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"Soccerbot ROI" ACN Pod 115
100 Plays1 year ago
It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. Well, for a while anyway. Connor does some proper analysis, McG offers some excellent insight. Rent a gob Tom mouths off and Punt peppers the pod with listener questions.
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview of Norwich City Challenges
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to the Long Come Norwich podcast. It fractures foray into football fables, facts and non-fiction as the fervently founded focus of promotion has fluctuated and finally ended in failure. Football cyclical, we are accustomed to falling short of our goals at Norwich City Football Club, but
00:00:38
Speaker
I think you have to go back to the Valley in May 2009 for feeling of failure as forlorn as this, because in this case, the resources, the squad, the veg patch, the wage bill, the experience of the coaching team, the recent history of the club's promotions, the experience of recruiting well at this level, a promising league position in the autumn, changing the manager with plenty of time to make an impact and historically poor championship in terms of the lack of teams with solid form in the running. Somehow we still ended in failure. So for my money.
00:01:06
Speaker
It is a catastrophic dereliction of duty for those in charge that this football club is headed into another season of championship football and for them to do it whilst losing what tiny shreds of goodwill they had left after another pathetic Premier League showing is some feat. Conor and Mcgee join me and John to try and cheer ourselves up. Conor, what did I miss from that list of woes this season?
00:01:30
Speaker
No, I think you pretty much got them all. Unless I'm there, I would maybe throw probably a very recent one, which is accountability. And I'm not just talking in terms of scrutiny from the media. I think internal scrutiny, I would throw into that as well. And the way that that's kind of been removed at various levels of the football club.
00:01:51
Speaker
But no I think what you've outlined there is fair and probably sums up where a lot of people are at the moment which is feeling completely devoid of any kind of energy about the project at
Leadership Criticism and Accountability Issues
00:02:03
Speaker
the moment. I think what we saw on Saturday was just a lack of, strip it all away obviously there was the anger but I think above all else it was the lack of belief in the people and the ideas in the project.
00:02:14
Speaker
And I think when you get to that stage, it's very, very difficult to continue on the road that you are on. So now it's for me, the shift is about, well, how do you respond to that and how do you bring people with you? And it's obviously something they were very good at in the past and something that they've been less good at in the last 18 months or so.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, all of those charges that you leveled at the football club, we now need to see how they respond. And, you know, I guess if you were to poll 100 New York City fans and say, are you confident they could respond to all of them? I think probably the majority of them would say no. And that's the issue, I think. And it's about now changing the record and trying to also
00:02:53
Speaker
accept what has gone wrong this season. I think if there's just kind of a patching over and trying to close the book on this season, I'm not really sure that will do it. So yeah, the only one I would throw in is accountability, but feel free to jump in if I've missed anything, which is quite plausible, to be honest.
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, I'd ask you, Mcgee, in terms of whether or not you think there's something that we had going in our favor that we also managed to splurge up the wall. Because that's, for me, the biggest frustration is that we completely accept that we're not going to win the Premier League. We accept we won't win the FA Cup. We accept we might get relegated from the Premier League because of all of the fantastic excuses we have. There weren't any excuses this season not to get promotion.
00:03:36
Speaker
No, I think that's right. I just add to the list, I think we can now say that the soccer bot hasn't worked as expected. Yeah, no are away from the soccer bot. No are away from the soccer bot. I saw Nick Mashter wants to lame the blame and add in the failure of Daniel Farker for our performance this season. I'm not sure there's much merit in that.
00:03:56
Speaker
The thing is that we set ourselves up to be a top 26 team. And a lot of criticism for that. But I actually thought that was a sensible goal. And we failed. And we failed with all of the ingredients that I needed to be a top 26 team. And that's grim. And not everything goes right all of the time. But I think the point about accountability is really key here.
00:04:24
Speaker
There's been no explanation, no ownership, no sense of explanation, and no togetherness. One of the things that was so strong in the Premiership seasons where we were dreadful, I mean, let's be honest, those were terrible seasons, but we maintained a togetherness because the fanbase believed in and understood what the club was trying to
Fan Disengagement and Poor Season Performance
00:04:47
Speaker
do.
00:04:47
Speaker
And they've kind of thrown that away. And I remember saying about Dean Smith that being popular with the fans wasn't necessarily on his job description, but it would help when things got tough. And I think Stuart Weber is now reaping that of, he doesn't have to be popular with the fans, but it certainly helps when the going gets tough. The going is now tough. I don't know how much they're paying for PR advice, but they're not getting value for money.
00:05:13
Speaker
And this is a problem of their own making, and I honestly don't know what the way back is for them from here. Well, I think that you mentioned the top 26 club aspiration. We got loads of questions, and we're going to get to them bright and early this week because there are so many, and it feels like there's very little point in talking about anything.
00:05:37
Speaker
in terms of reviewing the game, which was, I mean, it was effectively a soccer bot come real. I mean, it was Swansea were, if we'd have put some mannequins from Colney out, then the third goal still would have probably played out in exactly the same way. Maybe the mannequins would need wheels. The defenders did sort of move alongside their striker as he finished easily from eight yards after being shepherded, almost like a police escort through the penalty area without anyone laying a glove on him.
00:06:05
Speaker
So yeah, Saturday was abysmal. But one of the questions that came in was around whether or not we still aspire to be a top 26 club. And that question of Richard followed up with, have we the finances to do so? And how engaged are the fans with the aspiration? And going back to the middle part of that, have we the finances to do it? Yeah. Because look at some of the other teams that are above us. I'm going to finish in the playoffs. They didn't. They ain't got a veg patch.
00:06:32
Speaker
You know, they're not growing their own courgettes. They've not got a soccer bot with low ROI. They've not got a new swimming pool on the way. Yet, Millwall and Luton have kind of bucked the trend and managed to be above us. So to that point, yes, we have got the finances, but I think that part really punt. How engaged are the fans with this? I don't feel like I'm on a journey. I feel like I'm just watching endless sequels of a shit movie I didn't like the first time.
00:07:01
Speaker
There's a lot to unpack there, isn't there, mate? Yeah, we are as a fan base, and I say this personally as well, I think we're as disengaged as we have been
00:07:13
Speaker
probably since like last days of Chase era. I genuinely think that like because at least when it was really shit like late 90s kind of mid 2000s onwards. I don't know there was almost like a camaraderie around it and it like it was it was a badge of honor but now it just feels really grim all the time and
00:07:35
Speaker
Is it partly because we're not actually that bad? Did you know what I mean? We're just missing the playoffs. It's so mediocre. I don't want to be like... Yeah, but to be honest, any other season, we're not just missing the playoffs in the championship. Any other season, we are probably 14th. With the points tally that we have.
00:07:51
Speaker
And it's ridiculous that, look, you know, we're now, we're not talking about the match on, on Saturday, but Russell Martin Swansea rolling into town who probably, you know, like last time I'd glanced at the bottom end of the table, they were probably like 16th, 17th, 18th. Suddenly they're level on points with us, you know, that just shows how it's constituted up. It's just, I sat there and looked around Carrow Road on about the, I don't know, 75th minute. And it was.
00:08:20
Speaker
half empty, if not more. And you can't blame anyone for going.
Financial and Structural Concerns
00:08:24
Speaker
Like, you know, I was taught by my mother as a youngster that, you know, look, we never leave games early. And unfortunately, I kind of imprinted that into my child's memories, our children's memories now. And they had to stay till the bitter end on Saturday. And they'll be dealing with that in therapy for years. Yeah, absolutely. But you know, look, they will hopefully they will pass it on to their children when it's time to go. No, we're punts and we stay till the end, you know, and that's that's just what we do. But
00:08:49
Speaker
I can see why other people left at half time, left on 60 minutes, left even before that. There were people that walked out on the second goal. I think the reason that it feels so utterly grim is because, as you've just alluded to, we've wasted opportunities. We've had the money. Let's be honest, you just talked about it.
00:09:12
Speaker
We have probably the second biggest championship budget this season, probably the biggest budget we've ever had in the championship. The accounts will tell us that in good time. And clubs are in the top six, in the top three on an absolute pittance. So the jibes, and it's the usual predictable jibes about the ownership model,
00:09:36
Speaker
just forget it. That's a complete red herring. Nourish have failed to achieve their stated goals and they were absolutely achievable goals this season based on the amount of resources that we had. Were they achievable goals based on the squad that we had? Absolutely not. I think we figured it fairly early. This is an unbalanced squad that wasn't really fit for purpose and you add in a few injuries to that and it becomes ever more difficult.
00:10:03
Speaker
I think it's really hard to say and put your finger on the absolute reason why we're disengaged because it's just been
00:10:10
Speaker
two and a bit seasons now of this, hasn't it? It's just turgid. It's just horrible. Everyone's arguing with themselves. People are on social media, either one saying, oh, look, I'm a brilliant fan because I've just renewed or, oh, no, I've had enough and I'm not renewing. Who cares? Support the club in whichever way you want. But it just feels fractured. It feels broken. And the only way that you fix that is by the club showing leadership and the club uniting people because the fans
00:10:40
Speaker
can try and do it, but you need the club to come to the party with that. And they're just not right now. And what I hope is, and look, we know that they're working out plans for when the season has ended and kind of post-season media, but I just hope that that scrutiny and that accountability and that, I think someone else said it away from here, but humility around the situation is really, really important because
00:11:08
Speaker
If they don't show that, I don't see how people get back on board with them. Connor, what was it like on Saturday after the game? Did you get any, talking about how do they react to it? And in the long list of things we've got experience of, you can add coming back from crushing disappointment at the end of the season, like the people in charge should be well-worn at knowing how to try and build themselves up again.
00:11:32
Speaker
How cringe-worthy was it in those press areas when it came to trying to get a line or two out of players and manager? Yeah, that's a good question. So I, after games, tend to go and speak to the players. So I probably can speak about that with a bit more authority than I can David Wagner. But it was on El Hernandez who drew the short straw and had to come out and front up.
00:12:01
Speaker
And this is the thing maybe that has kind of been quite interesting from my perspective is a lot of these players come out and I know they get hammered for coming out and saying stuff, but they have to speak. And by the way, for all of the criticism that maybe the club does get for its comms and media operations, there aren't many clubs. I've witnessed clubs who are at the top end of the championship. In fact, the club that is at the top of the championship
00:12:26
Speaker
who had just won at Carrow Road and didn't put a player up for my counterparts in other areas to speak to. So to be fair, by and large, we have always had a player to speak to. So that's worth acknowledging as well. And the thing is, I do think, certainly the ones that I've spoken to, I've never spoken to one, you don't really care or you're not hurting. And I think I'd put on L certainly into that category. I don't think that's a debate, really. We don't need to discuss how much on our Hernandez loves Norey City.
00:12:56
Speaker
I think it's really tough, it's really tough for them because I think, and actually what's been lost a little bit and I know we're not going to talk about the football is, they started quite well at Middlesbrough, they started quite well against Swansea but the first goal goes in and there is such a brittleness to this group and such a lack of confidence
00:13:16
Speaker
that they just go when the goal goes in. And I think you could almost see that submission in the second half and you can see the stats. So I think the players themselves are a little bit of odds and a little bit fed up with having to come out and having to apologize and having to try and explain what it is. And I asked that question to Anil Hernandez directly, why is this happening? And I think that's the million dollar question for a lot of them. You tend to get a long pause, a bit of a huff and a sigh, and then
00:13:42
Speaker
maybe an I don't know or an answer beyond that line. So actually from my experience this year, it's not a case that the players don't care or they're not trying. I just think as we've discussed and has been discussed periodically throughout this season really, there are deeper issues and the players have almost been caught in the firing line of that and we're seeing that in performances.
00:14:05
Speaker
So I feel for a lot of them because again, it's not the people who perhaps should be answering the questions or should be fronting up to the questions. It is Onel Hernandez, a player who's being asked about change, and it's David Wagner, a head coach who's being asked about change. And this is where, you know, I know there's not much sympathy for Dean Smith around, but again, exactly the same last summer. He had to answer a lot of the questions that should have been directed elsewhere. I remember Paddy, for example, putting a question to him about the finances.
00:14:32
Speaker
It's not a question that a head coach should be answering, but there was no one else to answer it. So in our position, you have to try and get answers from the fans in the best way that you can. And I understand the frustrations, but that would be just from my experience what I would say. Now, obviously, if you're going to different levels of the club, I don't think that sympathy and that hurt and that feeling probably is there in the same way or being expressed in the same way. And I think that's maybe where you get the juxtaposition as well, because a lot of the players have had to be full guys and had to come out and answer questions that,
00:15:00
Speaker
quite frankly, shouldn't be being put to them. And, um, in fairness to our Hernandez on, on Saturday, I felt he answered a lot of them pretty well. And I think that's all you can ask that there weren't the cliches or the sound bites. There was the willingness to front up. And I think to be fair, when all of the other players were kind of, you know, head down and trotting into the tunnel, he was the one that headed in the other direction and wanted to go engage with fans at the, at the end of the game and, uh, and whatnot.
Management and Communication Breakdown
00:15:23
Speaker
So
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough at the moment. You can sense it and you can feel it from the players as well. But I feel for as much as they obviously deserve criticism for the way they're performing, I think in terms of questioning the spirit and the care of them, I don't really feel from my experience this season that that is the case.
00:15:45
Speaker
We mentioned maybe the hurt doesn't go as far off the field as it does on the field. It's quite difficult to find people who work for Norwich City off the field who have actually been there as recently as the last relegation. It's like a revolving door at the moment.
00:16:01
Speaker
follow any of the club accounts or people who work in kind of management or middle management upwards at the club. There are new positions every week on LinkedIn and it's because no one seems to be sticking there. It really does seem to be a really transient time. Loads of people have left and gone to the filth down the road. Loads of people, you know, in opposite positions and, you know, medium senior people and have gone to other jobs in and around football and in and around sport and it isn't,
00:16:29
Speaker
you know, we seem to still have that vacuum that we've talked about on this this podcast several times, you know, since Ben Kay left there seems to have been a real vacuum in terms of a business minded person to run the business of the football club and
00:16:45
Speaker
I don't know whether or not, you know, Zoe has maintained exactly her role before or whether or not she is taken on some of what Ben Kay was doing. But if she has done, then why are we not speaking to her? Why is she not as available as Ben Kay was? I mean, Ben Kay had such an enormous to-do list yet. He was always at club events and at fan events and available to talk to people.
00:17:09
Speaker
If that's Weber or it's Zoe, then fine. Whichever the two of you have assumed that role, if it's going to be more the CFO guy or whatever, fine. Be available. I mean, McG, on Connor's point of Wagner being put up for these questions, I think it's important that we touch on one of his answers, which is obviously that Weber cares more about knowledge than anyone.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, it was pretty disappointing to hear because it made it feel a little bit like he wasn't fronting up about the issues that we can all see. And it's not for David Wagner to speak up for Stuart Weber. Stuart Weber should be doing that. I just felt that reflected badly on both of them in many ways. And the thing is with O'Neill, I thought that he's grown in stature over the course of this season.
00:18:00
Speaker
I think he's so much more mature and listening to him on Saturday, definitely helped me to have a sense of, okay, at least they get it. At least they can see what we're seeing. At least we're not going crazy or whatever.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I think, you know, I want the club to do well. I want David Wagner to do well. There was so much great about what Stuart Weber brought to the club in the first place. When they speak, I think most people are at least willing to listen. Most people want to be persuaded. Most people want this thing to turn around. But it's almost like turned into some kind of
00:18:42
Speaker
Hostile confrontation like Stuart Weber is giving off an aura of really disliking Norwich City fans He's giving off an aura of thinking we're the problem There's a resentment and a hostility that I just don't see where he where does he think that's gonna go? Where does he think that where's his landing spot for all of this? You know you get into that kind of Battle
00:19:10
Speaker
There's only going to be one winner. The fans are never going to go anywhere. This is our club. And I can't really see a sense of what Stuart Weber is trying to achieve with the way he's acting. And that's really sad because when he has spoken, when he came out after Dean Smith was sacked, I thought he said some really compelling and interesting things. And it was helpful to hear from him. I didn't agree with everything he said.
00:19:37
Speaker
But lots of what he said was the stuff that I was hoping to hear. So yeah, it's a weird one that he's not willing to do the hard yards of rebuilding that relationship because that relationship is integral to him being able to do the job that he is paid to do.
00:19:54
Speaker
Well, this is, so we'll, we'll, we'll come to, to listening questions, John, now. Um, but just to round off on that, that one point with cheese, the, and towards what you were saying, Connor, about the fragility of the, of the confidence of the players and the fact we go down one goal. And that's the end of that.
00:20:15
Speaker
how many players needs to change to get rid of this losing mentality and this kind of slide because when Wagner got the job I said that
00:20:28
Speaker
it would be an absolute failure to not get in the playoffs, given how much time he had left. And Pont made a really good argument, which was, well, we need to average X number of games to get the average number of points. I made the counter argument, this championship is shit. We're not going to need the normal number of points. And mathematically, we're still in it. Saturday, we could have been, you know, Saturday, it could have been within our hands.
00:20:51
Speaker
How can you not motivate a team, and I'm not Wagner out by any stretch of the imagination, although there were people, when the Weber out chants were in the Barclay, I had to check that that was what was being chanted in the Barclay snake pit because in this Outstand, it was Wagner out.
00:21:09
Speaker
maybe because they misunderstood it and they just wanted to join in, but there was plenty of wagon route, not web route in this Outstand on Saturday. People are frustrated and they're fed up of what they see, which is how could you go into a game at home with the ability to effectively take control of your destiny
00:21:33
Speaker
And then, okay, you're two nil down and then the head's gone and then that's the end of that.
00:21:39
Speaker
How at 1-0 can you not grasp hold of that? How can you not take control of that game and settle down? How can you not have the, you know, it's a, you can't blame Wagner for, for McCallum's decision to, to carry that much momentum. And I think there was, there was a lot of bad luck around the circumstances that resulted in that, that red card. But even at 2-0 down, it was the capitulation was just so pathetic. I mean, it was just absolutely pathetic the way that we made no, at 2-0,
00:22:09
Speaker
I went into let's make sure it's not six mode, let's make sure it's not burrow again mode as opposed to far enough see it out to half time but then after half time let's really see if we can cause them a bit of a problem and then fair enough if we go to three nil you go look that we really three nil down ten men against the possession side fair enough I understand if they shut up shop then
00:22:30
Speaker
But I thought that was really telling that at 2-0, we basically went, well, that's the end of the season then, lads. There didn't seem to be any effort at all to change the game from our point of view. Pump, let's have some listen to the cues.
00:22:44
Speaker
Thank you. First up, Tom, I don't know who this is, so you probably have to film in because it's from your mate's WhatsApp group, but it kind of feeds into what you were saying. So it's given Wagner's poor performance, should we be building players to fit his system, given that hardly any other managers like to play said system. And I think that kind of feeds into a concern that I have and I was talking to people about last night is
00:23:10
Speaker
Look, when Stuart Weber came in, he was really clear that head coaches were interchangeable. You know, sporting directors potentially probably were interchangeable. You know, coaches were, you know, first-team coaches were interchangeable. Academy scouts were interchangeable, all because there would be this golden thread and philosophy that's running through the football club around how we want to play football. And of course, there would be tweaks to that. But there doesn't appear to be many managers out there, maybe clop aside.
00:23:38
Speaker
that want to play football like David Wagner, that are, as I don't know, it stuck and wedded to one way as David Wagner. And I'm not saying that's the wrong way, but I stretch the imagination and I'm still very much Wagner in and I maybe want to see him given a little bit more time with the players that he trusts. I don't think he's had those enough this season, but, you know, with the players that you trust to to put that into a coherent team next season.
Coaching Philosophy and Team Rebuilding
00:24:06
Speaker
But that argument is compelling to say, like if he goes wrong, like if this is another Dean Smith next season, where do Norwich go? Because they'll have recruited a load of players that won't fit virtually any other manager. Can't know what's your view on that.
00:24:23
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree. And it was kind of an issue that I had towards the end of last season. And when does a coach ever have a squad full of his own players? I just don't think that it's a reality. And then obviously, there's the financial aspect of that. Is it doable to get the players that he wants to fit his system? Is he going to be left with kind of CED replacements on that list? So all of those elements, I think, are very dangerous. And you're absolutely spot on with your analysis. And that's where I think I have
00:24:49
Speaker
quite a few questions in terms of the structure of it because it feels to me like everything that Norrie City were in terms of the structure, the identity, the philosophy. Well, that died in the dressing room when Daniel Farker was dismissed in that Premier League campaign. Then there was a lurch and this is the point where you can probably identify as being the comms issue because
00:25:10
Speaker
they completely change they recruited a different coach different style it was all it was geared towards doing something completely different nobody ever really explain why that was why they felt that was and since then we just kind of had this thing that's open to interpretation as to what exactly they're trying to do and
00:25:27
Speaker
You know, you go from Smith to Wagner. Again, that's quite a lurch in terms of stylistics and in terms of outlook. So you're right. If they recruit and, you know, it's probably a different question altogether about whether you trust the people in charge of the recruitment to recruit for that style appropriately. But let's say that they do and they underperform again, they have to change coaches again.
00:25:48
Speaker
Well are we then looking at another rebuild again? Are we going to have to sort of know who's going to have to call six, seven players again? Like it's just not sustainable and that is where this kind of initial idea, the initial seed of the idea that Webber planted in 2017 about him being the continuity and the club having a system that coaches would almost be, I remember him saying, coaches would be dispensable.
00:26:09
Speaker
you'd be able to take one out and slot one in and it will function in exactly the same way with a few minor tweaks and that a style of football would be replicated from first team level all the way down to under eight level, which if you've watched Irish 21s or 18s this season absolutely isn't the case. They don't play like the first team. So again, when did this point change? Why hasn't it been communicated that that's a change?
00:26:32
Speaker
and you're right and that's where I think a lot of the issues come from it because they can completely overhaul the squad and in October there could be a new manager and they're saying the same thing again so there is a danger of course with that.
00:26:44
Speaker
And there is a risk. I guess the argument is that what they were trying to do wasn't compatible with the Premier League. And so they had to change direction. But then to change it to this kind of system again, where the head coach becomes the focus and you build around that and you get a coach or you get players into suit a coach rather than a coach into suit players, that's again, a complete sea change from what went previously. So I like you have complete reservations around that. And then there's probably the deeper point, which is,
00:27:13
Speaker
Do you support us do people have enough trust in david vargana what is given those resources to put it into a team that's capable of success now that's that's a subject of you that's open to interpretation. I think in terms of your assessment of him so far i'm probably and i can speak for myself in a place where you can look at the mitigation and go yeah there's been plenty of mitigation and that's all terrible and you know it's hard for any coach to build
Future Direction and Ownership Questions
00:27:37
Speaker
off the back of that.
00:27:37
Speaker
And you can also think, did I expect him to be doing a little bit better with the tools that he's got? Absolutely. So I think there are certainly question marks around him as well. It's not like we're on a run where Norwich have won eight from nine and they're going into next season and you think, blind me, if they'd have sorted this out a bit sooner, then it would be okay. So yeah, I totally get the issues around the structure and the coach and putting all your eggs in one basket.
00:28:00
Speaker
But I guess, I don't know, is that the last roll of the dice? I suppose that's the question. Is that all they have left? And if that is the case, then is that a sustainable footing to move into next season with? All of these, I think, are completely valid questions. And the answers I think we're going to have to wait for, unfortunately. Well, to your point on that, I mean, listening to your guys' pod yesterday, you made that point. Who's going to be asking those questions and who's going to be editing them out?
00:28:26
Speaker
We're probably going to get another in-house job at mid-May sitting down at Colney and it'll be neatly packaged up and it'll have some nice graphics at the start and the end. But you guys need to be asking those questions and presenting the answers rather than an in-house friendly touchy feely interview where we give you the opportunity to come up with a couple of sound bites where it's not my fault, but it's just been tricky, hasn't it? I do care, honestly.
00:28:53
Speaker
without ever having a follow-up question of, you know, how is your performance being reviewed? Like, you know, quarterly, do you sit down with the board dear, or do you just do it at home over the dining room table? Next question, Pump.
00:29:10
Speaker
Next up, this is, I'll tell you what Matthew, I'll come to you on this one. It is from Twitter and it's half or half likes trains. I was particularly fond of his Twitter handle there. So thanks half. He's stated that the Atanasios are not the saviour that we all think. They don't put that much money in. So where do we go from here?
00:29:30
Speaker
And I guess, Matthew, I'm coming to you because as some of our listeners may know, you are a connoisseur of Major League Baseball. So you may know a bit about their time at Milwaukee Brewers and the fact that it didn't really ever seem to invest in the playing staff. It was more around the stadium infrastructure and facilities and all of those bits.
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, in many ways Milwaukee is sort of one of the closest comparisons for Norwich in Major League Baseball. It's a quote unquote small market team. They don't have huge amounts of money to pour in. Baseball is set up differently to football with a draft system and a spending cap on what teams can spend. So it's not a direct read across.
00:30:16
Speaker
But they've definitely tried to build a sustainable model, not quite self-funded, but not a million miles off that kind of thing. I think that's why the question is spot on. They're not going to be saviors. They're not going to come in and write a check to solve our problems. They're going to create, I think they're going to create
00:30:43
Speaker
a bigger footprint, a bigger stadium, more resources at Colney etc.
00:30:51
Speaker
But that enables Stuart Weber and the rest of the team to then build the team, invest in the team, find the recruitment, do more of what we've been doing in the past. So anyone who thinks that this is a change of model, I think is going to be disappointed. It might mean more resources for the same model, but it is going to be the same model. And I think the other angle to that is that the Attenacios
00:31:15
Speaker
don't know football. They know the sports industry, but it's not like they've come into this club with a short list of people they think might be good sporting directors or people they think could be good head coaches. I think they're passionate. They seem like good people that we'd want to own our club.
00:31:35
Speaker
And that matters to me as well as the performances on the field. But this is not the resources or the expertise that is going to turn this around for us. This club is still going to have to do the hard yards itself. Tom, would you echo that?
00:31:52
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. And going back to my intro, really, I just feel like we've got... The reason I went back to 2009, and I wanted to... I actually had to Google it to check that that was the right year, because it's been such a long time since I felt this annoyed. That's how much of a mission it currently feels.
00:32:18
Speaker
to be fair, it probably is closer to the chase era punt to what you said earlier, because there was an element of, you know, on league, on loan to league one, and it was an element of, oh, well, we'll piss that league. And, you know, we felt like we were wrong after a couple of games and then proven right in the end.
00:32:36
Speaker
so yeah i mean i i just think it's it's such a it's such a bleak and difficult picture because there's we've got all of the we've got all of the pieces in place but i just don't have any proven faith in anyone pulling it together i want adson asio to be
00:32:56
Speaker
a different kind of investor to the one that he's likely to be. To be fair, at no point has it been sold to us as it's not Saudi money, it's not spend lots, isn't that? In a way, we should be grateful that there's a bit of financial stability perhaps afforded to us from that and maybe therefore this end of parachute payments isn't going to be quite as tragic as it could have been if we didn't have that in place.
00:33:24
Speaker
However, I don't know. I just feel like I don't have... That's another part that hasn't been communicated clearly to us. I feel like we're at this key stage of potentially a change of having 20 odd years of Delia and Michael
Leadership Scrutiny and Accountability
00:33:46
Speaker
to now. They've got almost joint positioning. It will be after all the shares are hoovered up.
00:33:50
Speaker
That's an SEO. No one's really told us what that is gonna mean and and and it's just weird having having enjoyed those four or five years where you know pluses and minuses on the pitch we sort of got what was happening and what was going on and felt like we were a valued
00:34:08
Speaker
sort of part of it. And now we've swung the other way to AGMs with no press allowed. And, you know, it's very, very difficult to get an interview with anyone or talk to anyone and everything's in lockdown and we're just left to pontificate and have to chat around various different podcasts to try and make sense of it in the void. And they could make it a lot better by just filling the void with some answers.
00:34:33
Speaker
And I think that's an excellent point because there is a void and people are making assumptions that Stuart Weber isn't going to front up and that Stuart Weber isn't going to come out and show that humility and that Stuart Weber isn't going to come out and say, look, I'm accountable for this. And actually, I think knowing what we know about Stuart Weber, he definitely will come out at the end of the season, regardless of who interviews him. And he will go, this is on me. Blame me. You know, kind of actually the players that we've signed aren't particularly good enough.
00:35:01
Speaker
Well, no, he's definitely not going to say that. But, you know, look, he's going to come out and he's going to make noises that this is on Stuart Weber. And I appreciate that. I think the it probably feeds into, though, and this is a question that we've had from Samuel Langan and Connor, I'll come to you to you on this one. He's saying at any other club or another club, sorry, would there be more scrutiny on a coach who hasn't developed the side tactically since his first five games?
00:35:30
Speaker
and would there be more scrutiny on a sporting director who's hired an ex-colleague slash friend? And I think that puts it into perspective for the way in which a lot of people feel is that actually wears the scrutiny and since Ed Ball's the part of the club,
00:35:46
Speaker
Has there really been anyone at board level who's, I don't know, maybe held people's feet to the fire around, you know, performance, who has that mind to look at it from an external point of view and go, look, what you're doing isn't quite up to scratch?
00:36:04
Speaker
I'd strip that even further and say, is there anyone at sporting level who's doing that? Neil Adams, John Iger, Andy Hughes, David Wagner. You could list loads of other names. There are people who have been given jobs by Stuart Webber and have worked with Stuart Webber for a long time. Steve Weaver, you could throw into that. Then people might be providing robust
00:36:24
Speaker
scrutiny every day and saying well hang on Stuart why are we doing this or why are we doing that but I think it's the perception isn't it and that's what was always so interesting about the Wagner appointment is that in 2017 when Stuart Weber came in he felt very forward looking he felt very innovative and we've got to a stage now where actually he's gone oh well hang on I'm just going to go back to the to the guy who I had success with in in 2015 again this this real shift in kind of outlook
00:36:49
Speaker
And I think, yeah, there is that absolutely. And I think also the level of scrutiny and why it's coming on him now is that, well, Daniel Farka was held accountable. He fell on his sword for what was his perceived underperformance because they felt that squad was good enough to stay in the Premier League. Dean Smith, again, fell on his sword for what was his perceived underperformance. They felt this squad was good enough to get out of the championship. Well,
00:37:12
Speaker
Sadly, twice, you can't be wrong twice. There probably is an issue that goes deeper than the head coaches, which I think is why there is that reserve judgment on Wagner for now, and there is that view that's being taken that he needs his own time and he needs his own players. But again, you scratch a little bit under the surface of that. Well, do they have the finances to give him that? Do they have the opportunities that he's going to need to be successful? And I think that is probably where we're at now, and that is why the focus will be on Stuart Weber.
00:37:40
Speaker
I totally get the question. I think to say that he's maybe not under scrutiny would be slightly unfair. I think he is under scrutiny. How much scrutiny he tunes into and how much scrutiny he wishes to engage with is entirely up to him. But there is scrutiny of him. And I would also say there has been scrutiny of Farg now. I think there's just also an appreciation of the hand that he's been dealt, which is not a necessarily good one. But like I say,
00:38:04
Speaker
That's not him being dealt a tough hand and also him getting a free ride. I don't think necessarily the right things. I think, as I said earlier, you can conclude that he's had a tough hand and also maybe not developed the team in a good enough way. And this feeds back to what we were speaking about earlier on.
00:38:22
Speaker
So I think it's really interesting optics. And that's a word that I've found myself using a lot, the optics. And again, it comes back to what you were speaking about earlier in terms of this, the optics that Weber has a disdain for the fans. I genuinely don't think he does. But again, people, it's the sound bite, isn't it? It's the 90% sound bite. It was out of context. It was unfair the way it's been taken, but it's associated with him now. It's been spoken about so much that people assume that. And
00:38:46
Speaker
obviously the way that he speaks. So yeah, I think, and again, once again, we find ourselves coming back to comms and optics and all of this, all of this type of stuff. And I think you're right, John, because I was sat in a room with him after the Premier League relegation in 2020, when he said, this isn't on Daniel Varka, this is on me. I've seen him own it before. And yeah, so I think he will do that.
00:39:07
Speaker
But again, it's the optics of how he does it. Does he sit across the table from someone, I don't know, like he did last summer, who, yes, was obviously an external journalist, but the club ultimately had control of the edit, they had control of what went in, they had control of what didn't. That, for me, is the element that people are now looking for, because that's a party political broadcast. That's not external scrutiny, I'm afraid. Can you imagine if a prime minister did that, if Rishi Sunak, maybe they do, which is probably a wider point,
00:39:36
Speaker
you know if you know they ended up on a conservative own channel or if a Labour politician ended up on a Labour own channel I mean it's just it's ludicrous to think that it would happen there and it shouldn't happen in football and what I think we will get in reality is probably a mix of both I think we'll get an internal chat and I think we'll also have probably an external one that is my feeling as I sit here today I don't think it will be us by the way for what it's worth I haven't been told that definitively I'm just I'm presuming
00:40:03
Speaker
Thank you, Conant Wright. I tell you what, we'll have a couple more, the first of which is from Chris Lacey on Twitter. And he's asking, with the fans emptying Cara Road early and plenty of them were left clearly calling for change, will anything really change given that 20,000 season tickets have been renewed and they've already got plenty of the money in the bank from that? Now, I think
00:40:27
Speaker
I mean, you know, they've referenced that we'll have 11 million in the bank from that. 11 million pounds isn't going to be anywhere near enough to sustain what we're doing in the championship. But I guess what the question prompts in my mind, and Tom, be very interested to hear your views because we talked about this before the pod.
00:40:44
Speaker
I think there's two questions for me. One, what do you think will change and what do you think will happen next? And two, what do you think personally needs to change and what needs to happen next? Because I would imagine the two of those are aligned in your mind. I feel less like I know than I have done for maybe the 30 years of having a season ticket.
00:41:12
Speaker
I feel like we've got so much in place that we should be challenging, not irrelevant of the players, but almost irrelevant of the players. Even with constrained resources,
00:41:30
Speaker
I feel like when you've got the, as in buying new players, I feel like we should be able to go a couple of different routes here. We do have saleable assets. There are people we can get money for. We have to find the right clubs to court them with.
00:41:45
Speaker
so if they want to genuinely burn it all down and i would be sad to see some of them go but i would be in favor of it if we were told that's the plan if we're going full rebuild mode and we're going right okay max we think we can get money for you sarah we think we can get money for you
00:42:03
Speaker
Angus, maybe, we think we can get money for you. Don't want to see any of those three players go.
Squad Changes and Recruitment Strategies
00:42:08
Speaker
They're probably top of the list of the three I want to be in a yellow shirt come August. However, you start to run out of players after before long that you think you could get seven figures for, right?
00:42:20
Speaker
And so maybe you try and raise a bit of cash through selling three or four good assets and you put that into some league one players that just missed the playoffs and a couple of other young up and coming talents, a couple of loans that I mean,
00:42:39
Speaker
That's one thing that needs to change. We need to stop being shit at loans. Like, Marquinhos is awful. Gilmore was awful. Hayden's been awful. You know, stop being bad at loans. Skip brilliant. They're not always going to be play of the season quality. Completely understand that.
00:42:59
Speaker
Part of me thinks that surely just the law of averages next year's loan must be better. Just be better at transfers, mate. Let's just broaden that out because there hasn't been loads of success over the last three seasons. I feel like the loan option is
00:43:16
Speaker
If you're going to go that route of, right, we are going to take a conscious effort to reduce the wage bill and kind of, we're already, I think something like the third youngest average squad age in terms of who we've actually played this season. I think I saw with Swansea being slightly, or maybe we were fifth and they were third or something, but Swansea were even younger than us.
00:43:36
Speaker
If we're going to go that route of burning it down and having a younger, hungrier, kind of chip on the shoulder, kind of that Lambert style kind of squad rather than the European misfit squad that Varga had, then if you tell us that that's what you're doing and that kind of a pattern emerges like that, then fine. I'm up for that. I'll buy into that if we're told that it's going to be in Wagner's kind of
00:44:04
Speaker
Aims and it's going to be to the way he wants to play. OK, I'm willing to believe that if he has if he has got more of what he wants to have and if it is the bombastic style of of O'Nell when O'Nell's on a good day, I'll sign up to watch a team in the top 10 not even get promoted if they are going to play in that kind of manner, because that will get me and my son off our seat at times and think we're nearly going to score just before we you know, the final ball is terrible like it sometimes is with O'Nell.
00:44:34
Speaker
Likewise, if the idea is to try and keep the best of our players together and try and go again and maybe there's some Matanasio help to maintain that wage bill and we kind of tie it together for one more ride, I can be bought into that if we sign a goal scorer.
00:44:54
Speaker
The one thing, if we were going to do minimal changes to the squad, then the one thing that would have to change is, and we're going to do a pookie pod, by the way, either next week or as part of our end of season pod, where we're not going to do anything negative. We're going to solely focus on wonderful pookie memories. So we're not going to talk about that situation too much other than it is factual that he's off.
00:45:15
Speaker
we need a goal scorer. I cannot sign up for a season of Ida and Sargent as our one and two. In any order, goal scoring options go into a season. Fuck that. No chance. It can fuck off, and when it gets there, it can fuck off from there as well. I am not having it. Both of them could become really, really, really good championship strikers if played in the right way at their time. I do not believe we can risk
00:45:44
Speaker
one of both of them turning out like both of them could come brilliant. We've seen both of them put in good performances. But I just I can't I cannot I just can't face them being the choice one and choice two. So that neither needs to be where we do the loan market or that needs to be where we poach someone from, you know, someone who's just finished who loses the league one playoff semi final whoever scored the most goals that doesn't come up, that kind of thing.
00:46:10
Speaker
don't need a coaching or don't need a recruitment set up mate. Just whoever scored the most goals who went out of the playoffs is fine. I don't mean to be as much of a basic bitch as that, but my point is, you know, there are lower league players who you think if they don't go up with their club, then they're going to be, they're ready to go up at a level.
00:46:28
Speaker
And they won't cost us eight million pounds. They will be lower down. And again, if we go for that European model again, that's fine. But what I think we have to avoid is a piecemeal, one random South American, one random Norwegian, although if Teddy wants to lace up his boots, that'd be fine. One random, do you know what I mean? It can't be another patchwork
00:46:55
Speaker
lack of shape, lack of balance squad because that is, I think that's what has scuppered us. Individually, we've got players who are good enough to play top six football. As a collective, it's not a top six squad.
00:47:07
Speaker
Right, let's dispense with all of those types of questions and let's have the last one from Steve on Twitter. So I think what he's referencing here is the project that the club announced quite recently and it was basically nominate Six Legends to go on the side of Cara Road, probably replacing
00:47:28
Speaker
that Gabby Sarah poster or on the side of Cara Road. But he's asked us to come up with our worst suggestion for a Cara Road poster. And can I be the first to say I'm going to ask for one from everyone. But can I be the first to say Aaron fucking Ramsey, little knobhead. Go on.
00:47:53
Speaker
I just want to see you square and be in the, you know, the consummate professional that you are. Well, it depends. What do you mean, worst in what context? Take it whatever way you want, mate. Least appropriate. I think a big picture of jesmoxie was just the words promotion, promotion, promotion. Lovely. You'd need a lot of material for the poster. We're just cuts at various points down there. Nice, nice. Matthew, what are you saying?
00:48:21
Speaker
The first two that came to my mind are people we can't have on there. Robert Chase, he recently passed away. That'll be completely inappropriate. Glenn Roder, similar answer. So I'm already in a bit of trouble.
00:48:38
Speaker
Do you know what, when I think of just dodgy, uninspiring, dead-end Norwich City, I think Brian Hamilton, I think it's a bit harsh to have him up there as the worst. But if you think it was a representative of being lost, I'd put Brian Hamilton on there.
00:48:59
Speaker
If we're going in terms of being lost, one that I toyed with was Brian Gunn, but specifically in the dugout. So specifically Brian Gunn as a manager. Maybe you could have the season ticket throwers on there instead of Brian Gunn. It's like where it was like 30 foot of Gunny, but in his jacket, like with a bit of dugout behind him to show it's clearly the manager version. And then there's like a season ticket card like in midair coming towards him.
00:49:26
Speaker
or a clapper just going towards Chris Hooten's head. Just anything that's been lobbed at. Oh, no, that would be nice. A montage of our lackluster managers in there. So like worthy in the Burnley game. So almost irrelevant of how good they were beforehand. You just want Docatee's rugby tackle. That's all you need. The downfall, the downfall, a management downfall like montage. That's what I want. Lovely.
00:49:50
Speaker
Well, I'll tell you what, maybe that's a project that we could take on and put on a pub wall or somewhere in Norwich, you know, just just for the lols. We don't have to tell them that's what we're doing before we start. And then once it's implemented, then, you know, they can't do much about it.
00:50:04
Speaker
OK, well, I appreciate all the questions and we didn't get to just say that Steve's was my favorite. So Steve, if you want some merch, just get in our DMS, mate. Do it, do it. Yeah, loads and loads of things. And as the pun alluded to, WhatsApp, we went to various media. So we appreciate Connor. Thank you for carving out some time to be with us. Gee, we really appreciate your insight and your analysis. I acknowledge you exist. Everyone else will be here long after these.
00:50:32
Speaker
have gone. Let's hope they surprise us and come out with a 20 point plan for how they're going to take us back to the promised land. And by that, I don't mean the Premier League. I don't even mean the playoffs. I just mean a team that we're proud to root for. Mind how you go.