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"WHY" ACN Pod 124
1k Plays1 year ago
Tom & Jon discuss Watford (A) and a little bit of QPR (H) through the considered lens of WHY HASN'T KNAPPER MADE A MANAGERIAL CHANGE YET?
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Transcript
Coaching Challenges and Need for Change
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Long Come The Orange podcast. We went to Watford. We were rubbish. Why is he still here? I mean, seriously, why is he still here? Pont joins me to talk about why is he still here?
00:00:38
Speaker
Punt, why is he still here? Okay there's the considered answer and then there's the well he definitely shouldn't be here anymore and we just look increasingly week on week game on game an ever more poorly coached side that with a man that is grasping at straws
00:01:02
Speaker
So yeah, so this is the let's get rid of him answer, which is yeah, he's dead man walking. He's almost conceded that himself and said, look, this isn't a decision that I'm taking. And this was when Stuart Webb was still at the club. It was almost like, put me out of my misery. And we talked about that in the last pod.
00:01:20
Speaker
Well, Sunderland, he seemed to expect the knock on the door after the Sunderland game. As he absolutely should have done, but just the nonsense that's coming out of his mouth now in terms of like excuses. I'd seen quite recently that in his post-match last night, he almost seemed to put down the capitulation to the players being really shocked because Hwang got injured.
00:01:42
Speaker
He wanged a hammy. It's like if it was a triple leg break or like, you know, some sort of Christian Erickson situation, then yeah, you get a pass for that. 100%. Yeah, 100%. So, you know, increasingly he's just looking for weirder and weirder excuses because there is nothing else apart from introspection. And if he does that, then the only conclusion can be, well, my coaching isn't working or my coaching staff aren't impressing upon this team the messages because
00:02:10
Speaker
he was saying you know this group is good enough we feel like we should be contending for for promotion or at least be in the in the conversation for that so that's that yeah of course like he should go and the club just just need to make that decision but let's let's drill down into let's drill down into the actual why though like
00:02:29
Speaker
Why he hasn't gone.
Club's Inertia and Fan Frustration
00:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, why do you think like to try and to try and be as clinical as we can? Yeah, where are the benefits? So I think Ben Nappa wants to come in and take a proper
00:02:47
Speaker
considered look at the football club from top to bottom to understand it, to understand the current coaching regime, to maybe understand what the issues are in a forensic way before he then maybe goes and writes it. He's so into data, he will know that all of the trends
00:03:08
Speaker
just indicate that we haven't been anywhere near good enough. The fact that he comes out and the football that he describes in his first club interview is kind of attacking front foot, controlling things. None of the things that he's seeing in front of him, he probably has already come to the conclusion that Wagner is not his man. But
00:03:31
Speaker
This is always that we've had these discussions when we've been talking about Daniel Farker, Dean Smith at the end of his tenure, and now we're having it about David Wagner. I don't think an excuse for not firing a manager is, well, there's no one else or we don't know who the next one is. I think you may as well just get on with it. But I think that's probably where the club are, is that they know that this is going to end and it's going to end soon.
00:03:54
Speaker
It might end at Portman Road, for all we know, which is going to be laughable, really, if it drags on that long. But I think that's what he's trying to do. He's trying to understand exactly what the issues and the problems are and what needs fixing because then he's going to need to take an informed view as to what the next head coach looks like. And when he or she comes in, that's going to be part of the briefing. That's going to be part of the interview process. He's going to want to get assurances that
00:04:24
Speaker
that person can take the club forward in a way that will address those concerns now so i get the logic of that but at the same time.
00:04:35
Speaker
He could kind of do that through fact finding. He could kind of do that through speaking to senior staff in the club. If he got rid of the head coach, all of the staff that remain, he could have conversations with them, with the playing staff. So I don't like this inertia. I don't think it's particularly helpful for anyone. And I think the fact that the fan base are
00:04:58
Speaker
almost completely disengaged now does not help Nappa and he needs to get people on board pretty quickly. So I re-watched the Nappa video last night because having watched sounds like I was sort of
Playing Style and Tactical Failures
00:05:18
Speaker
engaged in it. Having had the game of football on the screen in front of me in the same room that I was in,
00:05:24
Speaker
I just sort of, I wanted to go back to that interview again and just go, what was it he asked for again? You know, with a really recent Norwich performance and I used that word very loosely. So I pick up on that specific point, you know, you want to control the ball. From the 12th minute, it was 71% position, 71 to 29 from basically the second goal onwards.
00:05:48
Speaker
I mean, you almost have to try and give the ball away. And I raised this with Wagner earlier in the season. Last night was the nadir, the absolute perfect pinnacle of
00:06:07
Speaker
Wagner's set up from restarts involves the wingers being on the halfway line and they are not allowed to come towards the fullbacks. That's clearly not allowed because it is every single restart. So clearly that is a thing.
00:06:23
Speaker
O'Neal stands on one wing and either Johnny Rowe or unfortunately recently Fastenakt, he's really out of form, stands on the other wing. I'd rather have Fastenakt than O'Neal. Let's just be very clear about that a minute. Last night it was O'Neal and Fastenakt. And the ball comes out into one of the centre backs. More often than not, it will go to Gibson or
00:06:45
Speaker
Bart, because they're happier receiving the ball than Duffield and both Long and Gunn seem to be more comfortable going left than right to either Gibson or Danny Bart, so great, which means it tends to end up with Dimme. Dimme then will invariably try and beat the midfielder that's closing him down or the front man that's trying to close him down, which will either just about work
00:07:10
Speaker
and mean he has to play an under pressure pass himself up to O'Neal or he will do well and create enough space by dropping a shoulder or something to then bend a ball up the line to O'Neal. O'Neal then tries to drop a shoulder or flick the ball around the corner or try something or
00:07:27
Speaker
try and outmuscle the fullback up his ass to try and kind of shield the ball and then hope that he can play into Sarra or play into McLean. This happens every single restart. It happens about 17 to 25 times a game, right? And it so invariably fails and we give the ball away and I cannot understand how
00:07:51
Speaker
any coach of any ability from under sevens Saturday up to, you know, division three Sunday clogger level, like any coach that sees that over the course of what August to nearly the start of December.
00:08:07
Speaker
looks at that and goes, we're rubbish at playing out from goal kicks because it keeps not working. Now, once in 20, O'Neal spins his man and manages to bundle past and then an attack comes from it. And every now and again, the ball goes out to Stacey and Stacey tends to progress the play slightly more effectively than you knew this.
00:08:26
Speaker
but still it's not that that often. I cannot understand this this this demented idea that we have to stick with these wingers right on the very very halfway line because that's our shape and that's how we play and even when Dimmy's in trouble or Stacey's in trouble that they don't come to their age like oh no I've been coached I have to stand on the halfway line and we are so rigid in uh in the way that we play
00:08:48
Speaker
And that so when you look at last night you look at how badly we looked after the ball you look how badly we were creating chances we we were just looking the ball long again and again and again and again and every now and again sarah knocks the ball long for something like the harangol on sat day.
00:09:05
Speaker
and it looks great every now and again Kenny plays a really nice long ball but even the two of them last night they
Impact of Coaching on Player Confidence
00:09:12
Speaker
started to look less like because when those two play long passes they look like long passes because they both got great ability with long passes.
00:09:21
Speaker
Last night was the first time that, and so I thought Sarah was poor on Saturday, but I thought that, and Kenny was slightly better, last night was the first time in the Wagner era, putting Plymouth aside where everyone had a brain fart,
00:09:40
Speaker
where both of our two lads in the middle, both looked like they were just like, oh, there's no options. There's no one around me. I'm just going to taunt this. Like they look like they broke. He's broken both. And I and Gabby got two assists, you know, in terms of like stats. But we all know what a good Gabby Sara game is. And it's almost like you've even broken Gabby now.
00:10:01
Speaker
Like even Sara isn't playing to his ability. Even though he's so good that even in this team, he's still leading the four divisions in assists. That's how good he is. It's him or nothing. And then you go, you look back, obviously there was the bonkers after match, post-match.
00:10:19
Speaker
interview. He also mentioned he bought Gibbs on, you know, because he's good at turning or something. And it's like, right, OK. But you've got Nunes and you've got other options that you turn to later. O'Neal plays so many minutes. And, you know, it's great that he went to Argos once and I'm over the moon. He's got a Norris City tattoo. And yes, he does seem to really get the club. And yeah, fantastic. I'm glad he's got 30 subs on his YouTube page. Great. He seems a great person to have in a championship squad. You know, absolutely brilliant. But is he a great
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah, he's a great bloke, but he'll be a brilliant club ambassador. But you tell me what he has done over the last two seasons. Apart from last two seasons, he had no two seasons is too far, like he was friendly and influencers and and, you know, kind of having his own YouTube channel and, you know, all the rest of them on the pitch.
00:11:10
Speaker
No, that's not that's not quite true. I think there's he is he is in a bad run form and he is not good enough to routinely start games in the championship. Right. Yeah, right. He is. I do think that he is definitely good enough to be a fringy 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there player start a couple of games every now and again because of resting players and we're playing a team we're expected to win. I do think he has got that ability in the championship, definitely, because we have seen
00:11:39
Speaker
75 to 90 minute cameos from him where we might be a goal up and it's got a bit stayed and he comes on and he gets everyone on his feet and his end product is invariably shit. His energy is brilliant. His energy is absolutely brilliant. It is and he is very strong and every now and again he does like he does do slightly odd things which you wouldn't expect people to do and that can help when a game has sort of you've played the first 65 minutes and we sort of got to stalemate so you want to change things. I do think that is good. The problem is when you're relying on him
00:12:08
Speaker
for 90 minutes, and I know Bohetta's not out because he's dropped something on his foot. You know, what a season this is for things like that. You know, it's like they say, it was a private, like it was a private incident, not at the training ground, as if to say, we're not stupid enough to let players drop things on their feet at Colney. Everything at Colney is soft. So if we drop it on their feet, it doesn't hurt. You know, anyway, it does seem like a donut to bless him.
00:12:37
Speaker
But if there is decision after decision, comment after comment, that we are now experiencing, I think, what happens when you go past the point where they really should have gone a couple of weeks ago. We're now at the point where this guy should have gone a couple of months ago.
00:12:55
Speaker
I'm almost now intrigued to see how bizarre are the team selections, how bizarre are the comments coming. Do you think there's any chance that Napa has said we're going to give him, we're going to try and grit our teeth and give him until Sargent is back?
00:13:10
Speaker
Oh God, you'd hope not, wouldn't you? Because Sargent isn't going to be the silver bullet that fixes this. There's absolutely zero chance that Sargent comes in and then suddenly we look like a, you know, I know we've said it in this podcast before that, you know, I think you would probably review that, well, all right, we'll look like top five side again.
00:13:29
Speaker
We've gone too far beyond that now. I could see the logic in that argument when you were making it, but right now our team are so bereft of confidence. That is a real massive problem.
00:13:44
Speaker
I think, as I say, I hope the logic with Napa is just, right, I need to take a properly good look at this before I make my call. And we know how the club operates. This is Ben Napper's call. This isn't a board decision. This is absolutely, we trust you to come in and to run the sporting side of this football club. So this is your decision and your decision alone and pretty much
Recruitment Strategy and Aging Team
00:14:07
Speaker
whatever he takes to the board to be ratified. As Stuart Weber did before him,
00:14:12
Speaker
they will back him because actually that's that's a positive I think that's a definite positive of our board that they will allow the people they employ to be football experts to use their football expertise to run a football club.
00:14:26
Speaker
Brilliant. But he cannot dither with this. There's absolutely no way that he can carry on. And if we are without a new head coach for Ipswich, I mean, I know they've had an iffy result recently, but they will hammer us. They will absolutely hammer us. This is Watford that we were playing last night. Did they look like a good side? Absolutely not. Did they look like they had a little bit of individual quality? Yes. But I mean, I'd seen Watford fans before the game.
00:14:56
Speaker
You know pretty much slay in Jamal Lewis and saying you know this isn't who we thought we signed he was brilliant last night He made us look absolutely daft for probably 75 minutes So yeah, I just don't know that we are in the in the realms of you know this is even the only managerial
00:15:16
Speaker
Sakim that I can think that has been more protracted than this would have been Nigel Worthington. And I think the only reason that it went on so long with Nigel Worthington is he had so much credit in the bank from a playoff final and, you know, a championship winning campaign that he just got way longer than anybody thought he should have done. Wagner now is getting into that territory where, you know, do we need Danny Bart to rugby tackle someone in front of the Barkley before, you know, this becomes, you know,
00:15:47
Speaker
I don't know. I haven't got the words anymore to describe how the club aren't seriously contemplating getting rid of him. They must be. They must be because otherwise they wouldn't have been comments sort of showing the support. I mean, again, rewatching that Napa thing last night, straight after the game, he mentioned, you know, I've already had positive conversation with David. He mentioned that three or four times.
00:16:15
Speaker
In a way, that brings me confidence that the fact he felt he had to labor how positive his conversations were was like, I'm deflecting the fact that I'm not about to sack him suggests that if he feels that it's so obvious that he should be second and that he needs to keep telling us he's not going to because he's had positive conversations, then maybe in his head, it's more about timing, optics, who's available, you know, all the stars align in our backup plan. You know, there's a couple of rumors about maybe people in the background staff being interested in roles elsewhere. But in terms of him being really into his analysis and his data,
00:16:45
Speaker
you know ncfc numbers obviously does a phenomenal job and at the moment it's i mean this is like man from heaven for ncfc numbers so you know between norridge city second goal in the 12th minute and the end of the first half the canaries had 22 possession and completed a total of 44 passes in 37 minutes roughly one every 50 seconds
00:17:07
Speaker
I mean, one pass a minute, you know, is unreal. And then Connor this morning, a little while ago, that they had 21 shots to hour two, between minutes 28 and 81. So kind of between, you know, between our second goal and their third, they had 21 shots, 21 shots of which, by the way, the XG adds up if you add them two together to 0.1.
00:17:38
Speaker
So like, it's not even like we had two clear cut chances when they were picking up the line. Like Ida and Gabi between them managed to muster a one in ten chance of scoring between them if you add them up. Like, you know, and I'm not an ex G dickhead, but you know what I mean? Like it's, if he's a stats guy, if he's a numbers nerd,
00:17:56
Speaker
If he if he's old school, he talked about, you know, he says he's a football purist. I mean, I rang so both my I'm in a situation at the moment where I'm having to relay kind of match reports to elderly people who I used to go to football with. And and I spoke to both of them on the walk back to the car and then the drive home on Saturday. And I said to both of them, yes, we won, but we were absolutely dreadful.
00:18:24
Speaker
You know, and they both sort of laughed and I said, no, really, we were dreadful. I mean, that is, Saturday's game was up there with the worst Norwich have played and, uh, and one. Now it was a great, it was a great ball from Gabby. It was a really good finish from Huang, like really clinical, right? Fantastic.
00:18:48
Speaker
there was a little bit of huff and puff here and there, but generally, if it wasn't for QPR's utter incompetence, didn't they score four last night? Which I'd be worried about. Which, I mean, yeah, and if you're stoked and you've seen that and you've done your kind of homework, I mean, it's a completely different QPR side that must have turned up, and probably not in personnel, because the coach was quite happy with the way in which they played. But even then,
00:19:14
Speaker
They still conjured up, I think it might have been Lyndon Dykes that had a header that flash wide, and then they had the chance at the end where, I mean, how he's not hitting the target and, you know, and testing long. I don't know. And let's be frank, based on last night, if you test long, you've probably got a fair chance of it going in, you know, or at least being skilled somewhere. One thing that really annoyed me about the game and actually
00:19:39
Speaker
So I had the opportunity to go. I was planning on going last night and then I had a late work meeting go in with someone in Australia who's hours and hours and hours ahead. So therefore I said, yeah, okay, I don't mind doing it. And it meant I didn't go. So I watched the majority of the game on television and their winning goal
00:20:01
Speaker
It really annoyed me how the commentators said, that is incredible thinking. There's very few players in the championship that would think to have those amazing quick feet. No, no. What happened was Long threw himself at the player and committed so
00:20:19
Speaker
Over dramatically, it's like I'm gonna spread myself so wide and he committed to it so quickly that in honestly I am proper clogger level at football. I Would have done exactly what the Watford play because in real time as he did it I thought he's gonna trap that and then just roll it in He did more with his feet than he needed to you could have just trapped it waited for long to whiz past him on whatever kind of
00:20:43
Speaker
I don't know. I haven't got the words anyway. So I watched it on telly. Got annoyed by that. Got quite annoyed. I got quite shouted. I feel quite broken by how bad my love for Norwich, as yours have, has taken a real test this season. But last night I was angry with just how poor
00:21:06
Speaker
good players are because I see a lot of the tweets and the social media gump for rounds where we should hang his head in shame and we're supposed to bring experience and this squad is awful and these players are awful and this line up is a disgrace.
00:21:22
Speaker
Look, I honestly do still think that having seen what I've seen, having seen the likes of Watford, the likes of QPR, the fact that a team that can play as badly as QPR can beat a team like Stoke with four or whatever, there's a lot of drops in this league.
00:21:39
Speaker
If we have a fully fit squad or a nearly fully fit squad, this is easily a good enough team to be challenging in the top eight. I have no doubt about that because I've seen it with my own
Fan Dissatisfaction and Communication Issues
00:21:48
Speaker
eyes through the course of this season in patches. And the idea of coaching is to find those patches and go, right, what worked? Let's recreate those opportunities for Johnny to shine. Let's recreate those opportunities for Nunes to be magic or for Gabby to be on the ball far further forward of the pitch.
00:22:06
Speaker
Let's play in more as a 10. Let's be dynamic and try, let's try, if Gibbs is brilliant at turning, let's bring Gibbs in alongside McLean. Let's bring Gibbs in alongside McLean so that we can push Gabby further forward, or try different things. And he doesn't do it. So actually last night I got quite shouty and sweary at the telly and started shouting at our players, which is obviously ridiculous because they're in Watford and I'm in my house.
00:22:30
Speaker
to the extent that my wife, bless her, said, I'm really sorry, Noej, for being so rubbish this season. And Joey does not care about football in these lighters, does not care, but appreciates that for better or worse, it is something that affects my mood. And generally, I don't get like that. I tend to just be very happy after a win. And if we lose, it hurts for a bit, but I'm normally fine by the time we get home. But I've just got to the point where I just think,
00:22:55
Speaker
Gabby is not someone who should be banging long balls forward. I'm McLean's biggest fan. He is playing shit long balls forward. We've got Stacey and Yanoulis who are really, really, really good second flight fullbacks. I know this. I've seen them do it at this level and be brilliant. You know, you've got fantastic players here and they're playing shit. And that's cannot...
00:23:20
Speaker
you get you everyone has dips in form sometimes you get unlucky and you have several players having a dip at form at once the thing that makes me so angry about him still being still being here is um that confidence you mention around sergeant coming back and row coming back and it all being better you're completely right the the problem is the the players that are that need to be playing eight out of ten nine out of ten in order for them to be some of the better players in this division
00:23:45
Speaker
I currently have the confidence that they can only give a performance of four or five because they're scared to play progressively. They're scared to play through the lines and they end up resorting to long balls. And that's what he has done. He hasn't given them the options. He hasn't coached them in a way that gives them the confidence to play in that way.
00:24:00
Speaker
And the post-match discussion on Saturday after we won, he said all of a sudden, well, actually, we've talked about the fact that we might not need to be so entertaining. Let's have it right. The only reason we won on Saturday was because QPR couldn't finish their dinner. We sat back and it's not like we nullified them and we totally controlled the ball and we didn't take risks. We took loads of risks. They didn't take them.
00:24:28
Speaker
Fed up mate, absolutely fed up. Why is he still here? You got a title of your podcast mate.
00:24:37
Speaker
I'm not so sure about the point you're making that our players are fantastic and I will back that up with I think we have some fantastic players. I think we have a massively unbalanced team or squad that we can't really get into a cohesive starting 11.
00:24:59
Speaker
And I think that's that's been the problem for quite some time. But actually, the summer's recruitment just seemed to me like the summer's recruitment said to me, why the fuck have we got a recruitment team? Because you signed a goalkeeper on the new goalkeeper coaches saying say so. Oh, he's quite good. Go and get him. Well, turns out he's bollocks.
00:25:19
Speaker
We've got Ashley Barnes, who signed because he's a good lad. You know, we've got Shane Duffy, who signed because he's a good lad. You've got Huang, who signed because we're desperate. And actually let's go back to that as well in terms of the no dickheads tests. We've now got two lads playing up from one of which is a convicted drink driver. Another one of which is an alleged sexual predator, or at least, you know, kind of is a little bit iffy with his camera phone.
00:25:45
Speaker
like, I just don't there's a big gap between predator and if you would, yeah, maybe he's somewhere in the middle. I don't really want to put my name to that. I said alleged, you know, I have no idea the truth of that matter. But actually, Norwich knew both of these things when they signed those footballers. Norwich aren't really doing their due diligence anymore. And we're signing lads that, you know, are
00:26:08
Speaker
pretty much exclusively, with the exception of Boyo Science, over the age of 30 or getting very close to 30. There was stats going around at the weekend. The QPR lineup was the oldest Norwich City lineup in terms of average age that we'd put out forever, maybe, which is- 29 and a half or something. Bonkers, yeah. Well, I think it's actually over 30. I think if you look at the average and you add the months into it, so rather than just going, oh, he's 29, he's 30,
00:26:38
Speaker
If you said he's 30 and a half and he's, you know, 29 and a half, actually it takes you to an over an average age of 30 years old. This was according to NCFC numbers on, on the excellent, on the ball. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, but it just.
00:26:55
Speaker
It strikes fear into me that the one thing that Norwich City had throughout all of this, when things were going tits up under Farka, is it felt like we had a plan. Even under Dean Smith, I could kind of go, all right, you've pivoted. You've pivoted to a style of football that to me is completely unpalatable, but I kind of know why you did it and I know why you've been reaching for this.
00:27:20
Speaker
I just don't know what the plan is anymore. And that's where I want Ben Napper to have a look at this football club. He, you know, he has had an opportunity to have a look at it now. And he's been looking from the outside in for some time as well, since he's known that he's got this job. I just want him to grab it and to give us a plan again and to communicate that. And I think that might be something that comes up at this week's AGM quite heavily. Well, it's got to say, what's the plan? And that's there. You'd have thought that we'll be at the top table.
00:27:50
Speaker
that there will be serious questions asked to them, even though it isn't the media offering that scrutiny. Actually, there are some shareholders. Yeah, I have no idea to be fair. But you know, even if they're not that they're not going to be there to ask questions, are they? It's going to be the shareholders that will be doing that. And it won't be questions about the sausage rolls. And actually, when can we have I don't know, the drum back or whatever it might be. It will be serious questions that will be asked to the upper echelons of the management team or the board at this football club. And
00:28:20
Speaker
they have got some convincing to do, because no one knows what the plan is anymore. And that has actually stemmed back, I think, quite a long way, to the football club's failure to communicate properly with supporters. So we don't know what's going on anymore. And that was throughout everything that was good. And even the stuff that preceded what was good under Daniel Farka, we were spoken to like adults, we were part of the conversation.
00:28:46
Speaker
You know, it felt like, you know, Stuart Weber said it himself. Sometimes you might not like the decisions that we take, but we'll tell you why. I've got no idea why they're making half of these decisions now. And that's really poor. They can say, well, there's a fans forum and Neil Adams said, are we going to think around the edges? I mean, that as well worries me. I just, it just feels that there's a real air of
00:29:10
Speaker
hopelessness around the situation as it stands and it needs someone to grab it and to drive it. And that man can be Ben Napper and no one else as far as I'm concerned. And a new manager. I mean, I think... Yes, yeah. I think the...
00:29:25
Speaker
After whatever, 15 minutes last night, we were, as the result stood, we were four points off the playoffs. So we've still got a huge chunk of the season left. And obviously now we are six points or seven points off the playoffs.
00:29:44
Speaker
But, you know, therefore you think, well, the way things come, ebb and flow, we could easily be within two results of the playoffs again, within a couple of weeks, you know, of us like, don't do that again, mate. Let's not do that. It's toasted it. No, it's not. It isn't. And this is the point when it comes to who you're going to bring into replace.
Attractiveness to Potential Managers
00:30:04
Speaker
When you look at the, when you look at, it's really easy to be reactionist and it's really easy to get into a negative spiral. But when you look at our squad versus the other squads in the championship, when you look at the facilities at colony, when you look at the infrastructure from a data analysis point of view, when you look at the fact that if you were able to get a new manager bounce and win four and six, you're going to be a couple of results at the playoffs at worst.
00:30:30
Speaker
It means that actually it isn't we're not on a slide keep at the bottom of lead to trying to get a manager you know we genuinely do have if you do have some parts that with nappa saying look i'm a new broom and things gonna be different and this is my vision.
00:30:47
Speaker
I do think that we are an attractive offering as a club to a manager who is looking to, you know, like a Farka, where he was in his career, who is looking to put down roots for three or four years and go on a bit of a journey. I agree with that. And I think if they're told that as long as their football resembles the plan that is being broadcast, they've got a year and a half,
00:31:10
Speaker
you should mean. Basically, there's no way they can, there's no way you, I know you think that, but statistically and from a points point of view, it isn't. Like we're not even. Oh yeah. Anything's possible. We could go and win our 28 remaining games or however many and then win the league. But we don't even know, but the point is with this league,
00:31:29
Speaker
We don't need to be in championship form to get in the playoffs. We don't. Because the fact that we have been as shit as we have been with results as bad as we have been, and for a third of last night's game, we were a win and a draw for the playoffs. And then I think we went slightly down. But the point is we were within two results of the playoffs. And I know there's teams in between it. But when there are so many months of the season left and you're only three results away,
00:31:59
Speaker
You haven't even got to make up one result a month. At that point, any man... No, I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm not saying it's likely to happen. I'm just saying if you are a manager who has got the self-belief that you can get a lot out of a team because otherwise you're not a manager, if you're a coach who thinks that they can get the best out of players,
00:32:17
Speaker
there are so many jobs that are less attractive than the Norwich job that are going to come up as available throughout the championship because of because of this facilities because of the squad and yes they are aging yes they are unbalanced but when on their day when they are being coached well when in the start of the season we saw them playing with confidence
00:32:37
Speaker
maybe because they're unbeaten through preseason or whatever. You can make an argument for there being injuries allowing a really strong matchday squad that you can cobble together and feel like if you had them playing your way as the new manager who believes in themselves,
00:32:53
Speaker
There's no reason you can't make up one result per month between now and the end of the season and finish sixth, which is all you've got to do to get into the results. And also, if you've got from Nappa in the board, look, we think it's a long shot to turn this around because we also want you to really invest in. You might take your two months to get the way that we want to play reprogrammed into these players, right?
00:33:14
Speaker
So this season, we're going to say to everyone, we're still gunning for the playoffs. However, between us and you, if we show progress and we show progression and we finish ninth, that's okay. You're not going to, you know, we accept that. We'd all be happy with that as supporters. A hundred percent. But because the point is the likelihood is as long as they change Wagner and as long as they don't get an absolute another shed load of injuries in the new year,
00:33:44
Speaker
It's probably going to be similar to last year in that until only three or four games left to the season, it will be mathematically possible, even though just like last year, we decided it wasn't going to happen way before it was mathematically impossible because you could just tell. But the point is, it's likely to be that because this season, the league has already shown itself to have a couple of strong teams, a couple of teams who are normally strong but can have absolute off days.
00:34:09
Speaker
And then effectively everyone else is an absolute clown car. So, you know, I think what I want to get to is that corner flag graphic. I sit down with Nappa who says, this is what we're looking for in the new search. And then
00:34:27
Speaker
a time to just take stock and just say, look, we're going to give it everything to go up this season. However, the most important thing is two, three months of progressively seeing a team that's coming together and taking a new shape. Let's take some listening questions. We've got lots of them today. It feels like, well, okay, I will start with
00:34:48
Speaker
a good friend, Matthew McGregor, because he puts it in a, in a way which isn't so essentially, I'll put it out there. We've had quite a lot of questions which are pointing fingers at the ownership. And not necessarily ones that
00:35:04
Speaker
are sentiments that I'd agree with, and we can maybe get into those if we want. But he starts off saying, given everyone knows they're queuing down Carrow Road to bias, which extremely rich billionaire would you pick to magically solve our problems? And then someone comes back to him with, I'm going to start calling Elon Musk on on Twitter slash x slash whatever you want to call it. But it kind of cuts to the quicker it is that as a club,
00:35:29
Speaker
We have chosen, and that has been a conscious choice, that has been communicated to us at least, we have chosen the Atanasios, and there seems to be a three-year plan, although if you listen to different sides of this, it might be quicker than three years, I guess, that the Atanasios will look at taking over the football club pretty much in full fairly soon over the next few seasons. But they're not going to divert from the kind of
00:35:59
Speaker
self-sufficient, efficient business model.
Financial Missteps and Recruitment Failures
00:36:04
Speaker
Infrastructure first. Let's be frank, everyone can go, it's Delia's fault, or it's Delia and Michael's fault, or the board should assign him, or the board should do X, or sack the board, or all of those kinds of things.
00:36:19
Speaker
If we rewind three years, is it three years, however long it is, since, you know, we just, we'd won the league, COVID times and absolute cancer, as far as I'm concerned, we were probably in rude financial health. Like, you know, absolutely we paid off our debts. We'd got promoted to the premier league again. You know, everything was going to be brilliant forever and ever, as Jez from Peep Show might say.
00:36:45
Speaker
At that point, we were held up as the absolute example to every other football club in English football, as this is what you should be aspiring to, unless you have a Saudi Arabia or whoever behind you. You know, this is the way that you should do things. And Stuart Weber is the best thing since sliced bread. And, you know, look, it turns out that Daniel Farker was probably the best thing since sliced bread. And maybe, you know, Stuart Weber was doing lots of good things, but might have been doing some bad things as well.
00:37:14
Speaker
We must have financially been in a really good position at that point. I don't think anyone's denying that. Now, what has transpired since is a massively chaotic and poor decision making process, which has led to us spending 52 grand average, 52 grand a week average salary, like last time we were in the Premier League.
00:37:38
Speaker
It's led to us waxing 10 million pounds on Greek imports that, you know, have, you know, we all thought were going to be brilliant on the face of things. Cause we all love like a sexy foreign signing, but at the same time, I had no pedigree in any kind of, you know, top top five league in the world or in Europe.
00:37:57
Speaker
You know, we'd signed the likes of Mila Rashidza, who clearly didn't fit and didn't really want to be here. Josh Sargent, who wasn't ready for the Premier League. You know, we spent big money and then, you know, Billy Gilmore and Ozanker back, but lots of high profile players.
00:38:11
Speaker
that we have just thrown so much money at in terms of the wage bill. But I just think this isn't around the fact that, oh, look, we haven't got enough money. Norwich have spent more money than so many clubs that are our counterparts and have underperformed compared to them over the last
00:38:31
Speaker
two or three years. This isn't about money. This is about getting back to operating a football club in the way that football clubs should be operated and spending the finite money that we have in a really clever way. And we did that for a little bit and then we stopped doing it and it's why it's all gone to shit. And I know it's not as binary as that, but that's where it comes back to for me.
00:38:53
Speaker
What it feels like from a binary point of view is Webber and Farka between them and between their networks and maybe with a bit of analysis and a bit of coaching for people like Emmy, did it exactly the right way, got lucky with people like Stiepermann and Vrancic and people like that who were probably two out of 10 chances of working and ended up working.
00:39:13
Speaker
And they basically bought themselves the opportunity to do, to establish themselves. And as Weber has said, and I did support him at the time saying it, we were spending new money, we were nouveau riche in a way. We were spending new money that we'd just acquired, and we probably needed all but one. We could maybe have afforded one. We needed almost every transfer to work.
00:39:38
Speaker
when we when we afforded ourselves that money in order to get new money after it from having two three years in the Premier League and then we could afford to like settle down and not have to go spend big all the time but but you know effectively we could be more confident that more money was coming in to replace it.
00:39:53
Speaker
And I feel like what happened was that those two men and the team around them created an opportunity at the club. And those two men, and we'll never probably find out exactly who had more say over which transfer, although the assumption is it's more Weber, they fucked it. We basically create an opportunity to become a Premier League club, to match our veg garden and our infrastructure. And we just signed the wrong lads. And because of it,
00:40:21
Speaker
you know, that we are where we are. I'm ready to go on another journey and start again with someone else. I think we... If they get the coaching appointment right, I still think we're starting from a better position, playing squad, than Farka started with, because Farka had a right hold. Like, we think back now on some of the players that Farka ended up
00:40:49
Speaker
winning the league with more fondly because of what they went on to. Farka basically had Madison and a kid called Max Ahrens and like a bunch of kind of misfits that we weren't very enamored with, like it was felt very end of cycle, like we'd gone through a bit of a wilderness time.
00:41:10
Speaker
and like they went on to do brilliant things but at the time we were like don't like this squad much and madison's gonna go and i feel like there is more for a potential you know we know roe can be brilliant we know sergeant can be brilliant i personally think barnes has been a really good signing we've been really unfortunate with the injuries and i think he is the best of him is brought out by sergeant who is let's have it right so much better than either i
00:41:36
Speaker
I hate getting on the younger players backs. That Eder contract extension seems utterly baffling to me. Like every time I see him play, I just think five years based on what? Yeah, like three doing. I've never seen him score a good goal. I've never seen him score a good goal. I've seen him. I don't know. I don't think that's fair at all. I think I think in his first in his first hat trick for Norwich, I think he scored a couple of good goals. I don't know. Come on. That was five years ago.
00:42:02
Speaker
You can't say you've never seen him score a good goal, and then I'll give you two examples. I mean, in his fully fledged, we expect you to be a grown-up striker now. He's scoring goals for Ireland, yet he doesn't run past people, he doesn't hold the ball up.
00:42:19
Speaker
You know, he doesn't, he's a confident, he's a confidence player. So I can't remember which game it was that he came on and influenced. And then there's a game that he started quite recently at home. And I thought he was, he was really, really good. And probably for me pushed for, for man of the match. I want him, I want him to be home grown one or rather come through the Academy or young player. I'd much rather him be vital to our team than Barnes or to be honest, Sergeant, but he's so far below those two. He's right now. Yeah, you're probably right. But I think.
00:42:49
Speaker
We've killed him in terms of, and I've said this so many times on this podcast, we've killed him in terms of his development and his pathways. I think Wagner is killing him a little bit in terms of just not injecting any confidence into the lad. The lad himself says he's a confidence player and sometimes he has to almost get in-game confidence. So there's something, there's a player in him to unlock that I just don't think we're doing. We do it particularly wisely. A question that I'd like to ask you, this isn't from a listener.
00:43:18
Speaker
but just I think it's an interesting one to debate.
Selling Key Players for Financial Relief
00:43:23
Speaker
January, Premier League club comes in and tempts us with 20 million quid for Gabby Sauer or 17 million quid for Jonathan Rowe. What do you do? I think you probably have to take it because of the finances of the club. I don't think you can risk
00:43:44
Speaker
a dip in form, like you risk a Cantwell situation where we could have got big money for him. And a lot of that was COVID related that it never actually materialized. It was a slow market when he's probably, you know, when he had performed really well in Premier League games.
00:44:02
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, it would be such a shame because whoever the new manager is, as I've said, you know, in the last few minutes, if you've got Gabby and you've got Sarah and you've got, sorry, you've got Gabby Sarah and you've got Johnny Rowe and you've got Sargent, you know, you've got some pieces to work with there. You know, you take one of those out. We've seen what it's like when one of those three isn't playing. It's rough.
00:44:30
Speaker
So but i cannot see how you look at the finances we are in such a hole i cannot see how we can turn it down because one of them could break their leg one of them could take a dip in form.
00:44:41
Speaker
we could get relegated, all sorts of things could happen and all of a sudden we end up getting a penny in the pound for them in another 18 months time. We sold really high with the Murphy's, we sold really high on Jamal Lewis. Sometimes the first big window where they are playing at their best they've ever played
00:45:04
Speaker
I mean, it might be the ceiling. You know, Johnny Rome might never be this good again. You know, I hope, I hope he plays for Norwich for 10 years and takes us into Premier League, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, that's, that's the difference. You either have a Murphy situation or you have a campbell situation where we didn't sell high and then we regretted it.
00:45:21
Speaker
And that's where I think Stuart Webber was absolutely brilliant in terms of extracting value from players and knowing what Molly Watkins, one million pounds, you know, what's the fuck? But again, you know, he he did with the exception probably of Max and Todd. He picked the right times to sell players. I think he tried to sell. I think he tried to sell.
00:45:43
Speaker
Yeah. And also I don't, I, come on, Max, that, I think Max, that was a good deal, you know, cause snake, but I, but I think that there were, there were probably offers in for him before that we could have taken, um, the Todd star. Well, now clearly Todd, you know, he's off to buy a Munich, apparently according to Todd, wasn't he? But.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure that happened. Shall we have another question? Yes, please. Chris Lacey, and I think this gets to the point around renewals. How long is too long watching the club stagnant while paying ยฃ500 a year for the pleasure? I wish Mum was only ยฃ500. He says ยฃ500 plus.
00:46:20
Speaker
But I guess that, you know, look, I think the cheapest adult season ticket is, what, about five fifty at the moment. If you look at some of the notes from a recent supporters panel meeting, their clubs seem to be floating. So what if we put a percentile increase on that? I think the discussion was about three percent. So, all right, fifteen quid, not well, probably 17 quid, something along those lines. It's not loads of money. It's probably one pound fifty a month on your direct debit. If that's how you choose to pay.
00:46:49
Speaker
But again, it's the optics around. Norwich are already the most expensive season ticket in the league by a fair stretch, I think, as I understand it. And are we getting as supporters, are we getting value for money in terms of the product on the pitch? You can argue quite legitimately, not really at the moment. So I think it might be, I think people would wear it, but I can see why other people would be
00:47:14
Speaker
reticent to renew. And I think this might be one of those seasons that you might see a couple of thousand season ticket holders just drop off because you look around Carrow Road at the moment and there are lots of
Value for Money: Ticket Prices vs. Performance
00:47:26
Speaker
empty seats, aren't there? I'll tell you what, it's a lot better than Watford though. I mean, that was, I mean, that is embarrassing. It is embarrassing how, I mean, I know they haven't been growing particularly well, but
00:47:35
Speaker
You know, again, it's another thing that I think makes us an attractive club to manage or to be involved in is us mugs. You know, it's 25,000. I know we have to take that with a slight pinch of salt, but looking around, it didn't look that much less than 25,000 on Saturday. It was, you know, yeah. Okay. We, we, we won just before international break, but we, it wasn't exactly like we were all expecting to, to steamroll a QQ PPR. Most people turned up and there were still shouts that we weren't working around even after they won. So.
00:48:04
Speaker
The point is really, I didn't hear any of those. Yeah, no, it wasn't it wasn't loud, but there was some. It was because the arch and lads picked up and I mean, they sit over near snakebit, don't they? So OK. Well, yeah. But yeah, I mean, effectively it is it is a fantastic fan base and there is but everyone's got the limit. There's only so far. And we know from our ages we supported the club during the post Europe days when
00:48:29
Speaker
you know, there was plenty of empty seats, because it was very difficult to get up past the kind of 16 17,000 mark, even for the bigger games, because we'd had years in a row of watching bad football and not expecting to really go up or, you know, whatever. So it is, once you lose them, once they get out of the muscle memory of I do this on a Saturday, and then I meet these boys in a pub, and then I go here and whatever, and
00:48:53
Speaker
Or, you know, once that becomes, once you get the hang of having Saturdays back, home Saturdays back, you might like it and you might go, do you know what, actually? So I don't know. I would expect there to be a price increase and I would expect there to be a backlash and I'd expect that there's probably enough people.
00:49:14
Speaker
that still want to get a ticket that they will sell out despite it. But I think that you're right that there'll probably be one or two thousand change over. Yeah, I don't know if there will be enough on the waiting list this time. I wonder whether we will sell our acquire of season tickets. Right. Next up, this I mean, this is probably tongue firmly in cheek and directed at you,
Evaluating Kenny McLean's Leadership Role
00:49:34
Speaker
Mr. Parsley. But it's from Adam Brandon who says, hi, Adam. Is it time to give Kenny McLean a new contract? His leadership has really shown through another difficult period.
00:49:42
Speaker
Well, I think that from in terms of if you're going to rate players and performances this season, he's not going to be outside the top five cumulatively. I mean, in terms of how often he's played.
00:49:58
Speaker
And in terms of the number of mistakes he has made that directly lead to goals, the number of chances he's created by progressing to play and how little good football has been in the bad run. It's been him or Gabby that have been mostly since the likes of Stacey dropped right off. Stacey started the season brilliantly and he's not created very much at all, bombing down the wing anymore.
00:50:17
Speaker
In my opinion, watching the games in person. I kind of get the point of Adam's question. Well, I think the point of his question might be, do you think there's something he is the captain? He is the one that actually on the pitch should be accountable. And I think maybe appointing someone like Kenny McLean as skipper
00:50:40
Speaker
is hanging him out to dry a little bit because the Kenny McLean of four or five years ago was, you know, in a in a silly hat on City Hall, you know, kind of absolutely off his face. He was the Joker in the pack. He wasn't the responsible captain type. Now, he may have matured into that and he may be in the dressing room, but he
00:50:58
Speaker
He never really strikes me as captain material. He maybe strikes me as one of the, I don't know what Dean Smith named it, like the senior leadership group or whatever. He doesn't seem to me to be the one to rally the troops. I think he will be more mature than he was.
00:51:16
Speaker
but do you think he's the kind of guy who will cajole or rally the troops or do something lads we need to get hold of this because he doesn't strike me as that type grant Hanley strikes me as that type yeah but he's injured we have yeah well yes maybe oh yeah he's injured again isn't he um but
00:51:32
Speaker
Again, is Ashley Barnes that type? Obviously, you wouldn't give him the arm band at this stage. And you start forgiving him for a mistake he made in his past. Do I say, have I forgiven him? That's none of my business. But have the club done their due diligence in terms of signing a player? I would hope so. But then when you sign two strikers where there are clearly very black marks on at least one of their records and an alleged black mark on the other lads record that we knew about,
00:52:02
Speaker
Yeah, and you know with Ashley Barnes, he has no resale value. So we are signing him purely for his leadership Personally, I think Ashley Barnes has made us better as a squad than doing if we didn't have him I don't know how much we're paying him. But but yeah, I don't think Adam's question was specifically about being captain though It was about giving him a new contract and depends should be given a new contract depends on his demands He's only just that one
00:52:28
Speaker
I don't think, unless a team comes in for him, I would imagine that he would be similar to a Johnny Howson figure, who if the team still want him, he will continue just plugging away and won't go over the top in terms of wanting it. I do not. I'll have Johnny Howson back, please, instead of Kenny. If we could swap him, that'd be lovely. I do not think Kenny is, I wouldn't have made him captain, but I completely understand why he's captain, because I really don't think you could look at, there were so many new faces.
00:52:58
Speaker
The more senior people that are more captain like were the newer faces. You know, who's he going to give it to that was here before? I mean, so I kind of get that. And likewise, maybe he gives it maybe he could have given it to Gunn, but then again, Gunn's then injured. So it would have ended up with Kenny. I mean, maybe he gives his captains. I'm not a big fan of that. Gibson's not been brilliant. Gibson's been made to like so often happens. Gibson's been made to look brilliant by what's come in to replace him.
00:53:22
Speaker
Um, the, but no, I mean, it's a, it's a bar, but me and it's a bar, but Kenny, but I thought fundamentally. In person at car road, watching the games and watching the way that he moves, watching the way he receives the ball and progresses the ball, how often he's available, whether or not he receives the ball or not, how often he's available for the ball, how often he bails out people who have played themselves into a cul-de-sac.
00:53:49
Speaker
I think if you're going to do a player of the season listings now, there's no way he'd win it. But he also, I don't think you could put more than five players ahead of him.
00:53:59
Speaker
in terms of how often has he been the reason that we've been bad? How often has he been the reason we've conceded bad goals? How often has he been below a 6 out of 10? I'd take your point in that regard. I just think, actually, he's all right. He's never going to be like, he's just fine. He's all right. Yeah, but he is fine. But the question is almost getting at the fact that, do you give someone who's just fine another contract? Well, yeah, because if he's just fine almost every single week, that is a very, very tidy thing to have in your midfield.
00:54:28
Speaker
I'm not sure he's almost every single week anymore. I think his performances are more inconsistent. I think he's more wasteful in possession. And I think that his range of passing can be very good. And some of his diagonal balls, especially because he's left footer and he's bringing Jack Stacey into play. So obviously it lends itself to the angle. Go on, let's do the exercise. I think they're really good.
00:54:50
Speaker
So so name me a midfielder apart from Gabby, who's obviously player of the season and only, you know, Roe will push him for it. And name me another person who's played anywhere near the same percentage of games that Kenny has. But there is more. There purely aren't. The purely isn't. The purely isn't there. So what are you saying? We don't give anyone another contract. We sack them all. I'm saying I think Kenny is. I think Kenny is at the best of a bad job. But that more speaks of.
00:55:19
Speaker
the failure to recruit properly. And I think that's the thing is, if Kenny is the best of a bad bunch or the second best of a bad bunch,
00:55:28
Speaker
Yeah, but they need they need to strengthen. You either give you either give Gibbs like we said earlier, you either give Gibbs a bit of a go and see if you find a shape that can help them. But Kenny and Kenny and Gabby work really well in certain types of games and they are the games where we're on top and the other games when we have the ball all the time. They work really well like that in games like last night where Watford are dominating possession and on top of us, they are not able between the two of them to coordinate a
00:55:58
Speaker
either a press from the middle or coordinate a solid defence in front of the back four. The amount of time there's just loads of space in front of the back four and it's because neither of them, that's neither of their games. We're not just asking one person to play slightly out position, we're asking two players to play positions that's not really the way they play.
00:56:17
Speaker
And that's the problem. I think that comes back to, yes, we have got some good players, but we're not deploying them in a system that suits them. And the squad slash starting 11 is massively unbalanced. That is a failure at the club. It's probably a failure of Wagner to coach them in a way that is meaningfully improve them. And I think if we continue the way we are, we will continue to fail. That probably sounds like a lovely, happy jovial point to end
Predicting Loss Against Bristol City
00:56:44
Speaker
it, doesn't it?
00:56:44
Speaker
Yeah, come on then. Let's do a prediction for our game on Saturday. Oh, fuck. Oh, Sunday, sorry. At least we get an extra day's relief. It's Bristol City, isn't it, on Sunday? So can I have a guaranteed score prediction and a guaranteed score?
00:57:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're going to lose 3-1. I think it's going to be 3-0 and then we'll get a late consolation. And I think the person that will score that will be Christian Fastenac from distance.
00:57:20
Speaker
I was with you until the distance. Yeah. I mean, going back to the recruitment point, actually, they raised on the commentary last night that he played with David Wagner at Young Boys. And so it sort of goes back to that whole thing. It's just like, do we just sign people that we know? Like, you know, do we just get in the manager that we got him at Huddersfield? That's the thing. Like, what have our recruitment team actually done, probably apart from Boyar Science in terms of identifying talent this summer?
00:57:48
Speaker
who can't get a kick like i don't know how bad he must be in between games but you know likewise i don't know how often it either is hitting the target at colney but every every time i've seen him
00:58:03
Speaker
in tiny little bursts like Cavan Cottage in the cup and even he did a really nice step over last night. Yeah, near Lisa Gordon, he tested the keeper. Yeah, yeah. Had a shot on target. But before that, he created an opportunity by doing like a little step over that, you know, our game had been completely devoid of anything doing anything like as imaginative as that. I think the thing is, if I... Why has he not been played?
00:58:25
Speaker
Yeah, and this is this is so we've come back to it, right? And actually, I think it does feel a little bit Dean Smith era now in so much as if anything is going to happen, it's going to be because of a moment of individual quality, usually from from Gabi Sara. Yeah. Boy, I sense he's one of those late lads who's got that individual quality in his boots. So, you know, if if it if it is that anyway, look, I'm preaching to convert it. Let's play him. OK, my my guarantee on Sunday is
00:58:55
Speaker
a, we can't keep getting teams on an off day. Cause we had Watford on a bit of an off day and then they woke up and we didn't. Um, so I think maybe Sunday we actually get a team who isn't on an off day at all. And it's a four nil loss. And we finally get the corner flag Sunday, Sunday tee time. And then you coach is a Norwich fan as well. So he's going to have them bang up for this.
00:59:20
Speaker
We have been riding on a wave of playing teams. We've had three teams that have not played very well against us, not taking their chances. Look at the stats that we talked about earlier in this pod. We could easily have lost 8-2 last night, and it wouldn't have flattered Watford. They completely ripped us apart. Even after not doing anything for a third of the game, they then started, and then they were just shooting on site, and we were just giving a ball back to them constantly.
00:59:49
Speaker
If Bristol City are well up for it from the start and, you know, I mean, I can't even think what's going to happen in the meantime from the Norwich camp. I can't see anything other than a 4-0 dismal defeat. And the only plus side of that is maybe we finally get the corner flag. Well, there you go. Do you think there's any chance he goes before Bristol City? No, none at all. Why is he still here? I know, mate. No, there you go.