Transfer Rumours New Manager

Re. Still, this was posted on the Pink'Un forum by the always well-informed and knowledgeable Bethnal Yellow & Green:

"Will Still is a hugely impressive individual.

All his head coaching jobs have come from internal promotions due to how well regarded he is by players and owners/directors. He has improved every club he has been at. He has improved numerous players rapidly, most notably taking Balogun from promising youth player at Arsenal to a 20 goal striker in a top 5 league (and made Arsenal almost £40m). Players who have worked with him talk with utmost respect for him - which considering he is younger than many and has no professional career of his own - is very impressive.

Tactically, he is very versatile and doesn't have one particular system or formation he relies on. He has found what works for the players he has (and he has had a lot of churn at Reims) and who he is playing against. He isn't a dogmatic head coach who has a Plan A and little else. Up to now he has focused on making his teams defensively solid and hard to beat, but has said that is what has been needed as his team has usually been the underdog.

If you want a head coach who is good at developing youth, highly adaptable and emotionally intelligent, then there won't be many better that will come to a Championship team than Will Still. Every time I've watched his Reims team I have seen something else that I really like.

For me, this is the one opportunity Norwich might have at appointing him - they should grab it with both hands."

 

Reading about Still and watching the video of his tactical analysis of the Reims v PSG game, I was impressed by his flexibility, seeing how his approach wasn't working and changing it during the game. Thorup seems similar but I haven't seen the same detail about him.

If both Parma and BYG on the Pinkun board think Still's the one, then I'm inclined to agree.

 

Graham Potter anyone

 

PinkUn now saying that Cuesta and Rosenior are not in the running.

another candidate being spoken to today

 

He will be wanting a PL job I think, maybe England?

 

https://www.footballinsider247.com/...s-hoff-thorup-as-work-permit-granted-sources/

His current side play their last game of the season on Sunday

 

https://www.pinkun.com/sport/norwich-city/24344229.johannes-hoff-thorup-norwich-city-links/

 

Talking to myself a bit here today…

Pascal Jansen reportedly the one to have been interviewed today

 

I'm listening Suffolk. Thorup is looking increasingly likely in the latest odds with Jansen having moved out to 20/1.


Thorup is said to have already received the work permit he'd require. Will Still looks to be the other main contender. I'd be happy with either

 

Thorup remains the centre of attention:

"According to Wayne Veysey of Football Insider, Norwich are now one step away from signing Johannes Thorup from Nordsjaelland with his work permit accepted on Thursday. This will likely see the 35-year-old arrive to take charge of just the second club in his managerial career, pending the board's final decision. He's shown plenty of signs in Denmark that he has the potential to step up in the Championship, but at 35 years old, he will still need the time to build an ideal project at Carrow Road. His preferred 4-3-3 attacking formation should add the excitement that Wagner lacked at times, whilst his connection with Nordsjaelland will hopefully create a pathway for talent to make their way to English football courtesy of Norwich."

If it's true that he's already had his work permit approved that could be a telling indication. To qualify for one you must:

• work for a UK employer that's been approved by the Home Office.
• have a 'certificate of sponsorship' (CoS) from your employer with information about the role you've been offered in the UK.
• do a job that's on the list of eligible occupations.

The gist would be to have a definite offer of a job. If Thorup got his work permit on Thursday, he must have been offered the job and accepted it before that.

 

Does this sound like someone on the cusp of becoming our manager?

"I have huge ambitions here [Nordsjaelland]. The two seasons we have played now have lifted us in a really exciting direction and taken this club to a level that many have wanted and dreamed of for many years. Up where we can join, where it's really fun.

"It shouldn't just be a one-time pleasure, but something you can hope for and count on when the season starts.

"To that extent, we are in the process of doing so. And we must continue with that - and get a little better all the time. So that at some point we can honestly say that we are now aiming to become Danish champions. I have an ambition for that here."

Thorup did confirm that he holds aspirations of challenging himself abroad at some stage in his career - but said it would have to take 'an exciting' project to tempt him to depart Nordsjaelland at this stage.

"At one point or another it can be fun to try another league, country and another culture," Thorup said. "But it must really be an exciting project, because it really takes a lot to beat this, I would say."

https://www.pinkun.com/sport/norwich-city/24344229.johannes-hoff-thorup-norwich-city-links/

To answer the question I posed at the start, I'd say "No! It doesn't." It sounds to me like sincere, thoughtful, as it is, Danish honesty. It would take all one's home-bred cynicism to think these were the words of a young man about to jump ship.

 

Yes, I'd read that before and it made me wonder as well. His team plays their last game tomorrow and he wouldn't want to affect that. The key things for me are whether he did really receive a work permit on Thursday (it could just be blog speak) and also whether he might see us as that "exciting project". It also seems very odd that Jansen was interviewed yesterday (more blog speak?) if Thorup has accepted the offer. We won't know until it's officially announced.

EDIT: Going back to the original source, Football Insider, there seems to be a subtle hedge in the work permit assertion:

"It is believed that the application has been approved, clearing the path for Hoff Thorup to be appointed at Carrow Road if the board elect to proceed with him."

 

Everybody, including the Board, knew that Wagner was going at the end of the season - if they didn't they should have done. Initially it seemed that the young Coach from Arsenal had already agreed to come and I thought ' great. At last the Club have executed a well worked out plan' but no. Nothing firm happened and we were back to its A, no its B, no its C, no we back with B etc etc. Now we are back to a story that we have appointed somebody and got him a work permit but, hold on, a day later we were interviewing somebody else. I accept that we do not know fact from fiction but the impression appears that,yet again, we are involved in a disorganised f**k up. Why ever was I daft enough to think that NCFC were capable of organising the proverbial piss up i a brewery?

 

If you want a bit of light relief nip over to the Ipswich Board. Some clown has just posted that McKenna will not be going to Manure or Chelsea because they cannot match the contract Ipswich will now offer him and this annoying experience will now push the Club forward to ' dominate this league sooner than planned'

 

They are in for a reality check when the new season starts, lol.

 

Weird what supporting a football club can do even to someone who's spent a lifetime distinguishing fact from fiction and appearance from reality
Don't worry 1950, our new manager will be announced next week, and hindsight will show Ben Knapper's had a plan all along.

 

The first line of your post is opinion not FACT. There is an information gap at the moment. Your view of the current narrative is based on information predominately based on sources who have very little idea of what is actually going on. Those in the know aren't talking. Maybe it's a case that the club are just working to their timescales and not rushing into something, because so called fans and the media stamp their feet whilst shouting "I want to know and I want to know now". Jigsaw pictures are often difficult to make out, when you can only see some of the pieces.

Looking at the way our recent head coaches have been treated, by the very vocal, so called fans, I'm very skeptical that a young up and coming coach will get the support and time he'll need to develop both himself and the squad.

 

I hope you are right Robbie. I did say that we do not know what is fact and what is fiction and to be fair the Club seems far more detached from the local media than in the past but at the moment the situation seems little different to the blundering of the past. Perhaps also I was too convinced that all would be revealed when the PL season finished and Knapper would be filmed shaking the hand of his mate from Arsenal in welcome.

 

If the first line is not fact then that is even more worrying when Wagner was sacked before the Board and Knapper had time to get back from Leeds and organise a proper meeting to discuss the situation.

 

I doubt that the club have, in the media's words, "lost interest" in Carlos Cuesta in any other sense than having had to accept that he's become such an integral part of Arteta's coaching team that there was no longer any chance of prizing him away. My guess is that Knapper has been aware of that for a considerable time and has had an alternative No.1 target in his sights throughout.