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"Hogwarts For Footballers" ACN Pod 97
61 Plays2 years ago
Its done. Bye bye premier league. Edie & MattMcG spend some quality time with Jon & Tom discussing this week's investment buzz, last week's webber interview, where the squad needs most work and of course your listener Qs.
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Transcript
Introduction to Relegation and Investment
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to the Long Come Knowledge podcast, an interesting interrogation of the incidents incited by relegation, including the impossibly intriguing implications of investment. We're joined by Mcgee, his new moniker that we're going to be going with and keeping a straight face while we say it, and also Edie to dissect the end of the season and talk about where we go from here.
00:00:46
Speaker
Investment, Mcgee, where are you on a scale of convinced Anastasio is the next Venkis disaster to planning which Europa League regulars you hope we draw where we qualify undoubtedly in 18 months time?
00:00:58
Speaker
I'm definitely at the end of looking around Europe at places I'd like to go and watch Norwich play. I was too young when we went to Bayern Munich and Inter Milan. And so I'm at that end of things. I do think that that's a bit of a surprise to me. I'm a big fan of the model we have. I'm skeptical that big money coming in, or I've always been skeptical that big money coming in, won't end up biting us on the backside. But this guy seems legit.
00:01:27
Speaker
I think that there's a lot we need to know before we can get too excited.
Nature and Intentions of Investment
00:01:34
Speaker
How much money are we talking about? Is he just buying up shares and so the money's not actually going into the club and he just wants to be around as a plaything for his kids? What investment are we talking about? Is the ownership going to change now or in the future?
00:01:49
Speaker
and how is it going to change things for us. But if you were to say, who do we want to be coming in and bringing us money? This guy is the kind of person that we would want. He's not shady. He's really transparent in the way that he owns the Milwaukee Brewers. He seems like as extremely wealthy people go, a pretty decent sort of chap. First thing I did given he's American was go and look who he's donated money to.
00:02:19
Speaker
and he only don't owe money to Democrats, so he's not of a Trumpian maniac. The other thing for me is that Milwaukee Brewers have a literal slide in their outfield, and every time they score a home run, their mascot slides down it in celebration. I just think that's the kind of thing we need a lot more of at Carrow Road. I'm excited.
Speculation and Media Influence
00:02:44
Speaker
I reckon Ben Stokes will be doing an incredible ACN Norwich slide. A couple of things to pick up on there. The first thing is you mentioned early doors about when the details come out and when we know a bit more about the details and since
00:03:02
Speaker
we failed to win one of the must win games we needed towards the start of our running and it became really, really clear what was happening. I've been off Twitter completely and doing no social media other than looking at golf videos on TikTok. And I dipped back into Twitter just before this pod to see what listening questions we had and just have a quick scroll to take the temperature of that tribe.
00:03:27
Speaker
It's incredible how exercised people can get with so little information. And some sensible people saying, oh, well, see, yeah, it's not full investment. It's just 18%. And I don't know why you all got so excited. But you don't know what's going to be happening further down the line. And you don't know whether or not it's a stepping stone. And one other thing you mentioned was, oh, it might just be a play thing for the children.
00:03:52
Speaker
There are much closer and more geographically convenient play things if you literally just wanted to say, hey, these shares can be in your name. There are a lot of smaller American franchises.
00:04:05
Speaker
that he could have that kind of investment in and say off you go including people like forward madison for example there's the soccer team near the brewers with some of the best shirts in american soccer so yeah i'm confused as to how
00:04:23
Speaker
People are can be in either camp in terms of this is definitely a fantastic thing but I completely agree or or or or or a terrible thing and oh We should be disappointed that it's not a full-on takeover, but I agree with you I don't know what you think Edie all the research I've done is you know like Mcgee says if you and if you list The things that you would be worried about
00:04:47
Speaker
in terms of like say politics and obvious disgusting things that we can google and find easily he does seem to check out as one of the better rich guys right? Yeah I mean it's not exactly it doesn't sort of feel like a glazers situation but I think definitely it's worth looking at the glazer situation to just remember that the phrase just the tip
00:05:12
Speaker
can often apply in these circumstances. So it's just sort of the kind of early investment of a little tiny chunk. That might go two ways for us. We might actually see more of something that we actually want to see like 100% of.
Impact on Business and Leadership Scrutiny
00:05:30
Speaker
So it's just really like
00:05:33
Speaker
a question, I think, of at least getting a little bit of investment, seeing how it pans out. Will it be greater scrutiny? Will it actually mean that the right questions are being asked in terms of our efficiency as a business and the consistency of the messages we're putting out? Well, we're about to come on to the latest web relations from that interview at the end.
00:05:58
Speaker
I can't believe I haven't seen it used more often, really. But again, I haven't been on Twitter, so it might have been where everyone has said every day. But yeah, Pun, what do you think about that with regards to the Webber stuff? Do you think having some financial heavyweights who have been there, seen it, done it at a successful level in a
00:06:20
Speaker
bigger environment in terms of the number of eyeballs that have been on that on that baseball franchise. Do you think that will bring great scrutiny for the executive committee? Yeah, I think it's something that I've been really interested in since Zoe Ward has been appointed to the board is there's massive conflicts of interest in there if they're looking at scrutinizing the football side of the business and that is a worry for me in so much as
00:06:47
Speaker
Look, we know that Delia and Michael, both are very much of the opinion that they employ experts to run their football club and they have deemed Stuart Weber to be the expert that they needed to run the football side of that particular club or our particular club. So if at a point where we have continually failed, and I think we can now say that two successive seasons in the Premier League we have failed,
00:07:13
Speaker
Where is the scrutiny and you know and none of us are inside that boardroom So we don't know what difficult conversations are going on but someone who is highly successful in business someone who has a proven track record of Taking a smaller sporting team and have them compete at the top end Because as far as I'm concerned and Matthew probably back this up You know the Brewers have been competing at the top end of of their leagues
Fan Expectations and Self-Funding Model
00:07:39
Speaker
that feels like the kind of thing that we need. It's interesting, I think, that when they took over the brewers, I'm pretty sure that the kind of equivalent of Stuart Weber stayed in post and either remains in post or stayed in post for some time. But I'm just going back to the question of investment. I'm really surprised in myself that how quickly I'd warmed to the idea of it and how quickly
00:08:02
Speaker
most of the fan base warmed to it because I've always been a huge, I've said on this podcast several times, I've been a huge advocate of our model. I think I'd love nothing more than a self-funding model to work in the Premier League.
00:08:19
Speaker
purely because it's flipping the bird to the Premier League, it's flipping the bird to the wider kind of rent-a-gob national punditry pool because we'd have stuck to our principles and we'd have done it on our own. And I still think that we could, with a fair wind, that it would be possible and it comes down to, and this is kind of coming full circle, it comes down to,
00:08:41
Speaker
a failure this season, an abject failure in recruitment. Now, whether you put that at Stuart Webber's door or Daniel Farker's door or the wider recruitment team's door, place it wherever you want. But at the same time, we don't know the conversations that are going on in the boardroom or between Stuart Webber and executives about what's gone wrong. We don't know the lessons that are being learned.
00:09:05
Speaker
It doesn't, I don't know, it doesn't feel like there's any kind of, and we'll get onto this with the Weber interview, it doesn't feel like there's any kind of massive acceptance of responsibility. And there really seems to be this line that the club is pushing about a collective failure. And I'm just, I don't know. Does it not remind you a bit of party?
00:09:27
Speaker
Do not mind your bit of party. Everyone should be ready to move on. We'll tell you when we're ready to move on. Thank you very much. Also, last time out, 1920, Stuart Weber comes out and does an interview and says, don't blame Daniel, blame me. This is completely my fault. We're completely under armed for this. Blame me. This is on my shoulders. This is absolutely 100% me.
00:09:49
Speaker
and it's very different messaging this time around. Now, whether that's a conscious decision, because as we know, there is a PR agency involved with the club now, which is getting paid quite a lot of money to, you know, kind of to do that work. There is a different head of communications, I think from when we went down last time, or no, actually might be the same head of communications. But again, you know, they're looking to shift the narrative, but it just feels a little bit uneasy to me. And bringing that back,
00:10:16
Speaker
additional scrutiny from a successful businessman or business person, I think would be definitely welcome.
00:10:24
Speaker
With regards to that, the third thing I think we need to talk about off the pitch wise is these minutes from the Canary's Trust and we were already aware of some very strongly worded statements sent directly to certain members of the Norwich City fanbase who are not employees of the club to kind of watch their mouths publicly and I wonder
00:10:49
Speaker
Edie whether or not Webber this time is not as in a stronger position he necessarily feels to say hey put it on my back I did really well in year one I haven't done very well in year two trust me to get it right in year three maybe because of that kind of PR misstep that happened with the Everest article
00:11:08
Speaker
so recently he didn't necessarily feel or he was advised PR wise, I don't know if Stuart Webb is the sort of person who would take advice and work on it.
Accountability and PR Strategy Critique
00:11:18
Speaker
I think he feels he knows what's best for him. Do you feel maybe that's why he didn't feel he could say, hey, let's let I want to carry the can for this because he doesn't currently have enough sway with supporters based on what was seen as a misstep recently? Well,
00:11:35
Speaker
He clearly doesn't have any Kipling written on the walls of the training centre because that whole thing about it doesn't matter how you behave when you're doing it all right, it's when you the chips are really down that counts and yeah before he took accountability during a period of failure but there wasn't this level of just this is like a 3D like mega movie of a failure and
00:12:04
Speaker
It's entirely possible to turn around during this point and act as if it's something we're all sharing as an experience, which we are. But there's just this one person at the center of it all at the moment going, it's you, it's you, it's them, it's this. And absolutely not even addressing that little area where they might have had one iota of responsibility. So it's definitely, I kind of get the feeling that over the last few years,
00:12:35
Speaker
Stuart Webber's had a toolbox and in that toolbox have been some really great devices for leading people, for motivating people, for bringing people together. But I think somewhere along the line, it's sort of the growth mindset that's always being preached about here has actually disappeared because much like Homer Simpson's glove slap,
00:13:02
Speaker
these tools that initially can open doors and make magic happen. He's just applying them willy-nilly, left, right, center. He applies them in one direction, he applies them in the other direction, and now it's completely inconsistent. Then yet, he's feeling like, why is my glove slap not working? He's feeling quite antagonized about it, and that's coming through in everything he's doing. It's just not a good vibe.
00:13:28
Speaker
that the person who's supposed to be leading is just turning around and not even admitting that they had any kind of input into this situation and just pointing the finger at everyone else. So it's definitely like we've reached a point where that cannot continue one way or another. No, it's a weird... That's, I think, why he's being so weird right now.
00:13:56
Speaker
It's a weird manifestation of siege mentality. So going on to the thing we were just about to touch on with regards to Canary's Trust minutes, which in case you haven't seen, the club have now kind of put on record publicly via those minutes that they feel, and this comes from Dan, although I think we know that it comes from the ownership down of the club,
00:14:21
Speaker
And we feel that people in public who previously have been supporters of the club have been critical, calling for people to change jobs, lose jobs. And that's a really bizarre stance to take given
00:14:40
Speaker
one, the catastrophic failure of a season that we've just had and it's fairly common with anyone with an article, podcast, head of a supporters group, whatever, if you're asked for an opinion or paid or whatever for an opinion on your outlet where you typically say we played well on Saturday, we played badly on Saturday,
00:15:01
Speaker
what are you going to say oh we should carry on doing this this is terrific we just you know we we narrowly avoided you know a record points uh hall in the premier league by being so dreadful predictably for the second time um in a row it just seems really strange to me to the fact that we've got this this webber behavior of blaming the fans or even even though he didn't explicitly do so for the first
00:15:30
Speaker
for the first response in that interview. Bear in mind it's an in-house thing, right? So there's no gotcha journalism here. They presumably did the in-house to prevent or try and control the narrative in some way. Then they've edited it or overseen the editing of it and allowed the first thing that any of us see in that 33 minutes is him responding saying the fans gave up too quickly. It's just like, sorry, what on earth are you talking about?
00:15:59
Speaker
There is no scrutiny here, is there? No, he's checking in and going, should you do that? But that's one of the things you just think if, you know, we had, you know, we've interviewed people from the club of various different ranks from ownership to player to scout. And there's been the odd thing that's been said that I have edited out because I thought that makes you sound like a bit of a dick. And even though I know in the context of the conversation,
00:16:27
Speaker
you haven't meant to sound like a bit of dick I've taken it out because you stumbled over your words or you said something that isn't quite politically correct or whatever I've taken things out not because I've been lent on and we've been really fortunate that most of the time we haven't been lent on for what we've included for interviews and stuff and this is obviously going back we haven't had much access this year and so the idea and this is why I think the Argent lads were so taken aback by the whole you know the local media so I watched the
00:16:57
Speaker
I watched the reaction video that Connor and Paddy, who I think are fantastic beat reporters for Norwich, and we're really lucky to have them. And I think them, along with Michael Bayley, that's incredibly even-handed, the way that they cover the club. And I think they always try and see the benefit of the doubt when they can and have done over the last few years.
00:17:18
Speaker
And I saw their reaction video to the Stuart Webber interview and they spent the first 10 minutes. Paddy, you could tell, was furious at the idea that the local media had given up or the local media had rounded on them. And at no point do I remember any kind of really negative campaign. I think FARC was treated incredibly even-handedly compared to some of the way other Premier League managers have been hounded out after not even that bad run of results. So Matt,
00:17:45
Speaker
What's your lasting thoughts on that interview? Do you think that's done long-term damage or do you think we're three wins in the first five games of the championship season away from everyone forgetting that Webber had a misstep there?
00:18:04
Speaker
I think we are a few wins or a few million dollars away from people moving on from the interview, but the thing that I think should worry us all is what that interview tells us about the mindset of the leadership and also who is advising them. If you take a step back and think about what they were trying to do with that interview, there's no requirement to do something like that. They're trying to do an end-of-season interview to close the door on last season, take some responsibility and accountability so that
00:18:34
Speaker
there was a sense of togetherness with the fans and also to lay out a plan to show leadership for the next phase and that's what they did in previous seasons especially in the season the last relegation did it really really well.
00:18:51
Speaker
But against all of the things that Stuart Weber says he's about, honesty, accountability, transparency, and against the criteria for what they were trying to do with this interview, they failed very badly. I think they've made themselves look dishonest. I think they've made it look like they aren't taking accountability. We didn't see much of a plan for how to do recruitment differently and better next time.
00:19:15
Speaker
And worst of all, I think they made themselves look really weak. Doing that kind of in-house interview and doing it because all the, you know, the local media were really mean to us. I mean, I read these trust minutes and just sort of was jaw-dropping for them to in black and white say that they wouldn't do standard basic PR work because the local press had been a bit mean to them. I think makes Stuart and the rest of the team look
00:19:41
Speaker
Really, really weak. And I tell you, you know, none of these people should work in politics for a day because the media is brutal, brutal in other sectors and in to other clubs. I think we are lucky with the quality of the journalism we have locally.
00:19:56
Speaker
But it is also not tame, but pretty gentle. So I think that it makes me question their internal thinking, their siege mentality, and honestly, I think, their weakness as well.
Communication Strategy and Transparency
00:20:09
Speaker
So I think people move on from the interview, but I'm not sure. I'm not reassured that we've got a strong leadership that we'll need next season if it does get bumpy. I've got a real issue with, and you talked about it, Tom, briefly, that they sought to control that message by in-housing it.
00:20:26
Speaker
Look, we kind of got wind that that interview was going to drop. I was told that actually Alice Piper sat down with Stuart Weber for about an hour. It's 33 minutes. So they've definitely, you know, and Alice Piper, look, I have no opinion of her as a journalist. I've seen her in the All in Yellow podcast.
00:20:44
Speaker
do a really good job in terms of interviews and ask someone I would have thought were quite searching questions for an official club podcast. So, you know, she could well have asked a lot of questions that we didn't see the answers to, but if you've edited down from approximately an hour to 33 minutes,
00:21:03
Speaker
some of the answers were clearly cut. You can tell by the way that video runs they've cut bits out of the answers because I think Stuart Weber says something along the lines of in terms of responsibility. It starts with us and then there's a big pause and then he kind of goes and it ends with us and I'm thinking there's probably loads of shit that you've said in the middle of that that that is you know slightly controversial. So the answers are cut, they've cut out large swathes of it and actually
00:21:30
Speaker
there didn't seem to be the the follow-up scrutiny that maybe Archon or the BBC you know with Chris Gorham who I think asks really intelligent questions of senior leaders at the football club or someone like Michael Bailey
00:21:44
Speaker
would have asked and we'd have also got it warts and all with them and it just worries me that that they weren't up for that appropriate challenge even if they'd have gone look you know what we haven't fallen out with the BBC and we're just going to do the BBC or we haven't fallen out with Michael and we're just going to do him it was just this oh shit batten down the hatches because you know they might all really be mean and they might all be in the same WhatsApp group talking to each other and isn't it awful you know kind of thing it just it felt wrong and it feels like this
00:22:13
Speaker
this insular approach that that they've kind of gone to now is just it's just rubbish. It's really small time. Yeah. Well, that's that's what I think that that's the thing I'm thinking about the the American influence. So to go back to the top of the podcast.
00:22:29
Speaker
talking about this brewer's chap and his potential, as British as I can be, this brewer's chap, let's see what he's after. But that's what I'm really hoping for, even if he's doing something, and I think it was Mick Dennis who brought up that it sounds like the deal from what little we know, and he's probably got a bit more insight than a lot of us,
00:22:52
Speaker
with his relationship. But it sounds like it might be similar to how they bought the turners in for a kind of loan based on some shares. And it might be that there's no immediate cash injection, but it's basically a foothold. Let's see how this works. Try both on for size and see whether or not further investment follows in future or loans on the basis of certain returns is invested in future.
00:23:15
Speaker
Now, what excites me about that is, yeah, okay, it would be lovely if we'd given a transfer kitty to guaranteed promotion. But what's probably with where the club is at the moment, just as important, is some big boy pants scrutiny, you know, some proper, a proper chief financial officer.
00:23:35
Speaker
To scrutinize what is going on in the club and what's being spent on it is not so I don't want to get a letter telling me off from the club or anything but it is not. Being critical to as pun said earlier today.
00:23:56
Speaker
To call into question the conflict of influence and interest that is on the board if you know if i were to work in a position with my wife. In any business or any venture of course is gonna be almost impossible for me to view her activity in her behavior.
00:24:17
Speaker
through a lens that isn't, that's the person that is bringing up my children with me or what have you. Do you know what I mean? It's perfectly valid to say, to ask that question when things aren't going well.
00:24:27
Speaker
How do you square that circle? What procedures and methodologies do you have in place? What third party or independent consultant or whatever it might be? What is your methodology for? Well, what happens when it comes to Stuart's performance review? Because clearly, Zoe can't do that. And if the ownership
00:24:47
Speaker
and we know this from speaking to them personally if they've got a deliberate look we we're custodians of the club um and we know that there are people in football who know a lot more about transfers budgets and everything that we do so we pay people who know more than us to to do what we should do because they unlike a lot of people haven't turned their back on experts um then then they clearly also can't hold stewart to an account in that way because they've already said well you know more than us anyway so
Management Style and Strategic Concerns
00:25:14
Speaker
maybe what I'm hoping for from this relationship, if it gets signed and done, maybe it turns out that we lose a bit of that village-style running of the show, which I don't think was there two years ago, but seems to have developed over the course of this season. We just seem to have gone backwards in terms of
00:25:40
Speaker
how grown up the club externally seems to behave. But you mentioned this last podcast, Tom, so I thought about this the other day, right? And you've just kind of triggered my memory because you said about Andrew and Sharon Turner. So you have Delia and Michael, obviously as the majority shareholders, you know, at the football club, you have
00:26:03
Speaker
Stuart Weber and Zoe Ward as a married couple who are pretty much now the big bosses, the executives at the football club. You had Andrew and Sharon Turner, who I think it was seen because they were a partnership that was seen as a benefit to Delia and Michael. And I know it's decades ago now, but again, it's another couple. You have a couple running the Community Sports Foundation in Jackie Thornton and Ian Thornton.
00:26:30
Speaker
That's not a coincidence, is it, that that happens. And I don't know that, you know, I have no firm opinion as to whether that's the right model or the wrong model, but you don't see it in any other business, really, do you, that there's this kind of swathe of couples, you know, kind of running what is, you know, kind of massive businesses or foundations with, you know, millions and millions of pounds. It'd be a cracking episode of Wife Swap, wouldn't it? Three of them switched. I'd watch that for an hour.
00:26:58
Speaker
But it's a weird concept, isn't it? Deela and Michael have talked, when things were going well, they've talked about the fact that they like almost this flat managerial structure and collective leadership rather than just having one at the top. But what you did have with someone like Ed Balls as chairman is someone who probably would have offered that challenge and would have acted as a, right, so what's going on here? What's the development plan? What are we all thinking? Why did that go wrong?
00:27:26
Speaker
And look, for all we know, those conversations could be happening. But there's no assurance that they're happening at the moment. Well, that was what Paddy and Connor also said in after the web elation video. They basically said and they said they prefaced it with the same as what you said. You know, it's not Hollis's fault. She didn't edit the
00:27:51
Speaker
She's asking the questions, and you can tell from her earnest nature that there probably were some questions that maybe were slightly more uncomfortable than the ones that we saw the answers to. But they basically said, yeah, she did a really good job. However,
00:28:06
Speaker
the answer to the question that he gave at the top, there's no follow-up. There were no follow-ups on any of the things. There was no challenging of, well, hang on. If that's the case, then why did you do this? And so, for example, the recruitment answer was something like 20-odd seconds.
00:28:21
Speaker
And it's like, well, if any other media outlet had Webber for five minutes, they would probably spend five minutes of it on the recruitment, because that is fundamentally the biggest problem. It was obvious by the end of September that we had recruited badly.
00:28:40
Speaker
So that needs a lot more scrutiny. I want to slightly shift focus on the off-season and it's quite a short one. It's not that long before we start playing pre-season games. I want to talk about the squad and so recruitment stays at the fore.
Recruitment and Player Development Challenges
00:29:01
Speaker
So coming to your first map, where do you think from a kind of players in and out point of view,
00:29:07
Speaker
What do you think is the biggest challenge that we face in terms of either keeping a player that you're worried might leave or maybe a player that's likely to still be in the fold that you really think we'd be better off moving on from?
00:29:23
Speaker
I mean, recruitment gives me a sense of deja vu, because we need to replace all of us Kip and Emi Bournier. And that's still the issue that we've got. I think, you know, in terms of the two questions, I'm really, I don't know why, but I'm really worried about Pookie.
00:29:40
Speaker
I just I think that he's he's got to be the first person on a team sheet and I just I don't know there was vibes at the end of the season John you're one that's all up about about him heading out the door I would really like to get some certainty around around him in terms of people going out
00:29:58
Speaker
I don't have any particular beef with Rishitsa or Sargent, but for me, I would like to see one or both of them head out the door. Because I think there needs to be some recognition that the recruitment last time around didn't work. And we shouldn't be starting from a place of what have we got now? We should be starting from what do we actually need?
00:30:19
Speaker
And I don't know what system Dean Smith's going to have next season, don't really understand what identity he wants to put on this team. But I think one of those two going out the door with an acknowledgement that it didn't work and why would really help us understand what it is that we need. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And it's one of the reasons we feel so rudderless at the moment. And while that detachment is there, I've said it within
00:30:49
Speaker
I said it within a few days of Smith being appointed. I mean, who was it that we had that was a filler that we had who was singing nice songs about him at the end of the game when they were winning comfortably?
00:31:02
Speaker
you know they seem to have and Brentford have got good good kind of feeling and rapport with him and I know they kind of won things with them but I'm really interested in terms of whether or not we're going to get maybe a pre-season sit down with him again maybe via the club channel where he talks about what his philosophy is and what he wants to achieve and the squad he wants to shape and
00:31:25
Speaker
what his values are in terms of competing in this way and playing this type of football and being hard to beat or being difficult to break down or being moving the ball quickly or do you know what I mean? The chalk and cheese nature of Farka to him I think hit all of us more maybe just from a pure relationship with the club point of view than we realised there was going to be and amongst the transfer stuff I completely agree with you that
00:31:53
Speaker
whilst I think Sargent or Rashidza could play a prominent role in a top six championship team, having watched the playoff final at the weekend and a bit of the playoffs before that, they both seem to have enough quality to be involved. I agree that there needs to be some form of reshaping this squad in Dean Smith's
00:32:12
Speaker
because again, when we come back to scrutiny, how long do you give a manager? Well, it's not his squad, is it? Oh, it's not, you know, he's got a player system based on the players he inherited. It's not feasible. I mean, what about you, Edie? How, you know, how much of a shake up do you think that there's likely to be? Probably, I mean, it all depends on investment, doesn't it? Like, what happens next is going to basically chart the course for the next journey. But I think, like, what's going on in Solace?
00:32:43
Speaker
Like, what's the skinny on that? He's playing under 21 international football this weekend, isn't he? Yeah, but he's depressed. What's depressed? Like, okay, so here's how I cured myself of a terrible shopping habit.
00:33:01
Speaker
I would take the things that I'd spent the most money on that were most ludicrous, and I forced myself to give them to charity, not to put them on eBay, but to give them to charity and go, right, that is your punishment for making such a dumb decision. And I think like that solace is like the kind of the ceremonial acknowledgement that we need to make. This is the dumbest thing ever.
00:33:26
Speaker
And I don't know why it was done because no one's really explained anything. It's like he just rocked up. He was very expensive. He took a penalty. He wasn't supposed to. Then then just sort of haunted the, you know, like the Phantom of the Opera or something. Only terrible. So there is something hard about him. Yeah, it's just it's like having a second mascot.
00:33:53
Speaker
But if Captain Canary had like a surly mate, he'd walk along with him, like a sort of frustrated budgerigar. When you look at the recruitment, you just think, well, going to a point, sorry Matt, about Pookie, and thinking about the recruitment, what do you reckon, Jonathan, Johnny, Pomp, Pomp, Pomp, Pomp? Do you think that he wants to play too upfront
00:34:21
Speaker
with Ida and Pookie which just started to bear fruit for him and go down that path because we do have some players to do that but my version of the Jollis, Sargent, Rechita side of things is Plachetta. I just think
00:34:42
Speaker
he shouldn't be in a championship 11, let alone Premier League 11. He can't deliver a ball. He's not even that fast when you see him against fast players. So there's a lot to unpack. Do you think that's the way he'll go, those wingers and two up front? So the answer to that is no one's got any fucking idea. And the reason behind that is that he stumbled upon that formula, I think, purely because of the players that he had available and he had to try something different. And that started
00:35:12
Speaker
with what the Everton game I think when Edra and Pookie were kind of paired up top together with Sargent on the right essentially it was just right let's play as many forwards as we can be a little bit more agricultural because actually we haven't got the quality to compete at Premier League level and
00:35:29
Speaker
Look, we got a couple of results off the back of that. We dragged ourselves out of the drop zone. Who knows? Had Adam Ida remained fit for the remainder of the season. All right, teams would have started to figure us out a bit more, but we may have made a better fist of staying up. But you talked about it a moment ago around, so what will he do in the championship?
00:35:50
Speaker
what worries me is Dean Smith was overtly asked that at a press conference the other day. And he said, oh, yeah, I know the way I want to play and it's got four pillars, but I'm not going to tell you. And it's like, hang on, mate. We've just come from a culture where, you know, and Stuart Webber's talked about it with transparency and honesty and all the rest of it. And Daniel Farker being really clear about, look, this is how we're going to play football to Mr. Insurance salesman Dean Smith, you know, who's who's quite vanilla.
00:36:18
Speaker
Going i'm not gonna tell you the way we're gonna play cuz i might alert the opposition to make it's gonna be abundantly obvious after about three or four games anyway and what was really good about and the weather and fuck fuck a partnership and this kind of new era that was issued in with fuckable was the fact that.
00:36:34
Speaker
we were getting told exactly what was about to happen, even when it was 1718. And it was a transitional season, we were being communicated to properly, we were being told the way in which the club was going to go about things in terms of its transfer business in terms of the way in which the team would operate on the pitch. And it just felt like you could get behind that.
00:36:54
Speaker
And I can't, in all honesty, get behind a manager when you're not going to tell me the way you're going to play. Hang on. We probably need to reset on that. And I think that's why a lot of people probably feel a lot more disconnected with Dean Smith than maybe they should do, because he needs to learn the lessons maybe from his predecessor and be a bit better at just
00:37:17
Speaker
communicating his vision. Getting to Jollis though and Rasheetser and Sargent, I actually, as you said, we've got the semblance of probably an alright, you know, top six championship squad. And if with a fair wind, if we start, you know, kind of relatively well, I can see us, you know, challenging at the top end. There's nothing to fear when you look at all of those teams that make up the championship next season. There's absolutely zero to fear and we should be right up there. But it is about
00:37:47
Speaker
ably replacing, as Matthew had said, so eloquently. Buendia and Oli Skip or Alex Tetta, you're however far you want to go back because defensive midfield is just one of those positions that we haven't been able to adequately recruit for for years. And now is the season where we need to do that properly. And if that means we need to go and invest 10 million quid in it, then just get on with it because actually we know how much of a commodity that particular position is.
00:38:17
Speaker
Well, that's what as well, like in terms of all this sort of like pitch pitch stuff, all the pitch talk, all the pitch talk. It's the stuff that's going on off the pitch. I think we need to know about as well. Like what on earth is going on with conditioning that like this injury run has just, it's not as bad as the fabled injury run, but it's still happening. And weird decisions were made around the COVID era about continuing on playing.
00:38:48
Speaker
people were not particularly well on going out there. Is that just going to go on the same way as it always was? And in terms of training, is there going to be any focus on perhaps not passing to Pookie like it's a game of netball? Because that man moves fast.
00:39:08
Speaker
and everyone likes to pass at him where he is at the moment and not where he will be fairly shortly. Not Stiepermann, not Stiepermann and not Pwendia. Basically they're two players who understood, well, four yards in front of where he will be in five minutes. Yeah, you're right. You're completely right. Nailed it. So it's just all of that kind of like the soft football, let's call it that. Just the kind of little extras, a butterfly flaps its wings in Hong Kong, the stock market crashes elsewhere, all these little sort of
00:39:38
Speaker
housekeeping things. Like, I think Liverpool did really well, mainly because No, I mean, overall, in terms of their strategy of man management. It's, you know, they had an individual mental health program for each player. It's those little kind of it's like this is this is Hogwarts for footballers. These are all children, they can't be put in charge of their own fitness and destiny.
00:40:06
Speaker
They need to be given all of their personalised vitamins every day. They need to be told what to do. They need to be protected. If they're going to overtrain, they need to be rained back in. And if they've had a bonk to the noggin and they think they can carry on playing, then that's not their decision to make. It's all of this stuff that I think it would be lovely to tighten up. Yeah, I think some of the
00:40:31
Speaker
The physical stuff that we saw when we were allowed to be a bit closer to the squad and the club, and we were a bit more involved. It was a bit more of a community spirit with the media outlets than it has been in the last year before the kind of defenses went up. They do have a lot of that personal plan. There's personal hydration, personal vitamins, and all of these things are all laid out for them. And I think there's a piece from Michael Bailey about that in the way he did some stuff with.
00:40:57
Speaker
and the kind of gesture and preparation. But you're completely right that there is, there does seem, you just don't get the impression that we know what we're doing and losing gives you that impression. But also to go back to what Pont said about how transparent things were in 1718. One of the reasons 1819 was so enjoyable was because we felt like we were being rewarded for patients during the
00:41:24
Speaker
During the transition if you switch me, you know, it was all me. It was so delightful for we're gonna try and play this brilliant football we're just gonna play this brilliant football we're gonna have to learn to do it and We're gonna have to learn to do it better than the people who are trying to stop us because it's going back to your point Matt About are these four pillars? We don't want to tell anyone in case someone finds out what it is Well, yeah, they are gonna work out but then do those four pillars so brilliantly and I I can't help but think I
00:41:49
Speaker
Because Dean Smith just seems so uninspiring that it's, you know, goalkeeping, defending, midfielding and attacking. That's what I mean. I just, I can't help but think that's what he thinks he's come up with.
00:41:59
Speaker
But I hate it. I hate having this opinion of our manager. I want to run through a brick wall as a fan for him. I want to feel super motivated. Some of the performances that were turned out under the end of the FARC regime, they had lost that loving feeling that that leads performance. Completely understand why that was the end of that because you could just see that they didn't have that.
00:42:28
Speaker
They'd lost that belief that we can do it even against all the odds. We can if we keep doing it Daniel's way. They had lost that belief. Whether or not they could have got it back with a series of lucky results or whatever after Brent, after the Brentford win away, who knows? But point is, it was clear from the performances leading up to that point that had gone. And I only felt in two or three pockets in Smith's regime so far, did they seem to start to believe that they were on to something different. And part of that was the momentum around Edith's kind of surge to form.
00:42:58
Speaker
But we know that some people around the club listen to us prattle on and they do check things. How can they not realise from a communications point of view
00:43:11
Speaker
that we feel, and I say we as in speaking on behalf of thousands of fans, the fans feel disconnected. We feel frustrated that we're not being included, we're not being listened to, we're being blamed, we're not being given the benefit without being intelligent enough to take on a transitional period. Because again, John, you made a really good point there.
00:43:33
Speaker
We literally, we literally have got recent history of where we were told, look, it might be rough for a bit, but this is why. This is the state of the finances. This is what we're planning to do. And I don't think there is going to be a big injection of investment because if you remember Weber kind of said all this and exciting things coming up in the next two to three weeks, which is interesting. They left that in, but that was at the same time as saying there isn't any money. So clearly those two things of something being exciting in two or three weeks and there being a lot of money to spend are not connected.
00:44:01
Speaker
So yes, it's an odd one, really. I want to feel more positive than I do at the moment. And I think a lot of that is to do with the pitch stuff, as you say, Edie. So just as we kind of do a couple more reviewing what's just gone.
00:44:20
Speaker
is there anything that you'll miss about the Premier League? Yeah, maybe. Right, so we have the Championship versus Premier League debate a lot because we're a yo-yo club and that's, you know, ultimately it always comes down to, you know, would you prefer being in the Championship and being a competitive club to just being at the bottom end of the Premier League?
Premier League Excitement vs. Reality
00:44:45
Speaker
There's an element, and I've said this before on the podcast a long time ago when we were having a similar debate, but there's an element of being able to enthuse the next generation. So winning helps a lot with that. So if we're really successful in the championship, then of course you're going to enthuse it. But that's probably going to be those families and those kids that already have a semi-vested interest in the football club.
00:45:09
Speaker
But actually knowing that, I don't know, you're going to see Mo Salah or Raheem Sterling or, you know, next season, you know, Erling Harland at Cara Road. I've seen it firsthand with young children. That creates a sense of wonder in their eyes because they're the names that kids talk about on a playground. They're the names that I don't know, we're probably doing an advert for Gillette Raises or whatever. They're the ones that are on the front of which the kids love.
00:45:36
Speaker
No, but you know, they're on the telly regularly. You know, this is this is a thing like Raheem Sterling does Gillette and he's, you know, kind of he's probably there every time you watch Sky Sports News if the adverts come on, you know, he'll be there in an advert. They're on the front of magazines. So, you know, kind of they're seen in shops and it's it's just that recognition that Norwich are among that elite and you know, they're going to be competing and all right, we're going to get beaten by them. But
00:45:58
Speaker
there's something special about, I think, kids getting excited because they're going to see those players that are some of the best in the world. So I will miss that about the Premier League, but that's about all I'll miss, really. What about you, Edie? I quite like, so us in the Premier League, we're like the most portly man on the stag do.
00:46:24
Speaker
Um, like we are never going to be all jacked or wearing those ridiculous carat-y trousers with bare ankles. We're just going to be like a normal bloke, but everyone's going to love us. Edie, what are carat-y trousers?
00:46:36
Speaker
you know like oh just as in color orange trousers literally any footballer's wedding that's that's been occurring on social media right now you will see the charity trousers they are thick for the quads if you're a bit of a quadzilla they can accommodate that but rather than just giving a bit of room around the cards they taper right in
00:46:56
Speaker
and it's something that needs to end, but we can part that. But yeah, what I loved about the Premier League, any time we're in there is people, I know very few people outside of Norwich that support Norwich, they will support other big teams and they will always say, oh you're lovely, you're so good, I like what you do, such good fans,
00:47:16
Speaker
And it's very much that feeling of like, we're going out there with the personality. We might have a bit of a dad bod, but we're well-liked. And that is always very nice. Whereas championship, it's just slightly a bit more like kind of rucking up and everyone's like, ooh, do you think you are? So, you know, it depends. Do you want to be playing on story mode?
00:47:39
Speaker
and just basically bossing it and not having much of a kind of story to you or do you want to be sort of being a brave little engine that could and everyone going oh aren't they good but we didn't get that this season we just got you know proper joke talk and justifiably so so that's why this particular one has been a bit sour than usual. What about you Matt? What is going to make you long for the Premier League once we're out of it?
00:48:08
Speaker
How am I supposed to follow that? I went to a stag do once where there was an instruction to bring a game with you. And when we arrived, everyone had got like a pack of cards or whatever and the best man said, no, I meant to bring your A game.
00:48:20
Speaker
Oh my word, that's amazing. I feel like maybe Farka had given that instruction out at the beginning of the season and Pookie rocked up with the finished version of Monopoly or something and it was all a bit confusing. The thing I miss about the Premier League is what I love about the Premier League is what I love about FA Cup third round day, back in the day when you picked a big club in the third round and it was the anticipation, the excitement that possibly it could be a famous day that you'd remember
00:48:50
Speaker
for a long, long time. But you usually lost those big games. And doing it every single week instead of one weekend in January has actually been pretty tedious. So it is exciting going to Man City or Anfield or wherever and thinking this could be a really, really special day. But every single weekend last season, it wasn't. And that's no fun. So not really looking forward. Not really going to miss that much, I don't think. Let's have some listening questions, John.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah, we've had corkers this week, but I'll restrict it to three. And I'll tell you what, because we've talked, we've had quite a few questions about Stuart Weber, and I think we've talked about Stuart Weber enough in his podcast. So let's go with something different. We'll start with Luke Mayhew, who says, who has made a more significant contribution to Norwich City? Alan Gao, or Billy Gilmour. Thomas, why don't you start us off?
00:49:46
Speaker
Alan Gao will always be synonymous with, OK, I didn't remember we signed him, conversations. Whereas Billy Gilmore, I think, I hope we forget played for Norwich, because that's been an example of what I am looking forward to not being involved in the Premier League, which is almost the antithesis of what Edie said about, you know, being nice and don't behave nicely. You just, you should be grateful for what you've got, and it must be you using him wrong. You know, how can it possibly be his fault?
00:50:16
Speaker
So yeah, Alan Gao for me. Okay, fair enough. Edie, what are you saying? Gao or Gilmore? It can't be Gilmore. I mean, it's like the equivalent of my BT sports subscription.
00:50:31
Speaker
like, I've paid for my BT sports subscription, I'm in a contract, I can't get out of it. So occasionally, it has its benefits. But otherwise, I feel like I have to kind of labour in order to make the most of it. Am I really making the most of it? Or is it just wasting my time? Maybe you could give it to charity like your things you shouldn't afford. Can you do that? I don't know. I don't know what carat trousers are, don't ask me.
00:50:57
Speaker
You might be able to give them your online password and then they watch via the app. I don't know. And to watch charity. Local children.
00:51:12
Speaker
I'll give you another question. Andrew Kent has asked, do we try to sign players solely for a championship promotion push or players that can make the step up to the Premier League once we get there?
Immediate Success vs. Future Readiness
00:51:24
Speaker
He said he would ask if the two are mutually exclusive but we've proven in recent years that they definitely are. Where would you focus your energies?
00:51:34
Speaker
I think we have to take one step at a time. Next season is not killing time while we wait for another go at the Premier League. We actually have to go again and actually get promoted next season. There's no guarantee of that. We've got a strong enough base of a team, but this is not a team at the moment I'd feel with any confidence that we will.
00:51:58
Speaker
boss the championship next season. And so I think we need to buy players for the moment we're in now. And 12 months on from now, Stuart Weber and Dean Smith worry about the Premier League. I also think that one of the things we've learned is that the two divisions are really, really different.
00:52:18
Speaker
And the money is going to be very different. And so salary expectations need to be different. But also the skills and type of team that we are needs to be different in the different leagues. So let's put together a championship team that can win the championship and worry about the Premier League if we ever get back there again.
00:52:34
Speaker
I mean I'd be inclined to wholeheartedly agree with that but it was only something that I read the other day about Brentford's approach to it and Brentford were communicating even you know kind of say three four years ago to say we are building a team that when we get to the Premier League we feel will be comfortable to compete in the Premier League and it
00:52:55
Speaker
It was that kind of long-term stated ambition. We don't care if it's going to take like seven, eight, nine years, but once we get there, we're going to feel comfortable that we've got a really good shot at staying there. And look, whether they stay there next season is up for massive debate because we've seen your Sheffield United stay up for a season and then struggle. You had us fields have done similar as well. But
00:53:18
Speaker
I just thought it's interesting because Brentford have always kind of delivered on what they've said they're going to do. So I would be tempted to maybe, even if it was with a view of, well, we're not quite certain that we're going to go up this season and accepting the financials might make that difficult. I don't know. If we're not going to get a load of money from American investors, I'd be quite interested to see us take that kind of more long term approach. Edie, what do you think?
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah, totally with you all. There's absolutely no point anticipating something we may not be able to achieve if we actually haven't got our vision on the first step, which is I thought something that like various mountain based podcasts seem to talk a lot about, just very much that thing of like,
00:54:11
Speaker
Yeah, you've got that far away goal, but unless you can complete this, what you see directly in front of you, then the goal becomes just a mirage. So yeah, I think as well, like that's how we're going to find the gem in 20 rocks is work with 20 championship level rocks and maybe one or two will come out and be ready to grow and develop and become something really special.
00:54:39
Speaker
I'm very excited about our academy intake. They came out, they look like they have a promising attitude and also the risk of sounding like an elderly grandmother seems to be very nice boys. So I'd just like to see them start in the championship and then grow and develop and hopefully get to where they need to go because that's how a lot of people have got there.
00:55:09
Speaker
it'll be really interesting I think next season because it almost feels I don't know with a lot of those academy products I was almost of the view that Dean Smith was going do you know what nothing else has worked so why don't you young lads have a go but spring it especially came in and I thought actually he looked really purposeful and kind of ready-made for the way in which Norwich were you know or have traditionally played you know he looked really considered in what he was doing but with quite a bit of emphasis on
00:55:36
Speaker
on shifting the ball forward. So, no, I'd very much like to see him as part of a championship squad if he continues on the same trajectory. Tom, let's have one last question. And this is from Bear Swift, who I always think is an excellent name. He's a regular questioner.
00:55:53
Speaker
of the pod, who says, was there a manager, a realistic appointment, who could have kept us up? And he cites the example of Steve Cooper taking over at Forest a week after we'd hired Smith. And he says he's not saying that Smith's a bad appointment, but just wondered if there was anyone or whether it was just an impossible ask from the beginning.
00:56:12
Speaker
It's not a bad appointment, but he failed in the job he was given. I think the answer is probably no, simply because I don't think the resources were there. I think a manager that was a realistic
00:56:32
Speaker
appointment. I think we were only in a position to have someone who wouldn't charge unbelievable cash we couldn't afford to pay. You know, we're not going to get, you know, someone with the Champions League experience, unbelievable culture, etc, because they're either in jobs or waiting for the next massive job. So we're only going to get we could only get a jobs worth style in and around bottom of the Premier League top of the championship style coach. And I feel that
00:57:02
Speaker
I feel that any other coach could only have got us maybe a bit closer if because of the edo injury. I think the edo injury would have kind of hamstrung any coach because we just simply didn't have the squad to withstand
00:57:20
Speaker
The way that COVID affected us compared to other teams and the way that when the injuries fell and going back to what Matt said, no manager could have succeeded without with an Emmy and a skip shaped hole.
00:57:36
Speaker
that wasn't plugged successfully. So I, you know, I don't, I don't, I wouldn't particularly like watching Steve Cooper's team. I didn't like Swansea under him when I normally do like Swansea. And I didn't particularly like the way the forest played of the bits I saw from this season, which wasn't very much. Although, hey, you know, they've got the last laugh they're going up. But yeah, I, I just think there were two, the odds was stacked far too much against
00:58:04
Speaker
almost anyone taking it on unless either of you guys think I'm wrong and there is an obvious candidate.
00:58:11
Speaker
OK, so I've been thinking a lot about Alex Neil recently because what's happened is at the moment we've lost a manager who has a very clear vision. And I don't know if Dean Smith has a vision or not. I suspect that operating in this structure, reporting to Stuart Webber with a system that's created by Stuart Webber, that might explain some of the very red faced body language during presses of late.
00:58:40
Speaker
However, I just think if you're going to have this sort of insane noise at the top of all of this sort of like Gandhi quotes and things off of Elon Musk books and you know, one minute it's all over here, the next minute it's all over there, you need someone actually between that and the players.
00:58:58
Speaker
who is completely rigorous, a head case for rigor, like a complete nutter for rigor. And if you're going to have anyone doing that, it will be Alex, Neil, a man who found himself famously for stepping outside of the boundaries. And I think like just giving everyone a clear understanding
00:59:15
Speaker
Even if that understanding is just like him staring at them with his eyes and then pointing at his eyes and then at them. I think it's not like that would have worked any magic, but I think it might have helped the current situation. But it's a bit of a mud pie at the moment. At least he's got a bit of a personality. He certainly does.
00:59:37
Speaker
Cool. Well, thank you very much for the questions. Appreciate your time, Mcgee and Edie. Partly acknowledge you exist. We haven't got a game to look forward to, although I am hoping that Hanley gets some minutes against Ukraine. Tonight in that qualifier, we record this on Wednesday ahead of that game. Semi-final, is it referred to as a semi-final? I think it's just a straight qualifier, isn't it? And just whoever wins out of that qualifier, I don't know. No, because the winner of that has to play Wales.
01:00:05
Speaker
I don't know. I'm not paying any attention mate. It's not a, well no, the Premier League and international football doesn't need to be covered by this podcast for at least another year. We appreciate your time this season. We appreciate also, we haven't been as regular with the episodes as we have been when
01:00:24
Speaker
there's been anything riding on the games to be honest it's difficult when the narrative hasn't changed much in the last few months fair play to the to the media outlets that are either paid to sponsored and and feel the need to put it out that is the one thing that we are lucky that if there's nothing to say and there hasn't been for three or four weeks we don't just drag ourselves up and talk about
01:00:44
Speaker
just say the same things again and again but thank you for your company this season and we'll be back during the summer a couple of times at least I'm sure to talk about the exciting takeover investment signings departures and in the meantime just try and have a nice time be kind to each other mind there you go