Natives restless with Norwich's stumble - Interview Monday, 31st Oct 2022 15:22 by Clive Whittingham Norwich have made a model of being a yo-yo club, but after actually spending serious money on their latest Premier League failure they're not impressing the locals greatly with their football back in the Championship, according to Jon Punt from the Along Came Nodge fanzine. Jon we know the Norwich model by now - go up, bank the money, come back, blitz the Champ etc, but last season you did actually spend to try and stay up and made a worse fist of it than ever. How and why? What went wrong? Don’t expect a nuanced answer here, as it’s pretty simple — there was a total failure to recruit players that were Premier League ready, or that could adapt to the league quickly. That, coupled with ripping up the philosophy after 11 games and bringing in a new head coach really did for us. We broke our transfer record at least twice, maybe three times in the summer window, and yet none of them really improved the starting eleven. That’s a real worry when a club like Norwich prides itself on its ability to develop talent, be it through smart recruitment or the academy, to subsequently sell them on for decent profit. There was also the small matter of losing our two best players from the Championship winning campaign, Ollie Skipp returned to Spurs after a stunning loan spell and Emi BuendÃa made it abundantly clear his future was away from Norwich City. We still miss them both. Norwich league results so far… How’s the return been so far? Meh, very meh. There has always been an existential debate between Norwich fans around where we’d rather reside, the Championship or the Premier League, mainly because the top flight is frankly depressing. That said, when you’re playing a brand of football that people don’t recognise as entertaining, it doesn’t feel particularly great being back in the Championship. It’s a brilliant league, an unpredictable chaotic ball of fun, but our supporters have been stuck on a rollercoaster for a few years and some of them want to get off now. Dean Smith isn’t for me, because I like a no-excuses attitude and he either wins or wins really if only you’d look at the possession, xG, refereeing or whatever it is this week. That’s been especially prevalent during a recent six game winless run so where are you, and Norwich fans in general, on him? Prior to the weekend’s victory against Stoke, you’d be hard pressed to find a Norwich fan that didn’t actively want him gone. While I don’t think that position has changed, there is perhaps an acceptance that he will be afforded more time, given the league position and the fact we’re not too far off where we want to be. That said, the fans’ disconnect (which is a thing, despite what the club might try and tell us) with Smith’s team hasn’t really been about where we are in the league, it’s more around the brand of football and the fact that Smith himself doesn’t give the impression he actively wants to be here. That probably isn’t his fault, we’ve had four years of a head coach knowing how to win the hearts of fans and doing a fabulous job of it, all while delivering some of the best possession football we’ve seen our team play. Smith is a victim of being the ‘man after the man’, and no-one ever envisaged themselves as the Norfolk David Moyes.
Has the weekend win done much to soothe the locals? It was 70 minutes of dross, with the last 20 way more cohesive once some of the talented technicians were introduced. To answer your question, a little bit, but not much. How was your transfer window, and what needs to be done in Jan? How is your recruitment in general cos I’m starting to see Stuart Webber, once of a Midas touch, get stick now too? If you look beyond the likes of Teemu Pukki, Emi BuendÃa, Tim Krul and Grant Hanley, there are some fair arguments to be made that our transfer business hasn’t been great for a few years. But yet these players have delivered us some memorable moments and they wouldn’t have been here had it not been for Webber’s creative approach. Ultimately his legacy may be more around the fact he has set the club up to be much more forward thinking, we’ve invested much more in our infrastructure and the academy under his watch and embraced data and analytics. The fruits of that work might be seen in a few years, when he’s long gone. The summer window itself saw plenty of midfield additions and it’s generally accepted we needed to improve that area of the field. Unfortunately, injuries have hampered Isaac Hayden and Gabriel Sara’s progress but they’re back now and we seem to look better for it. The addition of Marcelino Núñez for Chile could be a masterstroke if we harness his qualities correctly. As for January, we’ve been told already there will be very little business. Ins >>> Gabriel Sara, 23, CM, Sao Paulo, £9.45m >>> Marcelino Nunez, 22, CM, Catolica (Chile), £3.5m >>> Isaac Hayden, 27, DM, Newcastle, Loan >>> Aaron Ramsey, 19, AM, Villa, Loan >>> Outs >>> Pierre Lees-Melou, 29, CM, Stade Brestois, £2m >>> Akin Famewo, 23, CB, Sheff Wed, £54k >>> Josip Drmic, 29, CF, Zagreb, Free >>> Christoph Zimmermann, 29, CB, Darmstadt, Free >>> Rocky Bushiri, 22, CB, Hibs, Undisclosed >>> Daniel Adshead, 20, CM, Cheltenham, Free >>> Christos Tzolis, 20, LW, Twente, Loan >>> Przemyslaw Placheta, 24, LW, Birmingham, Loan >>> Bali Mumba, 20, RB, Plymouth, Loan >>> Lukas Rupp, 31, CM, Released >>> Aston Oxborough, 24, GK, Released Stand out players and weak links in the side? It could be anyone of their day, most of the squad have the ability to stand out from the crowd. Pukki and Núñez are perhaps the easiest on the eye and will be the most likely to create something, while Todd Cantwell seems to be playing himself back into form. Revised expectations for the season? If we persist with Smith then you’re probably looking at us bobbing around between 4th and 8th for the entirety of the campaign, without ever really troubling the automatic spots. The thing is, the squad is better than that and we know it. Opinions on the ownership in general? There seem to be questions for the first time about them, but when you look at what’s going on elsewhere isn’t there something to be said for a club run the way Norwich is, even if that does mean the results we’ve seen the last 18 months? We all know that Modern Football is broken, so there’s little point covering that here, but personally I have been proud we’ve gone about things the right way over the last few years, have lived within our means and still been relatively successful while we’re at it. Credit should go to everyone at the club for taking that approach. We may well have seen some tentative steps away from that method now though, with loans against parachute payments and an initial investment from an American group meaning we’ve started to spend what we have not yet generated in terms of income. I’m not sure that ends well if we don’t get promoted this season, so watch this space for our slow decline into the Championship abyss. At least that might keen all the clickbait merchants from Talksport happy for a couple of seasons as they won’t need to talk about us. Links >>> Norwich Official Website >>> The Pink ‘Un — Local Press and Forum >>> Eastern Daily Press — Local Press >>> My Football Writer - Norwich City >>> Along Come Norwich - Blog The Twitter @puntino, @AlongCameNodge, @loftforwords Pictures — Action Images Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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