At least the local B&Q will be happy

I'm so glad to see that Evans has got his spending priorities right! The roof of the North Stand and Cobbold Stand will be getting a good spruce up and there will be a few more bar staff working on match days. It's such a shame that he cant put his hand in his pocket to actually spend some money on new players though! The local B&Q Must be rubbing their hands together!

 

I thought his article / message to the supporters on the website was well-balanced and clearly articulated. It's good to hear from our owner, even if he is telling people more or less what they already know or suspect - it's certainly much better than his decade-long silence on ITFC matters. The efforts to give Portman Road a bit of a facelift and tidy up is good - but I can imagine this would not have happened if there hadn't been a stir caused on social media, so well done to the supporters who highlighted the issues around the ground.

I still think he's a bad owner, and I struggle to see why anyone would defend him to the hilt. Ultimately, this is an owner who has overseen a decade of decline, a consistent record of hiring bad managers, and a refusal to invest competitive money into the playing squad. Not to mention our ballooning debt under his ownership (all owed to him, of course) and the general poor running of the club. Contrast us to a club like Norwich City up the road, and it's embarrassing.

I know they've had the benefit of parachute payments, but the point is the earned those promotions to the Premier League and they didn't spend a lot of money last year. In fact, Norwich benefitted by having a predetermined style of football, a clear ideology, an ambitious Director of Football, and good coaching and physio departments. We're so far behind the curve and it's only in the last year or so that Evans has actually got us playing catch up with other teams off the field.

If we don't get promoted this season, Evans will naturally have to take his share of the blame, and he's been culpable for a lot of the failure we've seen at the club over the past few years. Hopefully, he's committed to being a better owner. More regular communication with the supporters and an acknowledgment that the facilities needs a bit of attention and upkeep are positive steps.

 

Football clubs are like fantasies and are never based on reality, certainly not economic ones. I am a Norwich fan and I am not commenting here to be clever or to wind you up. As fans we expect and indeed demand almost unrealistic things from our clubs and the media encourage us to go down this route.
Norwich have taken a real punt this season in sticking largely with the promoted squad with a small number of cheap additions, but have continued to date playing the same way as they were in the Championship.
It is economically sustainable but how long will it be before the fans turn against the board if we continue to be outscored like last Friday. What will the solution be? Probably spend more money, it is always the answer and we, the fans, are sucked in to the frenzy. Ipswich have a dilemma and with an owner who has not invested hardly at all have a double whammy. The most important thing in my opinion is for the club to stick together and in order to do that the fans need something to cling to. It may be a style of play, a focus on local talent which will take time to mature, probably a combination of both, but to turn your fortunes around is going to take something tangible that probably cannot be bought. Your result last night was exactly what we had for many years where you kid yourself that the cup doesn't matter, it is all about promotion or avoiding relegation, but we all know that this is really papering over cracks that we don't want to admit to. As for financial fair play, forget it! Some clubs (the bigger the better) just do whatever they want and get away with murder, but the real leagues are now becoming populated with clubs for whom the financial realities have almost destroyed them, don't let Ipswich become another statistic in that list.

 

Hi Nigel, I think that mindset is typical north of Diss, not least with the Norwich City board.

For Town fans over the age of 30, the least we have seen is our club competing in the top flight and beating the likes of Inter Milan and whether we were alive or not to witness the incredible achievements of the 60s, 70s and 80s there has always been the legend, the belief and inspiration. If Leicester City can win a couple more trophies including a European title then they will have emulated what Town and Forest did and the likes of Huddersfield and Portsmouth did domestically going much further back before European competition.

Unfortunately under our current owner these things are never going to be achievable but as long as we don't go another 10 - 20 years floundering, I think that flame is still very much alive at Town.

At some point perhaps it will be lit for Norwich City, but the current board are far too pragmatic for that to happen at the moment.

 

Very fair points and i agree. You've done well with the system and strategy over the last few years, i envy you. English football (there's little English about it save for the geographic location) is pretty screwed up in the sense that there is a whopping gulf between a 'head and shoulders above everyone else' team like Norwich last season and how relatively poor that same squad is in the league above. Palace and Stoke clung in for those first 2 seasons than stabilised. Palace are still there, but they spend big. I dont know where this money is supposed to come from if you're a smaller club like us and Norwich and what the profit is for the club operating on this bigger scale-there's obviously a lot more revenue, but it's very tight margins in terms of staying up and going down for clubs like ours. Fulham seemed to accept their fate last season from the off-they hardly spent anything really and didn't try and gamble everything on a chance of staying up. probably wise. But thats a sad way to be. their fans said it was loads more fun smashing it in the championship than being soundly overturned week in week out in the PL.

I'm not sure i care for stressful season in the PL that could really break the club financially and involve being whooped every week by sides with a level of spending and playing quality far beyond anything we've really seen before. My view is that Those early Man U sides that won the PL would be hammered by the top 4 sides these days; different level of fitness and coaching altogether and technical ability overall.

Right now i'd settle for a stable club, an engaged owner, a flow of youth (we have that, kinda cos we have no other way to fill the first team...) and a style of play that identifies with the clubs traditions and past achievements. then we see where that takes us...right now were being thumped by a team with all of that called Luton Town...

 

Bucky - sorry, but are you serious about Fulham? They spent over £100m on players...not quite "hardly anything" lol

 

really? they seemed to add has bens like Schurle (despite that goal he got against Burnley being my goal of the season...) what did they spank it on? or is 100m 'nothing' given some clubs spend over that on one player alone...either way, its frightening; you spend all that money and you're still getting one of the worst points tallies in the leagues history...i really not sure getting promoted for clubs our size is a good thing; all your best kids want to leave to cash in on their promise at bigger clubs, you end up buying loads of rubbish and go down with half the quality you went up with...oh hang on; that was us in the early noughties...

 

According to transfer market.com, it was actually 130 million....
Schurrle, even though a loan, in think that still cost them about 10m.
Some clubs go a little bit bat shot mental when they get promoted...bad management that's for sure.
Villa this season have also spent over 100m.. let's see if that does them any good

 

Fulham did indeed spend a lot last season, and they splurged that money on an abundance of attacking options, when they should have been reinforcing their back line. Benefit of hindsight and everything, of course, but I recall a fair few Fulham fans at the time were pointing out that they had not addressed their defensive deficiencies. Fulham went on to concede 81 goals in 38 games, the most goals conceded that season in the Premier League. They also appeared to revert away from their style of possession play that got them promoted in the first place. At least with clubs like Norwich and Sheffield United this season, they appear to be keen on playing similar football to the innovative style that got them promoted in the first place. I think it's better to go up and play how you've been coached for the past couple of years - while spending within your means - rather than changing your style completely and wasting all your new-found millions on trying to spend your way to a 17th place finish.

Villa's spending appears to be more balanced and addresses weaknesses across the team. Not to mention that a sizable portion of their spending has gone on to making successful loan signings from last season permanent (such as El Ghazi, Hause, and Mings). Those players all contributed massively to their promotion. While I wouldn't say Villa have a great chance of staying up, I personally believe they'll do the best out of all three promoted sides this season.

 

I think Villa will be alright. For relegation I think it will be any 3 from 6 - Newcastle, Norwich, Southampton, Watford, Sheffield United, West Ham.

i don't think there will be any whipping boys this season.