The 2019-2020 season.

Terrific article in praise of TC and what he 'brings to the party' - https://www.edp24.co.uk/features/david-hannant-ncfc-column-todd-cantwell-time-1-6227497
If he succeeds in keeping up his progress, he could eclipse our previous number 14!!!!
#hesoneofourown

 

My personal opinion is that Vrancic can do everything that Stieps offers and more, he carries more of a goal threat, he's better technically, better creatively and from playing CM i'd also believe he is better defensively and could even interchange with Leitner or drop back into a 3 man central midfield when we are under the cosh.

Their stats are fairly even from last season Stieps scored 9 and assisted 8, Vrancic scored 10 and assisted 7, so equal goal contributions but Vrancic played less than half the minutes that Marco played. Steips played 3,300mins whereas Vrancic played just under 1500 minutes.

I trust Farke in his selection though and hope that Stiepermann goes on to prove me wrong this season, just as he did in the last.

 

Vrancic is my fav player,but Stieps has done nothing to warrant being dropped.
Same starting 11 for me

 

Norwich fans

They were the best I have seen them play ever.

Also Norwich fans

Let's change the team .

 

IMO, we MAY see Klose come in for Hanley, but I'd be amazed if we see any other changes!!!

Edit - I was talking to someone who sits in the midday of the South Stand and apparently, EVEN they were singing and cheering.

 

What?? They were there 3 hours before kick-off?

 

More good news:

https://www.pinkun.com/norwich-city/farke-norwich-barcelona-milan-bayern-munich-1-6228277

We've had the Lambert years and AN guiding us to an unexpected promotion and his plan for a 'dynasty', but we've never quite had anything like the developments SW and DF are masterminding on a shoestring budget. A 26 man squad with no squad players playing football beyond anyone's expectations. The revamped training facilities have brought us bang up to date (Newcastle's refusal to do the same cost them the services of Rafa Benitez as they go on throwing money at players). Our dismantling of the magpies was carried out by the players who won the Championship with our 5 new signings (6 if you count Heise) having to work for their chance to start a game, but that's all further potential to be realised. Little wonder that DF is so happy about his situation.

 

Absolutely Rick - IMO, he (along with SW and backroom staff!!) has totally transformed NCFC.
We have ENTERTAINING football being played and the fans are loving it as witnessed by ALL sections of CR getting behind the team and I'm confident whatever the outcome on Saturday, the same will happen. If we were to get a point, or dare I say it - a win, then the residents in the surrounding area will be looking to install triple glazing.
The way DF has resurrected the careers of Pukki/Leitner/Stieperman etc is unbelievable and as for his development of TC - what more can be said??? I wonder if other promising young players are casting admiring glances at him and thinking - 'I want some of that' and we are able to recruit a handful of the more promising youngsters to Colney/CR in future.

 

The way Aarons, Lewis, Godfrey and now Cantwell have been 'catapulted' into the big time due to Farke's methods can't possibly have gone unnoticed - even by the mainstream media. It all suggests a sharp recruitment team, a thriving academy set up and a path to being fast-tracked into the first team as soon as you show the right potential and attitude.
What's not to like for a young, aspiring footballer who may well be stuck in a cul-de-sac at the club they're with at the moment. And don't forget NCFC managed to snare Maddison, well before DF got involved with the club - and the progress the team has made since his (DF's) arrival is both well-documented and sublime.

 

Without wishing to get into another “contretemps” as robbie neatly put it, I think there’s an element of comparing apples with pears here.

Stiepermann is an entirely unusual player, powerful, contributes defensively, can act as a target man, but when he’s on good form he has a delicate touch, pretty good pace and a decent shot. He’s being used as a link up player, target man, but deeper. That’s why as robbie puts it he’s the “node”. I think our system is very much set up to pivot round him at the moment and has been ever since he was first played as a central AM/Number 10/target man hybrid.

He’s also quite erratic, which I think frustrates, understandably. Not just game to game - he was generally poor against Liverpool - but also in game. He’s always pushing so a lot of what he does doesn’t come off. When he is playing well, he has that thing which quite a few players have where he looks ever so slightly out of control and yet it really works, I think by pulling defenders into thinking the same (Harry Kane is the one that immediately springs to mind, though obviously a level well above).

Vrancic I see very differently. Even though he’s a similar height, he’s not as powerful and far more refined. He’s really technical. He’s far more of a traditional attacking midfielder. While in our system they seem to be fighting for the same place, I think that’s only really because we have strength with other midfielders and Stiepermann is playing in a weird role. It’s why we look so different when Vrancic replaces him. And it really works when the opposition are tired and Vrancic has more space.

Also, Vrancic can actually play much deeper, he’s a centre mid, whereas I think you really wouldn’t want Stiepermann any further back!

So my feeling is our system is making them look like they’re competing, but actually they’re incomparable.

Just my thoughts

 

Largely agree with this.
Stiepers drags defenders out of posistion and thereby helps create space for Pukki, Emi and currently Todd C to exploit, whereas Vrancic is more the deeper lying 'playmaker' if you will, who supplies the 'ammo' to allow he above to happen. In a nutshell, of course.

 

Can you stop using fewer words than me please. Makes me look bad.

 

I'm just pondering on the thought processes of the pundits, Lawrenson in particular. He has forecast defeats in both our games to date. Clearly the Liverpool game was a reasonable one to forecast but it raises the question of whether he intends to go through the season without forecasting a win for us. I would argue that his errors, and particular his dismissal of Teemu as a Premiership level striker, disqualifies him as a serious pundit and that the BBC should drop him forthwith. He obviously will forecast a defeat again this weekend and, should it not turn out that way, I think we should organise a campaign against him across 606. I am sure that it would attract support from many others.

 

Spot on Cromer, but so far the mainstream media have only latched on to this to spread rumours about big clubs 'swooping' to fill a U23 slot. The 7 young players recruited over the summer have hardly been acknowledged in the dismissive reporting about how little money we've spent. Oscar Wilde said that cynics know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

Those 7 young players have either gone on loan or taken up U23 places so others can go on loan, thus keeping the treadmill going. Todd is this year's addition to the starting line-up and Idah has been elevated to the first team squad as the next in line. I felt we were playing PL level football last year and that seems to be the case so far. The players, including the 4 young guns, have not only stepped up, they've moved on as well. This season could turn out to be quite remarkable indeed.

 

Some absolutely terrific posts and boy, am I glad I decided to get an ST at the start of last season!!

I may occasionally be able to get a ticket from a 'friend' for some home games and if I am I'll post on Dunc's MDT.

 

I don't think Klose will start, maybe come on as a sub near the end.

 

Exactly what I said on the Newcastle MDT!!!
#greatminds

 

But Mark Lawrenson is the "BBC football expert". Never has there been a greater oxymoron since "Military Intelligence".

 

“Pukki Party” in full flow as striker becomes unlikely star

Pukki is the first player in Premier League history to score that many in his first two games in the competition. Not for 21 years had a player scored a hat trick on his first home Premier League appearance.
Pukki is a journeyman striker no more.
"He finds the space. He knows when the time is right to go forward and when to stay," said Jari-Pekka Gummerus, who was a junior coach when a 12-year-old Pukki joined KTP, a club from the Finnish town of Kotka on the coast of the Baltic Sea. "The moves he made, the amount of goals he scored, it was exceptional," Gummerus added in a phone interview. "You thought, 'OK, this guy has something else.'"
Indeed, Pukki's movement and work rate has been as impressive as his goals. Against Newcastle, he sprinted back 70 meters after Norwich lost possession high upfield and nicked the ball off Joelinton as the Brazilian forward broke on the counterattack.
"He really embodies the spirit of the team," Norwich manager Daniel Farke said. "No one is thinking about themselves." It is a trait Gummerus remembers, too.
"Modest," is how he described Pukki as a kid. "He didn't want to make a big (deal) of himself. Even now, he is just doing his job."
has taken Pukki more than a decade to really live up to the promise he showed as a teenager at KTP, for whom he made his debut at 16 as the youngest player ever start a match in Finland's top league.
Norwich picked him up as a free agent in the 2018 offseason, and playing in England has brought out the best out of him. Pukki was top scorer in the second-tier Championship last season with 29 goals — he also managed 10 assists in all competitions — as Norwich finished top to return to the Premier League after a three-year absence.
Even with Finland, he has grown in stature this past year, scoring decisive goals in five competitive internationals in the last 12 months — three Nations League games and two European Championship qualifiers. "There is massive interest in him, especially in Kotka but in the whole of Finland," Gummerus said. "Everyone is anticipating how many goals he is going to score. People are very excited.
"We keep in contact with him. Of course, it means a lot to him where he is originally from. He doesn't forget his roots."
With a Viking beard to offset his thin top, the 29-year-old Pukki has a rather rugged appearance that hardly marks him out as a superstar.

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/sports/article234249997.html

 

Farke rarely changes a winning team unless suspenjuries occur.