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"Ignore The Noise" ACN Pod 117
158 Plays1 year ago
Jon, Tom & Paul discuss the good, the bad, the ugly of 2022/23 for Norwich City Football Club, and offer some thoughts on the way the sporting director handled his media day to round off a forgettable season.
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Transcript
Podcast Kickoff and Season Review
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to the Long Come Norwich podcast. We're going to go through the good, the bad, the ugly of this season and the good, bad and ugly of Weber's review of this season. Paul and John are with me for this one. Let's get after it.
Max Ehrens' Performance and Leadership
00:00:37
Speaker
John, let's start with the good. We're probably going to need quite a long time to run through this. Give me a good category entry for 2022-2023 season.
00:00:49
Speaker
I'd detect a note of sarcasm in your voice, Mr Parsley, when you say we might need a long time for this. Can I put forward Max Ehrens as a good? And I think...
00:01:01
Speaker
The reason that I raise him is I think he's been massively underrepresented in terms of just people talking about performance levels this season. He has been, along with Gabrielle Sarah, and he's got plenty of plaudits, but he has been one of the only players that one, has performed consistently and has performed consistently well, but two,
00:01:22
Speaker
has just driven us forward. So actually as an attacking outlet, he's probably one of our best. And this is in a team that all right, it hasn't scored that many goals. But you know, if you're talking about chance creation and putting things in the box, Max Ehrens has been up there.
00:01:37
Speaker
He's just, I think he needs recognition purely because look, Stuart Weber's comments have, will probably lead us to the conclusion that he is off this summer. We didn't get a proper goodbye for him. And that's completely natural, given you his contractual status and the fact that we don't know if he's going to be sold, but you know, look, from what we hear, he's going to be sold. But yeah, he's just been a fantastic servant for this football club. He's never let us down. I think he's had an excellent season. He was probably my player of the season.
00:02:07
Speaker
And yeah, he's just, attitudinally, I think he's just been superb throughout. Well, that was going to be my plus one on that, is that I think at no point this season did he look like he was happy to accept how bad it got when we were going nowhere and when things were being really slow and ponderous.
00:02:31
Speaker
He was maybe through his body language and through his demeanor. He showed on the pitch. He embodied the frustration that was in the stands. And perhaps it's maybe slightly less professional to show how annoyed you are. He's always been a bit surly though, hasn't he? He's always just been that
Tactics and Player Comparisons
00:02:54
Speaker
character type.
00:02:54
Speaker
A very quick aside, I watched a little bit, we're recording this on Tuesday, so the day after the Newcastle Leicester game, and I watched Leicester park the bus against Newcastle, and interestingly, Madison towards the latter stages, who obviously we know well, and we know his body language well, he was so frustrated at the tactics being deployed around him and how people were opting to pass sideways and backwards instead of giving him the ball,
00:03:22
Speaker
He reminded me of Max and he reminded me of Onel and a couple of the players who maybe do want to try and play progressively in that era under Dean Smith earlier in the season. Paul, give me something good.
00:03:41
Speaker
I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with Liam Gibbs. Um, if only because, um, because of the vacuum that we've had in central midfield for the last God knows how many years, I just thought the times that he played, how nice to see a central midfielder who can play in central midfield and knows what the job of a central midfielder is. And it's active at getting up and down the pitch. And, you know, I appreciate he, he was injured for a bit, you know, as is, as is the way with Norwich central midfielders.
00:04:11
Speaker
dare I say there's a bit of Ollie skip about him just in terms of wanting to make the ball work you know just wanting to do something and actually you know that thing of
00:04:23
Speaker
tackling, getting the ball and then looking up to see what he could do with it. That, you know, that, I don't know. I just found that as a novelty this season, which is sad, but good. I think you're right. I think he has been, I think he's maybe been swept up in some of the negativity. There's been around the season where if you take out of, if you put in context, actually his age and how few senior appearances he had before the start of the season,
00:04:53
Speaker
If you put, if you copied and pasted his contribution and his efforts into a season where the overall conclusion of Norwich fans was that went well, I think we would be raving about what a one for the future he is. I can't believe that we found
Fan Expectations and Team Identity
00:05:08
Speaker
an earth that was set at midfielder who, okay, isn't the finished product yet, but clearly is only a couple of years away from maybe being a nailed on central midfielder in the top six club in the championship, or maybe even could develop into someone
00:05:23
Speaker
bottom of the pen. And I think, I think that there was, you've made the Ollie skip comparison there, Paul, but I'd probably make the Corey Smith comparison. And I think the way in which he's come through in a failing team, cause Corey Smith came in, you know, kind of at the end of Gunny's era era, didn't he? And then really hit the ground running, um, under Lambert. I think he's, he's got that same kind of energy, that same kind of will, the same kind of desire. And like you said, wants to make the ball work, wants to make it move forward.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, I really like him and I think I was listening to a friend of the pods said Ben Ambrose does the Norwich talk podcast for like the kind of my football writer family and he had Benjamin Blumon who's a really well known Ipswich Town fan.
00:06:09
Speaker
And I think Gibbs emergence has been made all the sweeter by the fact, well, by virtue of the fact that we signed them from Ipswich, but actually they're quite put out now that he's looking like a bit of a player and that, you know, that there is at least there's one element of them casting an envious kind of glare over towards us, even though things are
00:06:28
Speaker
tremendously rosy down south. First name on the team sheet for the first derby, irrelevant of if he's played any minutes after that, irrelevant of how we're getting run, like he has to start on that game. Yeah. OK, so the good thing that I would pull out of the season.
00:06:46
Speaker
Typically, I'm going to give more than one answer because it counts as my game. The first thing is the Pookie send-off. You mentioned not being able to give Max a good send-off. I was really pleased that because we've got a chequered history of sometimes doing send-offs really well,
00:07:05
Speaker
a la the Ross Wes game and all the rest of it. And also, your huxes of this world. We don't always treat outgoing legends as brilliantly as we can. And I actually think that whilst the club got a bit of stick for being seen to be celebrating a terrible season and what have you, actually anyone who was there on the day, you could tell that the right amount of effort had gone into from the display side of things, which obviously we were happy to help with.
00:07:35
Speaker
and through to the songs I mean just hearing for our kind of horse and just hearing the tribal song and you know celebrating the era that he'd been at and I'm going to refer back to that again when we come on to talk about Weber's end of season review in a bit. The other positive thing I think is
00:07:54
Speaker
And again, this throws forward slightly to Weber. I think that the fact that we as a fan base didn't accept at any point the style of football that we were being served when things were going well, the fact that we didn't at any point
00:08:12
Speaker
Rest on our laurels that even though results seem to be going our way We could see that we weren't in control of games and we could see that we weren't playing a style of football that was likely to be scalable across the course of a season and I actually think that is a real positive thing now Weber mentioned it as oh, I've congratulated the staff and the players around, you know how they've created expectation I actually think
00:08:35
Speaker
Farka educated us in what was possible in terms of how much can we demand to see a style of football and impress ourselves upon a game and yeah okay it's a rollercoaster ride it might not be pragmatic in the Premier League etc etc but
00:08:52
Speaker
I think it's a good thing that the Norwich fans were almost as one when it was going well results wise but it wasn't what we wanted to see and as much as that might be a real headache for the powers that be at the football club and whilst that might and it did at the time
00:09:08
Speaker
We were being told that we were being spoiled by the clubs that were beneath us in the championship at the time. And I'm sure they had a good laugh at it dropping off. But I think it's a good thing that we through this era of the last few years have created, and who knows how long it will last, but we've created an identity.
00:09:27
Speaker
that it's just as important that when it isn't there, do you remember it? The very nature of something being a strong identity is that when it's not in front of you, you recognize that it's not there. Whereas it's very easy to say, I know what our identity is because I only saw it three days ago. But when it's been 18 months since you've seen it, to still be able to go, yeah, no, I know what Norwich looks like and that isn't it. I think that's a really positive thing and hopefully it doesn't take us too long until we get something that comes back to it.
Communication and Playing Style Evolution
00:09:56
Speaker
I think the difference for me in that regard was, and look, if we're throwing forward to Stuart Webber's comments, he's now made them. But they just didn't tell us what the plan was. So they didn't say, right, we're going to evolve to a more pragmatic style under Dean Smith. We're going to shift towards more of a high press style under Wagner, if that is actually what we're doing. Because I'm yet to see any major evidence of this kind of gig and press that people had lauded him for.
00:10:24
Speaker
I think that's the bit that was missing for me. And that's the expectation actually, you know, kind of, so, you know, Stuart Weber saying, you know, actually it's a really good thing that they built expectation. Yeah, we expected you to tell us what the plan was and not necessarily Stuart Weber individually, but you as the, you know, the club, the entity, we expect you now to tell us what we can expect over the next 12, 18, 24 months to his credit. He's come out and done that now, you know, in, in the post-season stuff. And I feel way more assured.
00:10:54
Speaker
around the direction of the football side of things because of that. So yeah I don't necessarily think it's expectation around a football in style or identity or DNA or you know whatever you're going to label it as. I think it's
00:11:07
Speaker
an expectation around how supporters and club and community all get treated and how we get taken on a journey. And we had the most wonderful example of it. And all right, that was assisted by the style of football that we were playing. But actually, if someone had come out and just said, look, we're going to be a bit uglier to watch, but actually, we're going to have a few bruises and, you know, you need to get used to that and get behind it. All right.
00:11:32
Speaker
We wouldn't have liked it as much, but I could have got behind that. No problem. Do you think that they were worried, Paul? Do you think that there was a conscious effort to downplay that? Yes, I think you're right. And I think that was a mistake.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I said Paul, but thank you for jumping in anyway. Sorry. So yeah, Paul, do you think that that was a deliberate thing? Do you think that they've kind of gone, okay, well, that didn't work. So now we're just going to have to hold our hands up and say, we're going to try and win ugly. Yeah. It's really hard, isn't it? I mean, if you think about historically,
00:12:11
Speaker
historically Norwich are, club wise, are generally really successful second tier club, if you think about it that way. And also historically, we rarely go up playing the type of football that say Burnley would have been promoted through a few seasons ago, two or three times, you know, or Neil Warnock side, for instance, you know, we have,
00:12:37
Speaker
I don't actually remember a time when we got promoted playing kind of, you know, more sort of lumpy, aggressive football, defensive football. We've generally gone up by playing really good football, getting a small, tight, packed ground right behind us and it's been exciting.
00:12:54
Speaker
So I kind of, I get the, you know, we might have to be more pragmatic, but wasn't that the plan when we won the championship in style in front of no fans? You know, I thought the idea was go down, get a bit more defensive, but still play with absolute style, go up and build on that. And then it just fell apart.
Balancing Play Styles and Seasonal Reflections
00:13:13
Speaker
Well, some of the absolute best teams that there have ever been playing this game have been those that, at the absolute elite level, have been those where
00:13:23
Speaker
There are three or four lads who are in there who earned the right for the really, really talented ones to play the game. So even that amazing Barca team that Webber referenced in his round of interviews last Friday, in one of the comments was,
00:13:38
Speaker
I think it's the BBC one maybe, or the Pink one. All of our local ads did a brilliant job. It's worth saying, by the way, I thought they did a really good range of approaches. Some were slightly softer, some went slightly harder, some allowed the cringe factor to really flow because they'd obviously set out that that was what they were going to do and you can work out for yourselves which one's which.
00:14:01
Speaker
I'd also add to that as well, mate, that the club internal one, I felt like offered appropriate challenge as well. And that's something that's worth recognising. I don't think that was a puff piece by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. But yeah, he mentioned the barter team and you've got the likes of Busquets and Polliol and you've got people who kick you up in the air whilst you've also got the little passing majors going across the pitch and Arsenal teams.
00:14:30
Speaker
some of the best arsenal teams had some proper enforcers in there that yes okay they were technically better than a lot of the other team players in the league but let's have it right they were in there to effectively be front doors that were very very difficult to kick down and would move move people around and create space for the more technical players to play so
00:14:48
Speaker
If we have to, if the feeling is we need to get that bit right and earn the right to have more and more of a balance towards technical and passing and possession. Very, very happy with that. And, you know, thinking about teams in the championship, it's something that I think Swansea suffered from this season. You know, they, they played some of the most successful
00:15:10
Speaker
possession football in terms of stats this season. However, you know, we saw them outplay us twice. Obviously, we split in terms of results, although both times it was only it was one way, really, only one team creating chances. But they did they didn't look physically very dominating. They were there with us, one of the younger squads in the season in the of the season in the championship.
00:15:36
Speaker
So you do need to have a bit of steel in order to also be able to do that. And that's what Skip gave us. That's what Tom Tribal and Teddy, you know, when we've seen it done well at Norwich, you know, there have been those players. You could argue Worthington, we had some kind of industrial style guys in the engine room and in the central defence who would basically do the really ugly stuff and leave bruises on you.
00:16:01
Speaker
So yeah hopefully this move towards telling us that there is a plan going forward is going to be one of the things that we look back on as a good that comes out of it. My final good of the season is that it's over because I can't remember a season
00:16:18
Speaker
good, bad or indifferent, feeling like it lasted as long as this one. It just interminably seemed to never look like we were going to go up, yet just never seemed to get to the end of it. So, yeah, it's good that it's finally over. Any other good things before we get to some bad, Paul?
00:16:37
Speaker
I was just going to say I've never wanted a
Fan Engagement and Young Audience Challenges
00:16:40
Speaker
season to end more than this season and I don't think I've ever felt like that before so I totally agree with that. So yeah, it's good. I'm glad it's over. Other goods, I think that
00:16:56
Speaker
maybe everybody knows where they stand now in terms of the club, the team, the supporters, you know, it's got to a point, also the local press, you know, it's got to a point where I think everyone's kind of there now to a greater or lesser degree. And I think we have to move on. There's obviously stuff we need to ruminate over, but we do have to move on. We have to look back at
00:17:26
Speaker
maybe some of the core of the problems, but it feels to me like actually we've got to a point where that's beginning now. Um, and so maybe, maybe this is the beginning of something at least a little bit new. Do you feel beginning, John? Um, I'll reserve judgment on that, but can I have a couple more goods or it's kind of packaged. It's one good, but there's a couple in it. Can I just say beautiful, beautiful goals?
00:17:54
Speaker
And I say that because I think we should remember Marcelino Nunez's strike against Birmingham. I think we should remember Gabby Sarrow's. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a great shout. I think we should remember some of Gabby Sarrow's goals, like a couple of them, he's finished absolute worldy team moves. But then that one against, I think it was Millwall away, wasn't it? Where he's just spun and hit it in, you know, in a world-class way, you, his highlights, I was saying to someone today, his highlights reel for this season, if you wanted to do a YouTube compilation because of.
00:18:24
Speaker
The amount of tricks and flicks and skills and all of those things that he's got would look ridiculous. But so I think there have been genuine moments of quality. And we said about this in the pod, like really early in the season, it felt like we were getting away with it because of individual moments of quality rather than having a cohesive team. But I don't think we should forget those moments of quality because that's why we all go to the football, right? We want to see things like that.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. Sarge scored an absolute banger as well, where he nearly took the roof of the net off. It wasn't necessarily from a long range or whatever. It was just one of those, when you got a striker who really smacks it, it always feels better. There's been a few bad things and there's been a few ugly things, but we have sort of dwelled on that through a lot of the season. So I want to be a little bit
00:19:14
Speaker
sort of disciplined in only sticking to one bad thing and one ugly thing. It's rather than, because, you know, again, we're going to come to the web thing again in a second, but I, I do think that I need for my own mental health to move on from this season. I need to, I need to look forward best I can. That the one bad thing that, that I think is going to take a long time to kind of get out of my system is,
00:19:42
Speaker
to your point Paul about wanting the season to end, I have never dreaded going to football or hoped, hoped that something would come up that I could almost convince myself was a good enough excuse not to go to football. You know, I've missed weddings that I can get out of, you know, I've missed parties, you know, occasions, family events that I've said, ah, no, I can't do that, sorry.
00:20:09
Speaker
throughout my whole life and this season if someone said oh I could really do with you returning that wheelbarrow you borrowed I'd say I can only return it between three and five on this particular Saturday do you know what I mean I would go out of my way to not be able to get a carry and that that's just something that football hasn't made me feel before and it just felt like yes those are contributing factors to that
00:20:33
Speaker
But I just I desperately want to get back to counting down the minutes until it's time to get in the car and go to Carrow Road. What one bad thing do you want to banish, Paul? The bad thing I want to banish is I wrote about this way, way back. So I think it was against QPR at home in the autumn. The bad thing I want to banish is is the sort of non-experience that the kids are getting at the football.
00:21:02
Speaker
And, you know, we've all got kids and, you know, and we want our kids to really enjoy it. My son first started going properly and appreciating football when we were coming back to beat Millwall or coming back to draw with Knott's Forest or whoever under Farka, you know. And I remember him saying after that, Dad, that was amazing. Can we go every week forever? You know, and I know that's not going to happen all the time.
00:21:25
Speaker
But he knows that now as well. Well, he knows. Yeah, he fully knows exactly. Exactly. It's just why he doesn't want to go. But I think the point there is like.
00:21:36
Speaker
When you grow up as a kid and you go to the football, um, it needs to be something special. You need to feel like you're being treated like the next generation, even though you don't realize that, but you know, and there's nothing, there's nothing at Norwich, at Carrow Road at the moment that is making that happen. And maybe I have rose tinted glasses, but when I was a kid, I felt like going to the football was something really special. It didn't matter about the results. It really didn't matter about the results because there was something about going there.
00:22:06
Speaker
Maybe it was players making more of an effort to sign autographs. Maybe it was, you know, just more forms of engagement. And I can't help thinking that that's just been really bad recently. And if we don't do something about it, then no wonder other kids are just going to go, why would I bother?
00:22:24
Speaker
Well, I've got I've got a very recent opinion, recently informed opinion on that in that this is the season, unfortunately, that that my oldest has started going to football. And so, I mean, it's setting him up well, because he is just going to only going to go up really from here, you feel. But I mean, he's managed to because of our home form, he's seen a league cup win. He saw the win on penalties.
00:22:48
Speaker
But he hasn't seen a home league win yet because there's been so few to take him to. And the thing that currently is brilliant about being younger in football is the fan's home, before home. So he absolutely loves that. Gets to hang out with the punt juniors.
00:23:08
Speaker
And he is desperate to go to football, really excited to go to football, loves being in the car and going away, loves to walk to the ground, loves mucking about in the fan zone. We watched the players come off the bus for the Pookie game, which we hadn't bothered trying to do, but we were there early to help with the Pookie surfer banner, so we tried to take that in.
00:23:31
Speaker
and by the way most of them were despite all the kids waiting to your point Paul they were headphones on straight straight into the tunnel like you know I get that it might have been a slightly unpleasant place for some players to play this season and things haven't gone very well it's not the kids that are waiting an hour and a half before the game to catch a sight of their favorite play they're not the ones giving you abuse so
00:23:53
Speaker
I honestly do think the least, they're not going for the title. They don't need to be like this, not before a big title fight. They don't need to be so locked in an hour and a half before kickoff that they can't take their headphones off, stop, sign a couple of autographs, smile and wave a bit. Because when you're eight, nine or whatever, that's huge if you feel for a second that you're one of your favorites, turns and smiles at you or whatever. And a couple of them did, but generally the most of them just straight in.
00:24:18
Speaker
But yeah, so the pre-match stuff is great and then unfortunately by about 60, 70 minutes he's then desperate to go because he just goes, we don't look like we're going to score if we play for 100 years, Dad. And he's right. John, what are you shooting into the sun?
00:24:34
Speaker
I just liked, can I have another good? Can I go back? Because you've just, you've just raised it in my mind. And I think that we don't, I always acknowledge it on this podcast, but I don't think actually the wider Norwich City community acknowledges it enough. And it's, it's around the player stuff, actually. And I want to talk about the women's team a little bit and our experience as supporters of the women's team. I'm a season ticket holder. The girls, you know, both get tickets through the
00:24:58
Speaker
kind of Nori City pathway that they're on as well and I'd echo all your comments about the Fan Zone Tom because they both love it and you know very much enjoy your son's sense of humor as well which is which is good but the Nori City women's and the way in which they are able to engage with their supporters and just be human
00:25:20
Speaker
with their supporters and they just nothing is too much for them in terms of going over signing autographs, having a chat, staying behind after the game.
00:25:31
Speaker
It just completely opened my eyes to, oh, that's what it was like when I started going in, you know, late 1980s and Rule Fox would drudge over and say hello and sign an autograph or Flecky would come over and just have a bit of a chat or Robert Rosario would look a bit annoyed that he had to come over, but he'd do it because he knew that actually he needed to sign autographs before the football because that's what the kids down the river end wanted.
00:25:52
Speaker
You don't see any of that anymore. You don't see that human side of them. And the club are really good at doing stuff on socials and the whole Nunez, lovely jubbly stuff that they look to amplify is funny and great. But we live in a different era.
00:26:11
Speaker
just to strip that back and just to have players and fans communicating properly and being in the same space and enjoying that shared sense of community.
00:26:22
Speaker
just did absolutely transport me back and it just felt like right you know i've supported a elite level club i guess you know if we're talking about the top two divisions of of english football for some time and maybe a grassroots experience now is better because of you know all of those types of things but yeah it's it was lovely in terms of
00:26:44
Speaker
negatives so if just to you know because that's actually what you're asking me for um i would say around the men's team it's it's the culture on the pitch i think is the one thing that i just want to chuck in room 101 because it's
00:27:00
Speaker
It's
Leadership and Cultural Development for Next Season
00:27:01
Speaker
just felt like, and it's been acknowledged in post-season interviews as well. We just haven't had enough. I know it's easy to say this when things go wrong, but we haven't had enough leaders. We haven't had enough senior people just stepping up and I don't know, almost dragging us through games, just through sheer will and desire. It's really obvious when the chips are down.
00:27:20
Speaker
you know, we haven't had people to stand up and for, you know, for people at the football clubs to come out and say the players don't like playing at home, fucking change it then lads. Like, you know, kind of actually do something, go up to the crowd, engage with them, like ask them for their help, come out in the media and do those kinds of things. Don't just go, oh, I don't like playing there. Can you make the supporters be nicer to us? No, like actually take ownership of it and show us, you know, and I, that is again, something really positive that,
00:27:48
Speaker
I am pleased has been acknowledged in the post-season stuff. It's like they need to fix that. And the club realize that that starts with them and they need to drive it. And yes, the supporters need to meet them halfway. But if they show any semblance of that kind of desire, we've shown as a fan base before, we might be a little bit fickle, but we'll get behind you. If we know that you're trying, if we know that you are engaging with us, if we know that we're all pulling in the same direction, we'll get behind you. We will back you.
00:28:18
Speaker
On that point, I was at Carrow Road on Saturday for an under-10s tournament and we got a little tour of the changing rooms. And on the wall in the home changing room by the door as you leave is the phrase in big letters, ignore the noise.
00:28:36
Speaker
Now, to me, that should say, bring the noise, or raise the noise, or up the fucking noise. Do you know what I mean? Make up noisy. Yeah, make up noisy boys, you know? But ignore the noise. Noisy enough. I know.
Stuart Weber's Media Presence and Expectations
00:28:50
Speaker
But ignore the noise is surely like just playing into that. Exactly as you're saying, Jon, it's just playing into that, well, disengage from everything. Well, actually, no, just get out there and bring it. Yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
Yeah, so on to the ugly and let's start talking about the Stuart Webber interviews. So I think that there were some really, really positive things shared. I think that there was some good context which whilst the delivery
00:29:24
Speaker
You know Stuart Weber was not hired as a public speaker. He was not hired as a media professional He does make a very very valid point that lots of people in his similar role in other clubs Possess a similar level of media training that he does and therefore are kept well away from the media so I do always cut him some slack on the Brent cringy stuff because
00:29:51
Speaker
I really do think having spent some time into a club event where he's been around and about and not on mic, he's really not any different. You really do get the Stuart Weber experience, whether he's on mic or off mic.
00:30:09
Speaker
I give him credit for that. I do think that it was maybe a mistake to create a precedent whereby he did a lot of talking because effectively that's been created by the fact that there was otherwise there would be a vacuum. There would be a vacuum because dealer Michael aren't controlling the club, so it would be weird if they kept talking and talking about things. If it's not going to be him, who else is going to do it?
00:30:38
Speaker
Ben Kay did some chat, but obviously he wanted to make it clear that he was kind of the business side of the club. So it was maybe a mistake that they went, well, this is going to be the person who's going to front up, which therefore when he does go quiet for two seasons or whatever, then it does seem really, really weird. So there's an element of you make your own bed there. So giving him a pass for some of the weird comments that he makes, I do think that on the context side of things, he brought up some things that
00:31:05
Speaker
I wholeheartedly agree with and are things that I do think maybe myself included, the frustration of how poor it was on the pitch, I maybe overlooked a bit. Like we have created expectation and it isn't a level playing field.
00:31:25
Speaker
And, you know, I'm so pleased he brought up the Brentford example, particularly, because Brentford are like Bournemouth to me in that it makes my skin crawl when people hand them out flowers, like they are some kind of romantic fairy tale, you know, Portland Rovers or whatever. Like, no, they spent loads of money and got to the playoff final, then they spent loads more monies but staying up.
00:31:50
Speaker
And they've done it in a very sort of, you know, industrial way themselves. They hardly play beautiful football, et cetera. So, no, I don't, I don't, I would love to be spending money on players of really good quality and staying in the Premier League. That would be good if we could challenge. But I am, I do think he made some good points around that. Where I think there are still some things to answer is
00:32:18
Speaker
He contradicted himself in a lot of ways, sometimes within the same interview. So, John, I'll come to you first on this. So give me some ugly things from the Weber recent round of Media Day. I think I'd probably open as well with maybe a challenge around his, I think there's an element of revisionism
00:32:43
Speaker
around his, we've created this expectation and actually it's not good enough for Norwich City fans to finish fifth in the league. It'd been plenty good enough for me to finish fifth in the league this season, provided I was communicated with and actually understood what was going on on the pitch and what the plan was, but also- And if it didn't look so shit on the pitch. Well, yeah, that is definitely a factor, but also, oh, we've created this expectation. I'm not sure you have, mate. Like four of the six seasons that preceded your arrival at the football club, we were in the Premier League.
00:33:13
Speaker
The fact that you were, you know, the club had to look at ripping it up and starting again was born out of the fact that us as supporters and a fan base kind of almost hounded Alex Neal out of the football club. And that was expectation around the fact that we should be finishing top six in the championship or, you know, top two in the championship. So I think we expected those things anyway. I think he makes some excellent points about the fact that, you know, he's presided over two of our seven trophies in the top two divisions.
00:33:42
Speaker
I think he made some brilliant points around and made me stop and think as well around, you know, what's going on at Colney, the fact that actually he...
00:33:51
Speaker
The club is definitely, and we've said this on this podcast, the club is definitely in a better position than when he arrived off the pitch, like definitely off the pitch. I was really pleased that he used the words end of cycle as well. You know, kind of, he was very clear about that in his press that they have to build again. Um, you know, because we've all seen that on the pitch, but I think the ugly stuff, I think, you know, like let's just talk about the,
00:34:17
Speaker
the comments about the women's team. I think from a personal level, a person who takes his two girls, two men's and women's games at the football club, and they heard some of that. They heard it on the radio, they heard it being covered on the radio, they heard me talking to mates about it. So they were naturally inquisitive about what had been said.
00:34:43
Speaker
I think it was just really disappointing. And look, we've reached out to the club, or I reached out to the club quite recently and just said, look, is there a wider context? Have you got a comment on this? And the club have been forthright in saying that they would encourage people to read the full athletic piece.
00:35:01
Speaker
because there are some really positive comments that Stuart Weber has made about the women's setup, the way in which it's progressed, the work that they've done this season, the work that they plan to do. And I kind of take all of that and think it's fair enough. But to come out and speak in derogatory terms about the quality of the team and the fact that he's not interested in women's football.
00:35:23
Speaker
I'm sorry, mate, you weren't asked about that. The question was, how are you going to build on this year's success, essentially? There's just no point. Why do you feel the need to say it? And I think there is an acceptance, maybe club side as well. Well, no, definitely club side as well, that those words were a little clumsy. I don't think they were a little clumsy. I think Stuart Weber is a deliberate communicator. I think we've seen that around the consistency with the way in which he
00:35:47
Speaker
conducted interviews with all of the local press. I think he maybe had a think about what he was going to say beforehand and I think he likes, I think there is an element of him that likes the provocative and likes the poking fun at whether you're a snake pit divorcee or you know kind of or whether you're a 21 year old playing football manager and I just think
00:36:10
Speaker
These are the types of people, if he talks about extremes, the 21-year-olds in their bedrooms, maybe on computers, on social media, or the divorce lads in the snake pit who drink a few beers and then might chant against him, or the people who support the women's team or pro women's football and absolutely love this football club and support it in all its forms.
00:36:34
Speaker
I just think why are you digging out fans? And that's been the criticism throughout the season is, you know, kind of what, why is the, almost the club having a pop up fans, but also purely from a commercial level, like let's, let's be honest, the women's game has got the most growth potential of any revenue stream in this football club. If, if we get it right, and you know, we got a team that was near, near or around the WSL and we put the kind of resource into it, the Ipswich town did.
00:37:01
Speaker
we could have a revenue generator on our hands. So why would you talk in such disparaging terms about that element of the club? And the context is, you know, kind of, and again, this is from speaking to people at the club that Stuart Webber would probably counter that with, well, you know, I've probably done more to advance the progression of the women's team since they've been in-house than anyone else at the football club. He's been instrumental in them training at Colney more regularly, having more access to
00:37:29
Speaker
the medical teams, sports science teams, all of those things. That's brilliant. Just say that and then don't say anything else, mate. Because what's the point in saying they're not very good? And that's essentially what he said. And if you're a player of that football team. Worse than that, he said Sunday league. Yeah, and the quality is really cool. So that was obviously with the wonderful Michael Bailey. I honestly, the way I read that article,
00:37:52
Speaker
uh and you know and i actually read the full article before i even realized that i only realized there was a separate call out version of it from the comments on the original article saying i don't think they should have done it as a separate anyway uh as i read the article the way i read it was i think that he started with a few kind of asides and i honestly wonder if
00:38:17
Speaker
Bailey's eyebrows went up so much with what he was saying that he thought, oh, I'm on something here. I'm going to double down because he was a bit dismissive. And then he was sort of a bit rude. And then he was insulting. Like he came in sort of three bursts. And yeah.
00:38:32
Speaker
But all interspersed with some really good development stuff. And that's the thing. 80% of what he says is good. If you think it's so shit, why have you made so much effort? And if you've made so much effort because you think it's a commercially really sensible thing to say, again, don't say that you think it's really shit. And that's the weird thing from what the club commentary is. They would encourage people to read the full athletic piece. And I think what they're referencing is Michael's full interview.
00:38:58
Speaker
It's still got those words in it. I don't blame him in the slightest for disliking women's football or for finding Formula One interesting. Just don't say it out loud, because there's no need. So the problem is with that kind of... You made the point about the DiForsis and the 21, I was playing football manager.
00:39:29
Speaker
There's two different things. When I'm talking about media training, when I'm talking about necessarily being the best person at the club to front up and face up and talk about where we're at and narrate the journey, that doesn't mean that I don't think he's not deliberating what he says. That doesn't mean I think that he talks off the cuff.
00:39:48
Speaker
I mean, I think he I think he expand like there's no way that he would have prepared that women's football stuff as in the unpleasant stuff. But I don't know. I reckon he prepared the divorce lads.
00:40:00
Speaker
Yes, yes, they did. But it's provocative for provocative sake. Well, that's the thing. I think that he I think that he uses those because he used that in more because there was the vast majority of what he said to all of all of the boys on the beat was the same almost word for word. And then two or three of them had slightly different questions and got slightly different things out of him that were felt a bit more organic, but weren't necessarily kind of the key issues. And
00:40:31
Speaker
I honestly think it must have been the look on Michael's face that got him to double down on, and that's why he went so much further with Michael on the women's game side of things. But I think to your point on the 21 year olds playing football manager, he mentioned football manager in the BBC, well I don't think he mentioned an age, but he said this isn't football manager.
00:40:52
Speaker
You can't have people on X a week and just keep adding up. And then he said a similar thing on the Pinkham one, which was on camera. And he gave the example of, you know, if you're only going to pay someone a grand a week, well, no offense, but obviously offense, that's only going to get you a King's Lin player. So again, this is a kind of similar trope where he's saying the same thing. And what he's trying to do is I don't think people who really understand football
00:41:22
Speaker
Or rather the people don't understand football are the people that have got a problem with me or would criticize me The people who are unhappy in their life because they're divorced and they drink a bit too much That that would cause them to have a problem with me. So it's almost like everything It's this this massively defensive way of being now I think he actually owned and took accountability of quite a lot of stuff that I would have loved him to have said in almost all agree in almost all interviews
00:41:50
Speaker
I would even say that maybe 75% of what he said was go back three, four years, was along the lines of the stuff that made us think, we are so lucky. What a guy. I think it's higher than that. I think you're talking 80, 90%. And that's the thing. If you can just stop him saying the stuff at the end, which is a bit controversial, I think you'd have had universal praise for him because
00:42:16
Speaker
loads of the stuff he said about certainly the footballing side of the business and the way in which they developed and the way in which there's collaborative work with the Milwaukee Brewers and the data stuff. It's like brilliant. That's what we want to raise it in person that we've had on the pod before and calling out the success of
00:42:32
Speaker
And likewise, I think he did a better job this time round than he's ever done before of raising others up and actually not taking quite as much because he's been, he's a great humble brag. I like his whole, I've only been in the city twice. That was to feed him his people, which, you know, good for you. Glad you did it. But apparently there's been about 18 sightings of him in the city center that can be verified on social media. Yeah, I'm sure. But the point is like,
00:42:58
Speaker
Humblebrag has kind of been his thing since he's been here. I actually thought, because I think we've all consumed it in different orders, but I did the BBC one first. I thought that he did a brilliant job of really lifting up those around him that had made it possible to get where we've got to.
00:43:26
Speaker
What about you Paul? Are there any ugly bits that we haven't missed or do you want to maybe focus more on the good stuff? No, I think there's something that's slightly worrying me. I will just say though, I think Mr Webber needs to revisit your authentic self at work book. There's a level isn't there where being authentic
00:43:46
Speaker
in the circles that I work in, there's a saying that, you know, if you were your true authentic self at work, you'd get fired pretty quickly, which I think shows the level of accountability that Stuart Weber has perhaps at Norwich. I think as John and you both said, the major percentage, all good. Maybe just dial the other bits down a little bit. You don't need to say it because it's on your mind, you know, and maybe you'll get more sleep at night. Anyway, the thing that is worrying me
00:44:17
Speaker
is I noticed in all
Club Strategy and Accountability
00:44:20
Speaker
of the interviews, there was a couple of things that really stood out and one was, I can't remember who asked him it, but his answer was, I don't know where it went wrong.
00:44:30
Speaker
He said that, I don't know where it went wrong. And then a couple of times he said, it's not about looking back, it's about looking forward, looking forward with positivity. If you add that to a cycle, we've been in a cycle of a downward cycle, I think, to some degree. I would add that to, I remember Grant Hanley, I think it was Jake Humphrey's podcast, Grant Hanley said after that terrible end of
00:44:57
Speaker
end of the COVID season set of losses. When he was asked what happened, he said, I don't know. To me, that's the worry. It's like, if you don't know, if you can't go back and look at your process and work out, all right, where's the core of the problem here? What have we been doing wrong?
00:45:19
Speaker
I do, you know, I recognize that he perhaps contradicted that a little bit by saying things like, well, perhaps I was a bit too loyal to some of the, some of the players and maybe I should have, you know, been a bit more helpful to the manager and so on. But that does worry me that he's, he seems not prepared to look back enough and think, where were those key moments? Those really, you know, like we're, like we do in all forms of work, you know, or anything really, any sporting endeavor, what's working, what isn't working? How can we improve that? So that sort of, I don't know.
00:45:49
Speaker
worries me because if we get into it, we get a bad start in the new season, you know, we're just going to go into the same thing and we're, we're firefighting. So that, that was a bit ugly for me was, you know what, actually just front up and say, surely he knows what was going wrong. Yeah. I wonder whether he does. And there's an element of, I don't want to wear our dirty laundry in public.
00:46:15
Speaker
Because he then, and it was a bit of a contradiction, or it was a bit of a weird one for me, I can't remember which outlet asked it, but it was almost like, well, are the board not going to hold, you know, kind of all you over the coals for this, you know, kind of, are you going to have to be accountable to the board for this? And he answered it in so much as,
00:46:32
Speaker
Well, I know what went wrong and I'll tell them what I think went wrong and then we'll just, I'll tell them how we're going to move forward. And do you know what? He might've taken him a lovely PowerPoint presentation and it was completely what they wanted to hear and completely reassured them, but I thought, hang on.
00:46:49
Speaker
Is that against your KPIs or is that against the club's KPIs? And is it not that the board should hold you to account and should ask those questions? And I just thought it was interesting that he framed it in those terms. It was almost like, well, I'll control the narrative around what goes into the board and I will tell them what I think rather than them being given the opportunity. And I wonder whether that is actually the case because, look, I think
00:47:14
Speaker
We're very clear. There are, well, I'm very clear in the fact that I think there's hugely capable people that are on our board. And, you know, as much as we had sacked the board chance towards the end of this season, I think there's some, you know, massively capable operators and the Atanasios seem to only supplement that. So I do wonder whether it was in those terms or whether it was.
00:47:35
Speaker
ego almost to go, no, I know what went wrong, so I'll tell them. There was that contradiction in there that I just couldn't quite work out. And I think I'd have maybe liked some outlets to just push a little bit more in that regard, because it did feel like, well, we can't change it, so let's move on. And actually, I think as a supporter of the football club, I would have been really interested in his opinions as to not necessarily having to get into the specifics, but just, I don't know,
00:48:05
Speaker
Did you sack Dean Smith a bit too late? And I know that was kind of touched on, but not much really. I think he just gave a flat yes or no answer in that regard. Yeah, I didn't feel like there was enough retrospective kind of assessment of what had happened.
00:48:23
Speaker
Okay. Well, we are very tight for time. So can you give us, uh, one of the listener questions that you think best helps us wrap up this end of season review podcast?
Listener Q&A and Season Reflections
00:48:35
Speaker
Mr. Punty Puntylinio. We've had loads of brilliant questions as well. So that is a shame that, you know, we're not able to, um, That is a shame, but we've wobbled on for 48 minutes and 22 seconds.
00:48:46
Speaker
Sorry, you've probably done about 30 of those minutes to be fair, mate. Yeah, all right. All right. Women's football is so popular. OK, so I'm just going to pick this because I love the guy's Twitter handle. So half likes trains on Twitter, who I think has questioned us before. And I would like to know how much he really likes trains. Or you could read it as half like strains. I suppose you could as well. Anyway,
00:49:16
Speaker
Half asks question, what would the Stuart Webber of 2017 say if he walked into this job-slash-situation as it is now?
00:49:24
Speaker
going to need a veg patch. I think he would be impressed at the facilities and be delighted that he maybe can focus more on the football culture being embedded because more of his time can go there and less of his time can be distracted on things that really need to be in place from an infrastructure point of view. I mean, you know, I think as you alluded to earlier, the club is in a much better position off the pitch.
00:49:53
Speaker
than it was, I do think that there is less hiding places from a kind of, what are you gonna do next point of view? So the Stuart Weber of 2017 could list off a great long list of these are all things that currently mean that we're not anywhere, got any capability of delivering on our kind of goals. Stuart Weber of today has done a brilliant job of that and he made it very clear in his interviews that he may be off soon.
00:50:21
Speaker
So we might actually find out relatively soon what a new version of Stuart Webber 2017 is going to make of because I get the impression that it's not going to be two seasons. It might might not even be as much as one before he's on the way. I took it in that sense. Yeah. Paul, anything to add in that regard? I think he was quite ruthless when he came in, wasn't he? You know, and I wonder if he would do the same. I think he'd look at it and maybe he's alluded to that.
00:50:48
Speaker
over his interviews is actually, you know what, he has maybe realized that he's been a bit too loyal or a bit too slow in making changes. And maybe like you say, Tom, if he's only going to be here a year, maybe this is the summer. This is the summer just to come in and be 2017 2.0 and do it, leave a parting shot so we can have success on the field. And he can leave saying whatever he likes at the end of each interview. Can I have one more question, please? And it's really quick, Tom.
00:51:16
Speaker
So it's from your mate, Daniel Otolangi, and he asks, would you rather be a snake pit divorcee or a member of the bed sheet brigade? Paul. Well, I'm happily married, so I'll go with the bed sheet mate. I too, because I like flags and banners, I'm going with the bed sheet brigade.
00:51:38
Speaker
Thomas? Well, I mean, the good thing is the chances of my wife ever listening to a piece of content that I create in any of my interests is so low that I could easily choose that. But I really don't know. I thought she was our one listener. I must be my mum. She just like she just keeps pressing play like hundreds of times.
00:51:58
Speaker
I do like flags and banners, but I really dislike the view from corners of pictures, so I could never be a snake pit divorcee. I might be a divorcee if you ask my wife, she might guarantee it, but I really do like to see the pitch properly, so no thank you for me on the snake pit. Fair enough.
00:52:16
Speaker
Thank you so much for the questions. Paul, appreciate your time reviewing the good, the bad and the ugly. Punt, it's been another season. I hope we have more pleasurable things to talk about in the season to come. We've already got Sergeant Bash in the door. Sounds like there's going to be another signing imminently. As always, when we sign off at the end of the season, I do wish you a very, very happy summer. And also that I'll bangle the fact that you never know there might be a big enough story that brings us around the microphones in the meantime.
00:52:44
Speaker
If not, I'll probably see you in August. Right, there you go.