The £96m debt figure is misleading in that it doesn't include the sale of Aarons (£12m), Omobamidele (£20), Rashica (£4.5m) and Mumba (£1m). The final parachute payment should also be worth around £30m and there's also the wage savings on players who left in the summer. Pukki was on around £50k per week and Rashica, Aarons, Dowell, Hayden, Omobamidele and Krul would also be high earners replaced by new players presumably on more manageable wages. There will still be a debt after all of those are taken into account, but Attanasio has arranged much better terms for much of that debt still outstanding. It's not great, but the situation is not as dire as £96m suggests.
There is a good explanation of where the headline figure comes from, and what it actually means, by Messrs Bunce and Vos in this thread on the Pink'Un forum: https://forum.pinkun.com/index.php?/topic/154278-96m-in-debt/#comments And here, in sum, is what it means, from a post on the same thread by Lake District Canary: "So if I am reading this right, the debt figure, although seemingly huge, is not actually a huge burden to the club and that a lot of this debt will be paid off in due course, meaning that the club will still be ok financially, although we will need to sell some players on in the next year or two." LDC's "in due course" doesn't make clear that the repayments in question are already catered for. In the now immortal words of Corporal Jones, "Don't panic!"
Ben Lee's latest piece analysing why we are where we are in the league and what DW needs to do to get us moving up the table (and yes, we all know what is needed is to win matches, i.e. score more goals than the opposition; the question is what tactical and other adjustments need to be made for us to do so). https://ncfcanalysis1.wixsite.com/ncfcanalysis/post/the-good-the-bad-and-the-injuries
Ben seems to be suggesting that Wagner goes back to the intense pressing that produced the early wins, but that was heavily dependent on the pressing abilities of Sargent and Barnes, who, playing as false 9s, dropped back to form a midfield box with McLean and Sara to control the centre of the pitch. Knapper also wants that, but Idah, Hwang and Núñez seem less suited that style of play. The return of Barnes should help, but we also need a Plan B if the pressing fails to win back possession. The lack of speed in our CBs (except for Hanley) means we need another player with pace to cope with counterattacks until the defenders fall back. I suspect that might have been the reason for Placheta starting at LB against Cardiff. That didn't work, but Giannoulis did much better when he came on. Hopefully Wagner and Knapper can work together to find a solution, especially with key players returning from injury.
So was I, with a wonderful view of Peters' goal from behind - a thing of beauty (as was any time we beat Liverpool).
Sargent and Barnes are certainly our most capable when it comes to executing a high press, but I'm inclined to put our early wins down more to the stage of the season than the effective pressing of those two. Opponents didn't know what to expect from us and hadn't had time to work out counter-strategies. I'll be surprised if the return of Barnes and Sargent leads to us picking up where we left off when that pair got injured. Both Dean Smith and David Wagner started with the promise of a high energy, high intensity approach, controlling games by compressing play into the opposition half. Neither of them succeeded in delivering it in more than occasional spells, for limited periods in a game. Do we look fitter than most of our opponents? Are we like the Duracell bunny that keeps going when everyone else's battery has run down? That's not what I see. Now we've had the same promise from Knapper. If both DS and DW have tried and failed to deliver it, I don't see what Knapper can do in the short term that will suddenly change things.
Your comments about Duracell bunny, I think the 20,000 substitutions teams can now make negates a lot of the benefits of ultra fitness and could potentially lead to more injuries. By that, I mean if in the past you were ultra fit when you had 0,1 or 3 substitutes it has a greater effect than with the amount we have now. Someone is tired, take them off and replace them. So if you then try to get even fitter there is a limit where too much fitness work leads to burnout and an increased susceptibility of injury.
Agree with that, and to answer Robbie's point, I think our pressing will improve when we have Idah, Hwang and Núñez on the bench with Sargent and Barnes starting, rather than two of the three having to start with the other to come on later. Ben Lee's statistical summary of the Cardiff game shows we won on merit in spite of the problems Placheta had in the first half: Score: 2 – 3 Possession (%): 46 – 54 Passes: 379 – 458 Shots: 13 – 20 xG: 1.35 – 3.45 PPDA the new (well new to me) metric Ben highlights in his latest analysis actually makes sense in analysing our current problem area. Standing for Press Per Defensive Action: "PPDA is the number of opposition passes allowed outside of the pressing team's own defensive third, divided by the number of defensive actions by the pressing team outside of their own defensive third." We currently rank 10th in the league in PPDA and need to improve on that to move up the table. This is what both Wagner and Knapper need to concentrate on if we are to achieve that. Tactical tweaks will help, but the return of Sargent and Barnes will help even more.
Very few Championship clubs have the strength in depth to be able to utilise the 5 subs rule in that way though Zog. In themselves, fresh legs are of limited value; what matters is preserving the level of performance of the substituted starter. Tzolis had boundless energy when he came on late in a game, but largely useless with it! Re. overdoing the fitness work leading to burnout etc., I've heard it said that that concern was a contributory factor in the decision to replace Daniel Farke. No idea how true that is, or who was concerned about it.
Actually "Passes per defensive action", i.e. the number of passes is used as a measure of the speed and success or otherwise of a team's pressing. How does that answer my point Rick? I said myself that the return of Sargent and Barnes would improve our press, but that I didn't think that those early wins were actually down to our pressing as much as to teams not having worked out counter-strategies at that early stage of the season.
Believe it or not, Robbie, I was actually agreeing with you, but with a slightly different emphasis when I said: "Tactical tweaks will help, but the return of Sargent and Barnes will help even more." Our 10th PPDA ranking suggests that we're not as bad as recent results suggest. We were the better team at Cardiff and if we can improve that PPDA ratio in coming games and Barnes and Sargent return, we should be able to move up the table, though personally I have no desire to scrape a promotion this season.
I believe you Rick; in point of fact, I believe everyone really agrees with me most of the time, they just don't like to admit it ...........
Delusions run deep. Meanwhile Batth on the game: “As a defender clean sheets and winning games are what you judge yourself on. With Barnes coming back now, Ui-jo in good form, and Adam as well, we fancy ourselves for a goal, so it’s about the rest of the team being solid, facilitating that and being organised. I thought the boys gave everything out there. We always like to think we can score a goal, so I thought it was important today to show that resilience and we did that. It wasn’t our most pretty performance, but we’ll build on that and take some confidence from it. That showed a bit of character and steel today. I know QPR’s league table position might not be great, but they’re a threat. So that was a good result today in terms of the outcome." One day there will be a statistic for "character and steel".
Ben Lee's analysis of the QPR game, entitled "A Tough Watch": https://ncfcanalysis1.wixsite.com/ncfcanalysis/post/norwich-vs-qpr-1 To be followed, presumably, by "An Even Tougher Watch" on last night's debacle.
Hwang under investigation and suspended by South Korea national team... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67564798
But they waited until after the most recent set of international games to do so, was the allegation not made a year ago?
CS and Suffolk - I'm not aware of any more detail than what's in the article. Interestingly, the lead article today on the BBC Website reports on wider concerns of a similar nature across Premier League and how they are dealt with. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67508310
