The club have confirmed that Stuart Webber is to leave the club. I am sure many will be happy to hear the news, I for one am not, however it will be interesting to see how the club decides to move forward. Will Neil Adams step into his shoes? I hope not!
Norwich City joint majority shareholders, Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones, have issued a statement following confirmation that Stuart Webber is set to leave the club. When Stuart came to our home in early March to inform us he wanted to leave at the end of his contract we were devastated - whilst we obviously respected his decision. In our 28 years of serving this great football club we have never worked with such a talent. The list of his achievements is endless: principally, how it is that a self-funding club has managed to achieve so much in six short years? Two promotions, two trophies. Signing the very best and highest-scoring championship striker - on a free! - not to mention signing Buendia for peanuts and selling him for millions. And altogether bringing in a grand total of £80 million plus profit and astute add-on deals we are yet to benefit from player trading. By all accounts we are one of the first English clubs to employ South American scouts with Brexit threatening the European market. Add to that a state-of-the-art football academy and, over the six years, on average 24 per cent of minutes per game in which academy players have featured. He has also brought in a hugely talented team of staff at all levels in the training ground. We personally owe him a great deal. He has always alerted us when staff or wives have babies or bereavements so we can be in touch, arranged for us to entertain injured players and their families before matches and sometimes asked us to attend persuasive dinners with their agents. In terms of unity and mutual support we are a completely different football club to the one he joined in 2017. Stuart Webber has been an outstanding servant to this football club and built a strong foundation for the future. We are very sad to lose him, owe him much gratitude and want to wish him all the very best for the future.
Norwich City can confirm that sporting director Stuart Webber is to leave the club. Webber informed the club’s joint majority shareholders, Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones, of his decision at the turn of the year. An external recruitment process, led by the club’s board of directors, to appoint a replacement is already underway. During the upcoming period, Webber will remain in post and continue to work his notice period to ensure a thorough transition and handover. As part of this process Neil Adams will move into the newly-created position of technical director, continuing his work alongside key football departments at the Lotus Training Centre. Webber said: “I’d like to thank Delia, Michael and the rest of the board for their understanding in making this decision. “The support I’ve had from all the board, past and present, throughout my time at the club has been outstanding. Delia and Michael are two of the most special people that I’ve met. They care so much about Norwich City, its staff and supporters. “I’ve worked with some incredible staff, from my direct reports to the Executive Committee and wider staff across both the football club and Community Sports Foundation. I’ve seen so many staff grow and develop, and I can’t thank them enough for their dedication. “Nobody will ever be able to take away our two title wins, the growth of the Lotus Training Centre and academy, and the connection our football areas now have with the wider business. Together, we have enjoyed some really special moments and we should be incredibly proud of the foundation we have managed to build to ensure future success at this club. “To the players I’ve worked with, I’ve learned so much and they have done some incredible things over the past six years. They will go down in history at this football club. “I look forward to the next chapter and helping as much or as little in this transition over the coming months. The board know they have my unwavering support. “Thank you to every board and staff member, player and supporter that I’ve met. I wish the club the very best and I look forward to supporting from afar.” Webber joined Norwich City from Huddersfield Town in April 2017. He has since helped guide the club to two Sky Bet Championship league titles. After appointing the club’s first non-domestic head coach, Daniel Farke, in the summer of 2017, Norwich upset the odds in winning the Championship title in the 2018/19 campaign. After a season in the top flight, Norwich bounced back to the Premier League at the first time of asking, navigating the challenging COVID-19 period and claiming their second Championship league title in the 2020/21 season. During Webber’s time with the club the acquisitions of the likes of Tim Krul, Teemu Pukki, Gabriel Sara and Emi Buendia, who would eventually depart for a club record fee, combined with 19 first-team debuts for academy graduates, would play a key role in City’s success and stability. Off the pitch, Webber has also been instrumental in building infrastructures and facilities across the club, particularly at the Lotus Training Centre and academy. Any further updates on the process of appointing a replacement will follow in due course.
Club statement says that Adams will step into new role of Technical Director and "An external recruitment process, led by the club’s board of directors, to appoint a replacement for SW is already underway."
I suspect Webber will have provided a short list of potential replacements. I was starting to get quiet hopeful about next season and competing for promotion, now I fear we will more likely to be competing to avoid relegation. Much will depend on who replaces him, but we will be beyond lucky if we get someone that has an impact anywhere near Webber's. To be fair when McNally left I had similar concerns, but Webber took us far beyond where McNally could.
Looking through comments from Huddersfield fans Leigh Bromby was another unpopular Sporting Director. Would be quite the coincidence considering we still need a GK coach as well. Paul Clements seemed to be well regarded.
I wish we could get rid, once and for all, of the idea that running a football club is competing in a popularity contest.
A smart Sporting Director (or leader in any role) should recognise that popularity is not an aim, it's something to be achieved through the correct actions, but once obtained, popularity is a currency to be spent wisely. If you're going to expend popularity, do it to achieve something you believe in but will be unpopular. Don't fritter away your popularity by slagging off women's football, for example...
If they knew in March, a replacement should have been found before any new transfer decisions were made. As it is, any new SD already has his hands tied because we have three new players who he may not want and have taken the club in a direction which he may not believe in.
If Webber made his decission to leave in March, then maybe that could partly explain also why since March 12th (when we lost 1-0 to Sunderland) to May 8th (when we lost 1-0 to Blackpool) City failed to score in any of their 5 matches at Carrow Road (losing 4 Drawing 1, conceding 6 goals - 3x 1 defeats (Sunderland, Sheff Utd, Blackpool), 1x 3-0 defeat (v Swansea) - Draw was against Rotherham.
Chris Reeve of TNC has been told by unnamed source that… “This doesn’t affect Summer recruitment as it was signed off before Summer. Wagner didn’t know Stuart had handed in his notice in March, but when told, was understanding of his decision. Should another club come in for Stuart imminently, they’d have to pay off his contract through to March 2024. Zoe Webber’s position at club and on board is unaffected by Stuart’s departure. She’s not leaving this Summer. With the board, Mark Attanasio has been involved in the recruitment of our next Sporting Director.”
Isn't Attanasio on the board now? Personally, after 6 years of a mixture of success and failure I think now is a good time for Stuart to move on. His original vision was very much built around a shared view with Farke about possession based attacking football. The sacking of Farke replaced that with one involving Smith's pragmatism and a group of players who never really gelled as a team. The vision flared again for a while after Wagner's arrival with a more complete tactical approach which looked good until injuries to McLean, Hanley and Gibson brought the curtain down early. It'll be interesting where we go from here.
This is the bit of Webber's end of season interview with Michael Bailey of The Athletic in which, in response to MB's opening question (in bold), he (SW) talks about Norwich City Women and women's football: "Norwich City Women played at Carrow Road for the first time last month. They won 5-3 in front of 7,500 supporters and it was probably the stadium’s highlight this year. How will the club build on that? I thought it was great because it brought a completely new fanbase to the stadium to see what this business offers. There are plans to maybe have two games here next year. But we also have to remember it’s like a new club being formed and it costs a lot of money to put a game on here. We have to keep the demand because it doesn’t work if we have 1,500 people (at Carrow Road). That’s not good for the pitch to be used. Flo Allen (general manager) has done some incredible work and she’s a real rising star. It’s like taking a Sunday League team and trying to make them a Premier League team. It’s a really slow journey. Just because they’ve got our badge, you can’t compare. That game (against Ashford Town in the domestic fourth tier), we can say it was exciting but if we want to talk about quality, it was really poor. That’s not being unfair, it’s just factually correct. We’ve got to organically build it. We don’t want to go too fast then people get turned off, just to try to win a popularity contest on Twitter. That was the first women’s game I’ve been to, because it’s not an interest to me. I don’t mind admitting that. I love working with Flo and helping her, but that’s because it’s Flo. Women’s football, I do not watch it. It’s of zero interest to me in terms of on the telly because I watch enough men’s football and if I’m not watching that, I want to watch other sports. It’s a choice, which I think should be OK. We’re not going to get Carrow Road full for the women’s team with 40-to-60-year-old drunk men. It’s about recognising that and going after who it is for. My son loved it — the atmosphere, music being on during the game — but that’s not for everyone; I wouldn’t want to watch a Premier League game and there’s music playing during a throw-in. For the girls, it was amazing. They were living their dream. They aren’t professionals. They were maybe working in the police that morning, and then running out like a hero to that crowd. Those are pictures and memories they’ll take to their grave." Please can someone tell me what exactly in this constitutes Stuart Webber "slagging off women's football"?
