want it to be different, I´m beginning to suspect that we may have to recognise that Norwich is basically a Championship club, with an occasional excursion, every now and again, into the Premier League for a season or two, before dropping back again, the best we can hope for. I wonder if the latest development suggests that McNally was beginning to recognise the same thing. Now just watch us hammer Watford 3 - 0 while Sunderland freeze in their boots and lose 0 - 1 to Everton.
Hi skald bor, you use a word "expect" and that is the fundamental difference between you and KIO. There is no question of you both not being supporters of the club, just that you both have a difference of your expectations of what is best for the club. This is what this forum is for, to express your opinions, just that both your opinions don't happen to coincide. Well welcome to the club, my views often fall foul of others but that is what freedom of speech is about. I'll settle for a 1-0 win against Watford, skald bor just to make for an interesting finish to the season. Regards to Rex.
I'm very surprised that nobody else appears to understand RBF's post, we are ALL disappointed when we lose, but some of us are realistic that our chances of survival in the Premiership are very limited by the standard of player that we are able to attract to an isolated Norwich City. WE know what a beautiful area and City it is, but others don't, so while we would be happy to stay in the Premiership, the realists among us know that it will probably short lived!
Thank you Dave. Give us six, seven, eight, ten years time, and we all ought to know just who's being the more realistic, whether we´re up, down, or still oscillating between the two. Certainly we have had our chances already to become established as at least a lower half Premier League side, and have failed to take any, and that with differing managers, so although we´d all love to dream and hope, whether those dreams can at some time become reality, is still very much in the balance, I´d have thought.
It's all about perception, we might both think that the club tried its best in the summer to push on. You think that it was the players unwillingness to join us that was the problem, I and many others think it was the clubs fault that they were disorganised, unrealistic, underprepared and made a proper hash of the transfer window that undermined a very good chance to stay up and establish our selves. I think we all think that we will lose one or two of our better players this summer and this is why we will continue to yoyo, we need to step up our quality each season, and the improvement needs to be larger if it is during a promotion season. Last summer, whether we improved at all is questionable. and since we have spent 4 of the last 5 in the PL you have to be upset with how many of the not quite good enough for the PL players we still have around the club. I'm not after squad revolution, just evolution steadily like WBA or Stoke to having a PL squad. Bah!
Actually Melchy, on the contrary, I think the club (McNally) was entirely realistic in its transfer targets, even if slightly too tight-fisted for some, and that some of them failed to materialise, was down to circumstance as much as any wrong-doing on his part. I think any disorganisation or unpreparedness came with the terrain, and the simple fact that until the play-off final had been contested we had no idea which league we would be playing in this year, anyway. Any possible dealings couldn´t possibly have started until all that was out of the way.
I agree RBF. The 'disaster' as such was the failure to sign a CB in the summer, which all concerned have admitted. I assume the 'unrealistic' element was going for top quality players who declined to come here. If we hadn't gone for those, the L.O.N. tag would be dragged out again in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' catch-22 fashion. We signed 7 players most people were happy with at the time. £7m for Brady was hardly L.O.N., but many on here ignore that now. Signing Mbokani from Dynamo Kiev wasn't L.O.N. either. Yes, it took him a while to adjust to the PL, but 7 goals from 15 starts and 14 sub appearances looks like a reasonable return to me. I think it's time to move on and think about how to make the most of next year in the Championship now.
My thinking here maybe well wide of the mark, but the reason DM resigned might just have been because his hands were being tied by The Stowmarket Two. Perhaps, just perhaps, he wanted to break our wage structure but was being overruled and that's why we couldn't get certain signings over the line ? Ergo he felt he'd 'taken us as far as he could' and decided it was time to go. Just a thought
There's a rumour doing the rounds that he was offered a nice job a s a school teacher. He was always 'best in class'.
I can't imagine McNally had it all his own way, but equally I can't see him being the one wanted to break wage structures - he was the one who sorted us out financially and put those sort of limits in place. For me I think it was more likely the other way, the board let McNally play hardball on transfers last summer, and when he didn't deliver they've held him responsible.
I make you right about this, KIO. To resign with two games left in the season and a (remote as hell) chance of miracles happening within those two games (we know now they didn't ) certainly suggests bitterness, rancour and a boardroom not all off the same hymn sheet. What's the betting they employ a Doomcaster clone, if only to avoid such boardroom disruption in the future
It's possible, KIO, but then so is anything in the absence of any facts. Perhaps 7 years is a reasonable time for a CEO's tenure. I think he had about that at Fulham and something similar at Celtic and before that at a number of different companies. As others have pointed out, he joined City when we had just gone down to Division One and perhaps the requirements now are very different. IMO, he knew the constraints here when he took the job on and did a masterful job of getting rid of the £23m debt to enable us to be promoted 3 times (including from Division One). It's anyone's guess, really.
Town fan in peace here.. I'll try to keep it short. Having seen you a few times this season I always felt you were half decent, just lacking composure in both penalty areas. (Jerome being an absolute puzzler to me, how any team can expect to survive with Jerome leading the line for the whole season is beyond me.. But there we go) Having seen the squad I am interested as to whether City fans see this current squad being better, worse or the same as the last that got relegated and promoted again? I've written a bit on our forum, so rather than regurgitate I'll summarise.. For me, the spine of Ruddy, Martin, Johnson, Hoolahan was what put you so far ahead of us last time, I don't think that list of players is as good (or in Johnson's case still at the club) and the spine of the team is not going to be as stable moving into the championship campaign. Those pantomime villains (from our view) of Martin, Johnson and Hoolahan are not as terrifying as they were. It's a massive summer for you to re establish a group of players to build on. Last time round you did that very well, but that was adding quality (Jerome, Dorrans, O'Neill) to an already established spine of the team, which I'm not sure will be the same this time round. Though I still expect you to have a better squad than us next season, it's just how they are assembled and by whom that will determine how far apart we are in 12 months time Apologies if I've gone over ground that has already been covered (I'm not a frequent visitor to this area of the forum) Just interested in your thoughts
I think that's a very fair summary, and that word you mention, 'composure', is one that I constantly find myself shouting when I watch our games. As in 'no sodding compusre', especially in the final third. I'm not sure whether other City fans saw the spine of the team in quite the same way, as in the presonnel you mention, but I hope we can add / hold on to enough quality in the key areas to maintain a significant gap over you guys next season! Please God!
Interesting input from an opposition viewpoint, Scowy. In our present squad though, I'd say that our strongest spine would be Ruddy, Klose (if he stays), Tettey, Hoolahan or Naismith, Jerome (assuming that Mbokani will be moving on). Jerome did score 18 league goals (and 3 in the cup) coming in after the season started last time in the Championship and I think he could be around that again. We're likely to add another striker and a CB at least and then it depends on who leaves really. The expectation is that the core of the squad will stay together and IMO it will be stronger than last time.
I think that's a very fair post. -Ruddy doesn't seem to be the same goalkeeper he was in our last stint in the Prem, but then he wasn't last season in the championship either. I don't think he's any worse than then. -Martin, again about the same but his position is much more under threat. -Other than the opening games, Wes hasn't shone in the Premier League this season, but he never really did last time either. I still think he's got "it" though, whatever that may be, in the championship. His game has never been about pace and he still seems to have the fitness. Looking back at our 2-legged play-off, the only players who started and has now left is Johnson, everyone else is a regular still with the exception of Whittaker. I'm not sure those players have got objectively worse either, barring a loss of confidence. The question for me is how far the championship has moved on. Derby buying Johnson for one, was a really big transfer for the championship and there's been plenty of them in the last 12 months. The championship looks to have got harder whilst we've stayed about the same - especially if we lose Klose, Brady, Redmond and/or Mbokani. Equally, what got us promoted last time was a really phenomenal run with a united team. This time around we're most likely looking to maintain a challenge over the whole season, and that's a much tougher ask. In our favour, Newcastle need a new manager and a big overhaul, they don't have players suited to the championship. They will invest though. Villa are coming down and I think will be lucky to survive. If anybody seems likely to emulate Burnley then on paper it would be ourselves.
