Match Day Thread Norwich Vs Stoke, Sat 13th Feb @ 15:00

Sure - I said if we go up. Martin, Barden, Mumba, Sitti and I think Idah and Soto will all qualify as under-21 actually. And I’m pretty sure Aarons will too, by three days!

Assuming that’s right, even if we let no-one go, our squad would only be 24 players right now - and we will surely not need five keepers, plus Tettey will retire and at least Leitner will not be included, so there’s plenty of space.

 

Definitely:
Krul
Zimmermann, Hanley, Gibson
Aarons, Skipp, Leitner, Giannoulis
Buendia, Pukki, Cantwell

 

It seems to have escaped you Mike that I have actually NOT been critical of DF this season, apart from questioning the extent to which any lessons have really been learned from last season. My criticisms of DF relate entirely to his shortcomings managing us last season in the EPL. I have never questioned his credentials managing in the Championship. Likewise Hanley and McLean. To repeat, Hanley is a good Championship CB but not up to EPL standard. Funny that when EPL quality CBs and midfielders are in great demand, there is no record, or even vaguest rumour, of any top tier side enquiring about the availability of either GH or KM. Blackburn were said to be interested in Hanley in the close season, and Rangers rumoured to be watching McLean. That's exactly the level of club I'd expect.
So DF hasn't in fact "consistently proved" me wrong. He remains unproven as a top level manager. His pudding will be proved next season, if we get promoted.

 

Robbie, I don’t want this to become a witch-hunt (we don’t want to lose posters and I value different views) and I know I will have played my part if it does, but this is getting completely ridiculous. You’re doubling down on the irreconcilable.

It’s been done to death, but you’re announcing that players like Hanley are not Premier League quality, even as you argue for a formation we’ve hardly ever played in and to play a player in that unusual formation who didn’t cut it in the Premier League despite being given a chance.

It’s a bundle of shameless contradictions. I get that it’s because you’ve backed yourself into a corner and don’t want to admit you might have been wrong on one thing or the other, but the odd thing is it’s making you come across as more foolish by being stubborn than you would if you held your hands up, like all of us have had to do at times (ironically, for me, admitting Leitner wasn’t good enough despite my hopes), and acknowledge you got something wrong.

I think you like to think of yourself as scientific and logical: There’s an interesting article in this week’s Economist that points out scientists, as a general rule, pride themselves in changing their minds - they acknowledge that apart from a handful of true “facts”, most of what we know are really theories and their task is to satisfy themselves by disproving their own theories. You might take a moment to think about that.

Well, it’s escaped me. If you believe you have not been critical of him, then you might want to revisit how you write because it seems I am not the only person who is totally misunderstanding you. And if one person misunderstands you, maybe that’s their fault, but if loads of people misunderstand you, it’s more likely it’s your fault.

See the problem with this is it does amount to criticising him. No matter how many ways you try to dance around the topic, criticising him for not learning from his mistakes is criticising him. Just accept that. It’s silly to engage in attempted word games to justify yourself. If you’re half as clever as I suspect you think you are, surely even you can see that a laboured semantic argument doesn’t hold water?

The oddity about your comment, though, is on the contrary he does seem to be learning - or at least attempting to. Our defence is significantly stronger this season. But you don’t like to accept that fact, I know, so there’s no point discussing it.

We’ve already done this to death and you denied that you were stating opinion as fact. But you’ve gone ahead and stated opinion as fact again. I refer you to my comments above about maybe you want to think again about how you write.

You also consistently ignore the possibility that players improve over time. I know you rather prefer to set your opinions in stone and determine that players cannot change, but both Hanley and McClean have improved immeasurably in the last 12 months. Do I purport to declare they are therefore premier league quality? No, I am not so arrogant. But I am willing to give them a chance to prove it if we get promoted, because players improve. And players like McClean are regularly underrated by certain types of fans.

Well, he has, but that’s just my opinion.

 

I agree with Rob, so I won't go through all of that again. What bothers me is your refusal to acknowledge the impact of injuries, particularly in defence, during the PL season. I could go on but I won't, so I'll just say the lack of an 'in my opinion' or similar is irritating. It's a forum and all opinions are welcome, but a little less of the pedantic lecturing and know it all statements would go a long way.

 

Its at times like this i breathe a sigh of relief because i clearly dont know enough about football to have anything more that a passing chat about the teams composition to my barber.

(And he only speaks Hindi so its really just a lot of confused smiling coming back at me.)

Any way ive exhausted my sports debate today by trying to tell a colleague that india had unfairly boobytrapped the wicket to be unplayable after the first day. It was a strong argument until india doubled our first innings the day after.

I reassured myself that whilst ive been exposed to be an uninformed chancer, i was that before i was exposed as such too. So nothing has fundamentally changed.

 

And who has exactly been enquiring about Leitner , frozen out of the Norwich squad and no doubt available at a bargain price ?? And how do you know there have been no enquiries for Hanley. bearing in mind he has never been up for sale. There could have been enquiries that were knocked back immediately and never reported in the press.

 

One thing we lesser mortals must remember is that robbie has vast experience as a top level football manager so can see and quantify player abilities far better than DF can. We should all be in awe of his quality postings.

 

My views on DF are very simple. He must be a bloody good coach to have got us up once and to put us in a strong position to repeat the feat although how much of it is due to the brilliance of SW in the transfer market is another matter. Will he prove to be a good Premiership Coach? Possibly but not with NCFC. I strongly believe that in the financial structures that now exist it will be impossible for a Club the size of ours to survive in the Premiership which is increasingly the preserve of big city Clubs. The best the rest can hope for is what we have - promotion leading to one season in the Premiership and the money that goes with that.

 

I have a lot of sympathy for this view 1950, but the optimist in me feels like we have to believe that we can stay in the Premier League for a meaningful stint. I agree that the threat of relegation is always likely to be hanging around, but when you look at the likes of Southampton, who are also a selling club - OK they don’t have to balance the books quite like us, but I think it’s plausible.

And to be honest, competing for promotion is much more fun...

 

Lord Nelson did well enough with only one!

 

Wonder how Skipp would do without an arm....

 

I understand what you mean. Although I obviously want us to be promoted, my nightmare is that we turn into a team like Palace, whose only purpose in football is to finish 15th in the Premier League, and who don't even have relegation scraps any more. Since we fell into Division One all those years ago, we've had a fantastic roller-coaster ride with almost every season being significant. In truth I quite enjoy being a yo-yo team, certainly more than just making up the numbers in the Premiership.

 

I had the same thought as soon as I said about the eye!

I think he'd struggle, as he likes to let opposition players know he's around.

 

My feelings exactly. The cash would be handy from a prolonged period of PL "survival struggling" but that would be the only positive for me. I do enjoy a good promotion season and i'm somewhat numbed to relegation now.

 

Yes. The problem, though, is that a club can't be a yo-yo club forever. Eventually, instead of making up the numbers in the Prem, it starts making up the numbers in the Champs, like Ipswich did for so many years. Even more depressing than being Palace.

 

There is nothing more depressing than being Palace.

 

Ipswich??