The 2019-2020 season.

Should also add, pretty happy with how things are, but in the rich man's world, even with Webber we will hit a ceiling. What ever we build will get undermined with sales as Webbers gems eventually get attracted to the blighter lights and bigger salaries. only way to stop it is to compete. Self funding cannot.

Bah!

 

Then we could call ourselves Citeh!

 

Webber's solution seems to be regular recruiting of players to the Academy and the U23s to replace any players leaving down the line. That's when we become truly self-funding.

 

I get that but as I say if that results in us continually having players developing but selling as they go from potential to finished article, we only get near their best whilst then having to be patient with their replacement. I.e. the best we can ever get to is nearly. Then add in Webber and Farke wont be here for ever and self funding vs rich but well run only has one winner.

Bah!

 

A great read in this MFW article by Connor Southwell – ‘An international audience brings expectation. A game against Norwich will be viewed as a must-win for all sides, yet the criticism will come if City don’t pull up trees and survive while conforming to Premier League convention. Unlike Sheffield United and Aston Villa, they don’t have an English coach to swoon over (sorry Robbie!!!), but what they do have is a potent style of play and a squad that represents everything that makes the league so intoxicating.

Daniel Farke and Webber have constructed a broad-church of European talent, some discarded by previous owners, and transformed them into league winners. Operating with a possession-based, aesthetic and practical footballing philosophy, this is different Norwich City than those that have previously tackled the top-flight.

But retaining the togetherness is the challenge, both on the pitch and on the terraces. Norwich City FC replicates Norwich as a city. The values the two entities share exist as one: the community, the openness and the welcoming nature. The people stand in unison, celebrating together or comforting each other. But global corporations and world-class operators will test those values.’

http://norwichcity.myfootballwriter...t-to-go-away-but-we-have-to-ignore-the-noise/

 

To be honest I think Connor is talking drivel again.

'An international audience brings expectation'
The only expectation that audience brings is failure for City at the hands of the glory hunting masses

'A game against Norwich will be viewed as a must-win for all sides'
OK, can't argue with that, but it is no different for Sheff Utd or Brighton or any other team fancied to struggle.

'yet the criticism will come if City don’t pull up trees and survive while conforming to Premier League convention'
What a load of arse! If we don't pull up trees or survive of course we'll take critisism. Fulham spent a fortune (was that conforming?) got relegated and took heeps of flack.

'Unlike Sheffield United and Aston Villa, they don’t have an English coach to swoon over'
Of all the places where we are unlikely to be judged, for having a foreign coach the PL is the one. In fact given Farke's origins they are possibly more likely to swoon over him than SU or AV and their managers.

'But retaining the togetherness is the challenge, both on the pitch and on the terraces'
It surely is, the BE project and the flags and atmosphere was great but it was built off the back of a truly exceptional season

'Norwich City FC replicates Norwich as a city. The values the two entities share exist as one: the community, the openness and the welcoming nature. The people stand in unison, celebrating together or comforting each other. ’
Totally ridiculous hyperbole. Only success unites the Norwich crowd. The community! to be honest modern Britain has never been so divided, Norwich is no different. Standing in Unison? As a city we're divided like many, with haves and have nots, young and old, fun folk and kill joys etc etc.
As a fan base, we have a warm fuzzy feel good atm but the back biting, arguing and cat calling is never far away. So whilst we will celebrate in Unison, the comforting has more oft manifested as arguing and protest. Maybe that has been consigned to history with our brave new dawn, but I doubt it.

'But global corporations and world-class operators will test those values.'
What in the holy hell do corperations have to do with anything? World-class players might test us granted, but half of the appeal of the PL is to see our boys play against some of the worlds best. That will mean defeats and if those values exist they will be tested. But that is the inevitability of being the small fish in the big pond.

Bah!

 

To Add, Connor also says:

'Given the general rhetoric adopted in the Premier League, it’s terminology that will be repeated continually next season. Whether it’s Gary Neville, on Sky Sports, bemoaning Norwich’s lack of transfer spending compared with fellow newcomers Aston Villa or the constant belittling by opposition fans, we all need to take the advice of Stuart Webber and ‘ignore the noise’.'
Of course what we are doing will be questioned. Especially if it starts slowly (As it may well do with our tough start), continues slowly and potentially finishes slowly and with relegation. That might well be the case, we may be viewed as little more than a plucky Blackpool like upstart, playing the right way but ultimately doomed. I may be proved wrong but, I actually like Neville as a pundit and believe he could be one of the few who might not just trott out such stereotyping without having at least considered our qualities. Other fans will expect to beat us, especially those who have watched nothing of our previous season (they could well be right too). But the more educated fan will be intriged and alive to the danger we could pose their team. We will ignore the noise and start quitely confident, but we won't know if that confidence is misplaced until at least Liverpool have been played, maybe significantly longer. (I.e. if we win/draw/hold our own then we may feel vindicated straight away, Lose or lose badly and we will say it's Liverpool and retain a sense of belief)

Whilst the rest of the article comes across as something of a happy clap, state the bleedin obvious, be patient, it'll be tough rehash. ANother one struggling to fill column inches in the off season. C'mon Mario, sign that extended contract we need some more news!

Bah!

 

MFW is quite odd, they seem desperate for money and clicks, but for no discernible purpose? It makes at least $100 per month in Patreon revenue (plus ads) but apparently they need over six times that income to "keep afloat?".

They say themselves they don't pay their writers, and web hosting is dirt cheap - so what's the money for?

It seems that push for cash is really hitting the quality over the summer. Whilst nearly every other NCFC fan site (as well as Pinkun and EDP) are reducing their content over the summer, or coming up with carefully constructed series to talk about something interesting, MFW seem desperate to pump out meaningless, recycled content in the same format every single day. None of their summer articles appear to contain any original research or thoughts.

 

In the long run it may hurt them, the comments on each article are certainly dropping. But then we still all seem to keep reading them even when we are critiacal and cynical about the current content.

Bah!

 

I also did wonder why they needed that income when the writers theoretically get no pay. I think they eluded to wanting to expand the content to include video much like TNC and MB etc at Pinkun/archant. I don't know what additional costs that would incur. I always saw it as a vehicle for either up un comers to get experience and exposure or old hands who wanted to talk about a passion, namely City.

Bah!

 

I've certainly got to the point where the usual generic titles aren't generating a click when I see them on twitter, and about 50% of links posted here I don't bother with either now. Maybe that'll change when the season starts.

Conor Southwell has certainly started producing video content under the MFW brand in the last few months, mainly interviews with ex-City players and he seems to be getting a lot of opportunities to speak to Ben Kensell. They look well produced, so whether they're paying a cameraman or whether that's someone else doing it "for exposure", I don't know.

 

I can see your point, but the situation will change over time. Much of Webber's long term planning is similar to McNally's seven year plan, but there are some important differences. Webber wants an approach to football that runs deeper than the tactics. DF delivers that with a style of football that becomes ingrained in the players and the way they play. He achieves that through coaching which improves both the players and the play. The two are integrated in a way that's rare. The result is instinctive passing and movement to make the most of possession and pace.

The advantage of young players is that they don't have to 'unlearn' previous approaches so they pick it up quickly. Other players signed are chosen by their willingness to buy into the approach and make it work. Pukki and Buendia are prime examples but it runs through the whole squad. Players who don't have the skills or acceptance to make it work are quickly left behind. Recruitment is now focused on a few top level players with the necessary skills and a willingness to work for the team as a whole. Roberts, Drmic and Fährmann are all from top level teams at prices we can afford and along with the young players that's the way we'll recruit from now on. The young players will be prepared before they reach the senior squad - Idah will be the latest test of that. If he can pick it up quickly enough and his skills are up to it he can be yet another promising fast tracked player. This is now the long term planning which will allow us to progress over the coming years.

 

First team squad for German tour announced:

Tim Krul
Ralf Fährmann
Michael McGovern

Max Aarons
Ben Godfrey
Grant Hanley
Christoph Zimmermann < Interesting given injury.
Jamal Lewis
Timm Klose
Philip Heise

Patrick Roberts
Mario Vrancic
Moritz Leitner
Onel Hernandez
Todd Cantwell
Emi Buendia
Marco Stiepermann
Tom Trybull
Kenny McLean
Alex Tettey
Louis Thompson

Josip Drmic
Teemu Pukki
Dennis Srbeny
Adam Idah

So Oxborough has been training with the first team but doesn't travel for the tour. No Nelson, Marshall or Husband unsurprisingly.
Bushiri and Gilmour absent from both squads.

 

I agree with what your saying, the 7 year plan if we are to stay up will see us continually improve but then you hit the ceiling. Like I say, we can never compete in fees and wages. the fees given our strategy isn't really the issue, but selling every player who impresses for us season on season will become an issue, Webber will not be able to always find the rabbits as others become more and more savvy to the metrics he looks at as well as the youngsters will not all always make it.
Your example says it all: Roberts, Drmic and Fährmann are all from top level teams at prices we can afford. Two we can likely only use for 1 season and then must rebuild. The other is a risk due to his recent injury travails and all 3 might not work or even improve us.

Bah!

 

This is the glass ceiling General and it comes down to 2 fundamentals in my opinion. The first is the size of attendance, basically the more fans you get coming through the turnstiles each home game does set a basis for potential economic turnover. the bigger the club the more potential expenditure, that is why a massive club will always have the easier job in say returning to the Premier should they ever be relegated than a lesser club. This is not a guarantee, but a well-managed bigger club will always have an advantage. This first premise is overcome only by a sugar daddy investor and this is a topic that has been discussed many times on this board. Do we really want an oligarch or some other rich outsider coming in and throwing money around that is only sustainable while they enjoy their new found toy. Personally I don't and thereby accept that our success is hard fought and essentially on a short term basis as wealthier clubs will cherry pick our talent.
The financial fair play rules should help the imbalance to a degree, but the FA and the European equivalents do not have the guts to enforce the policy when the chips are down and a really big club is in the firing line.

 

There are plenty of clubs with rich owners playing in the league below us, so money is no guarantee of success. We have to find another way to succeed and I think we have, as stated above, and that's why we're extending contracts and not selling players we want to keep. If we do go down, we are in a strong position to fend off offers, and even if players should want to leave, they'll only do so for top money. Many feared the worst when Pritchard, the Murphys and Maddison left, but each time we've moved on and upwards thanks to the money the sales brought in.

As for the new signings, Webber is being clever. If we don't stay up, Roberts and
Fährmann will return to their clubs and we save money for another tilt at promotion. If we do stay up, however, and they are a success, it's possible we could buy one or both next season. It allows flexibility.

 

Some excellent posts and I can’t imagine that more than a handful of fans would want us to be owned by a wealthy sheik/oligarch, so we must persist in the same way that got us promoted and as can be seen by the majority of the squad signing extended & improved contracts, they can see that we’ll give PL survival an excellent chance.

 

I don't think Webber's faith in his approach ever wobbled RER; what wobbled was his faith in his own implementation of it, in particular his decision-making when it came to recruitment. As for the time-scale, I know that tomorrow is long-term as far as many fans are concerned, but Webber and Farke were quite explicit about when we should expect to see results, i.e. basically by the end of the second season. Hardly "long-term" by any reasonable measure.

Re. Brentford, I think you do them and their owner an injustice. They may not have won the Championship, but they have consistently over-performed for their size and played some of the most attractive football in the Championship. Furthermore, the same approach has been implemented to even greater effect at Matthew Benham's other club, FC Midtjylland, who, for example, two years ago won the Danish Super League and have competed in both the Champions League and Europa League. And as for the type of player we have been recruiting, if you look for instance at Maupay's career, you'll see it has more or less followed the familiar Webber/Farke model of talented youngster whose potential has been thwarted by injury and less than appreciative coaches, and now thriving at a club which makes proper use of his ability.

Bit weird also that Waghorn, having written an article about the Moneyball story, completely fails to mention that Billy Beane is now a co-owner of Barnsley FC where an approach similar to ours is also being implemented. Just poor writing by any standard IMO. But hey, all this is part of the vacuum that is football's summer, so who am I to talk!

 

You'd think with no footy to watch they could do a bit of research!

Bah!

 

Interesting independent assessment of what we'll bring to the PL without the usual pundit clichés. He misses out Godfrey, but otherwise does OK in general.