I'm Only Happy When It Rains

Garbage once sang “I’m only happy when it rains”. A sentiment Norwich City fans seem to have coopted as their own. An unofficial slogan for the club’s perennially downbeat supporters, who stalk the internet looking for reasons to be miserable.

Relegation at the end of last season was a bitter pill to swallow; this season, by contrast, seems to be going quite well so far. So why does that feel like such a controversial statement to make?

A situation which has played on my mind for some time was crystallised by a conversation I overheard at the gym a few weeks back. The day before, Norwich has gone to Goodison Park to play an away fixture against Everton in the League Cup; we won – and won fairly comfortably – but the manner of the win was also very encouraging. It was our first victory at Goodison for more than twenty years, in a cup competition (which we traditionally don’t perform well in). At that point Everton were sitting in second place in the Premier League. The much maligned Steven Naismith got himself back on the scoresheet, and one of our brightest young talents, who has come up through the club’s youth academy, Josh Murphy scored a brilliant solo goal as well.

So, I was surprised at the conversation I heard. A conversation in which two people clutched at ant straw they could find to diminish and undermine this result. A conversation in which everything good about the game was explained away and loftily dismissed, while tiny errors were magnified and fixated upon.

“Oh, but Everton didn’t put out their strongest side…” “Oh, but Naismith was fortune to get his goal…”

guys at the gym saying Norwich only won last night because Everton ‘put out a Reserves side’. It’s all I can do to keep out of it. #NCFC

— Kit Marsden (@manek43509) September 21, 2016

that’s not even true. But what annoys me is how some ‘supporters’ seek out any excuse to piss on this club from a great height. #NCFC

— Kit Marsden (@manek43509) September 21, 2016

they’d rather look for reasons to say “ahh, but y’see, it doesn’t really count…“ than enjoy a good performance and a damn fine result. #NCFC

— Kit Marsden (@manek43509) September 21, 2016

not just yesterday, in fact — but that past few games have been excellent for us. And you’d still rather look for reasons to complain? #NCFC

— Kit Marsden (@manek43509) September 21, 2016

I’m not going to say that supporters have no right to complain when they see disappointing results, sub-par performances, or feel let down by the club. But this was a performance worthy of praise, and a result which saw us progress to the next round of the cup. Is it so hard just to enjoy that? There will be plenty of legitimate reasons to be unhappy in the future – there always are – without seeking them out now.

The Everton game is not an isolated incident. After every victory (yes, victory) I will read comments about how we were “lucky”, we “scraped by”, we “didn’t deserve it”… When players make mistakes, or when the manager doesn’t get his tactics spot-on, fans are on their backs for it no time – sometimes for good reason. And yet when we win games, it is dismissed as “luck”, or treated as though it’s some sort of anomaly (even when we have – at the time of writing – an 83% unbeaten record in the league this season, having failed to score points only twice so far since the beginning of August).

Why are we – as a club, as supporters – so keen to minimise success, and to find a reason – any reason at all – to downplay good results and act as thought they somehow don’t count? While at the same time amplifying and parading our failures around as vindications of our own malcontented narcissism?

Why do some fans feel they can only celebrate winning with a caveat attached? We are we so keen to seek out the negatives in any situation?

In Alex Neil, we have a promising young manager who has won a Play-Off final, who has just been awarded Championship Manager Of The Month for September, and who has (at the time of writing) an overall 86% undefeated record at the Championship level.  And yet, a non-trivial number of fans frequently describe him as 'clueless', 'out-of-his-depth', and so on…  He 'gets lucky'; he's not 'proven'; 'the jury's still out'.  He'll always be blamed for losing a game, yet it seems people will go to extraordinary lengths not to give him credit for the good results which, statistically, are actually the norm.

That’s not say that there aren’t negatives in games, that the manager never makes mistakes, or that we can’t improve as a team. Several times this season, we seem to have ‘switched off’ towards the end of the game when we’re in the lead, and let in goals late on – we got away with it against Cardiff and against Wolves, but not against Newcastle. We’ve been awarded penalties which we haven’t converted into goals – whether that’s down to poor penalty-taking, or good goalkeeping on the part of the opposition ‘keeper (the latter of which we have no control over) is maybe up for debate, but we can’t afford to let it become a pattern of missed opportunities.

Fans have every right to be concerned about these issues – particularly if they happen more than once. I have flagged up both of these things on social media. I know we’re not perfect. Besides, part of sport is that no matter how well you’re doing, you’re always trying to improve.

But when you dominate a game, score good goals and win comfortable, and supporters’ comments after the match appear to fixate only on the minor details which could have been better – seeming to ignore completely the huge bulk of positives in the game – that strikes me as a little odd. Having high standards is one thing; being determined to look for the bad points, while chalking up anything good to luck or opposition errors is just bizarre.  Sure, it's completely understandable to point out what needs improving – but how is it so difficult also to acknowledge that, generally, we're doing pretty well right now?

Even if we were to register a ‘perfect’ performance in the league – playing well, dominating possession, scoring four or five goals, keeping a clean sheet, not even allowing the other side to register a shot on target – I would expect to see negative comments… We were lucky; the opposition were weak; that level of performance won’t be good enough if we get promoted…

This season is far from over; there is still an awfully long way to go. Our early results have put us in a very strong position, but we haven’t been promoted yet – and yet already I have seen people predicting another relegation from the Premier League next season… For me, this speaks to mindset of far too many supporters; even acknowledging a fairly self-evident fact – that we are clearly one of the early promotion contenders this season – is couched in negative terms, seeing it simply as a gateway to future disappointment rather than anything to be excited about in itself.

Trying to predict football results two years into the future is a fool’s errand, and yet for some there seems to be something cathartic about looking for any excuse to do the club down, make the worst of every situation, and seek out reasons to be unhappy where there ought not be any. They cannot, and will not, ever be satisfied; the idea of giving the team, or the manager, any credit for their success is so alien to them that they simply cannot bring themselves to do it. They’re only happy when it rains.

To me, that doesn’t sound like ‘support’ at all.

Should Norwich sack Alex Neil?

No.

I suppose I could leave it there – and this will have been the most straightforward, stress-free thing I've ever written.  But I imagine most people are expecting me to go on and explain why we should keep faith with Alex Neil, despite a recent run of poor form which has seen us sink into the bottom three of the Premier League table…

Let's start with something that should be obvious, but oddly never seems to be: sacking the manager is not a 'silver bullet' that fixes everything instantly.  Of course, I have written about this before, but that doesn't make any difference; as soon as you lose a couple of games, people start murmuring about sacking the manager, as if that always cures everything – if that were the case, clubs would have twenty different managers every season.  They don't, because that would be absurd.  Knee-jerk sackings are not the answer – and if you're the sort of person who would see their team lose and immediately reach for the P45 at the final whistle, without a moment's thought, you maybe need to reevaluate how you make decisions.

This view is a bizarre extension of the 'Something must be done!' attitude which sadly pervades many areas of life at the moment.  Anything that happens is met with a chorus of demands to ban something, remove something, change something, legislate for something…  Because something must be done!  Regardless of what that 'something' is.  It is the response of a feeble mind – and it won't help our club.

But let's move on from there.  Let's assume that we've got past reflexive demands for action-for-action's-sake, and decided that a change of manager actually might be no bad thing, on its own merits.  Before we do anything, we need to have a replacement lined up who is better.  Not 'just as good' – and certainly not worse! – but a guaranteed step up in quality from the manager we currently have.  And we need to be sure that this person is not only a better calibre of manager than the incumbent, but is available to start immediately, and would be willing to take a job at Norwich (a relegation-threatened club with, in Premier League terms, a relatively small budget).

So who is there who fits that bill?  If no names spring alacritously to mind, I'm not too surprised.  I can think of top-level managers who are out-of-work – but would they want to come to Norwich?  I can think of managers whose services we probably could secure – but would they really be better than Alex Neil?  I'm not convinced.  And unless both of those stipulations are met, we're better off doing nothing at all.

Oh, how short are the memories of some football supporters…

But what of Alex Neil himself?  Even if a good manager is available, and happy to start work tomorrow…  Does Alex really deserve the sack?!  This is a manager who came into the club midway through the season last year, when our promotion challenge looked to be fading, and turned things around.  We all remember the euphoria of our Play-Off Final day out at Wembley, don't we?  He did that.

This is the manager who got us promoted to the Premier League.  This is the manager who got a point away to Liverpool; the manager who got a point at home to top four Arsenal; the manager who beat Manchester United on their own turf.  That deserves recognition.

Yes, he has made mistakes – he is only thirty-four years old, and he is still learning his craft while having to adapt to a level higher than any previous challenge he has encountered in his fledgling managerial career – but he has potential and ambition aplenty, and has never been under any illusions about how tough a league the Premier League is.  Comments like 'out of his depth' or 'lost the plot' are harsh, to say the least.

It is unreasonable not to permit a young manager still finding his feet to make errors.  How else does one learn?  Not only is it unreasonable, though, it is stupid.  It is illogical.  Those mistakes, more often than not, stem from inexperience.  How does one gain experience?  Not by being sacked.

At this rate, the 'sacking culture' in modern football will cut off far too much promising young coaching talent at the knees.  Where will the next generation of football managers come from?

In ten years' time, people will look at the Premier League and ask: "Why are there so few talented British coaches managing at the top level?  Why is there no new blood in management in this country?"  Because they were sacked after four games in charge by ruthless CEOs acceding to the demands of unforgiving fans who cared more about exacting their pounds of flesh than looking to the future of either their own club, or the sport of football as a whole.

Alex Neil is a young manager who deserves his chance.  Norwich City need to give it to him.  And – who knows? – there is opportunity yet for that faith to be repaid.  Time has not run out; panicking now solves nothing.

Addendum (added Monday, 8th February, following various discussions on the topic):

Those who would favour Alex Neil's immediate removal have cautioned me more than once about the dangers of the club "leaving it too late" to sack him.  It is an argument – and an expression – which I abhor.  Even leaving aside the arrogance of thinking you are the person who can tell with absolute certainty when the optimum time would be for the club to act, what baffles me about this line of argument is that that it seems to skip over the question of whether or not Alex Neil should be sacked; it assumes that it is self-evident that he should be, and that the only matter left to settle is when.  It is an assumption which speaks to the central conceit of this outlook – that sacking the manager is always the answer.

The mindset seems to be that a manager's sacking is inevitable; that the only question around the issue is not "if" he should be sacked, but "when" to do it; and that sooner is always better.  This cannot be good for the club, or for the sport.  That is not a healthy attitude to have, and the worry here is that we will creep inexorably towards a farcical scenario where it is standard procedure to sack the manager after every loss, most managers last only a few weeks in a job, and the pool of managerial talent dries up completely.

Norwich's transfer nightmare

Tuesday's transfer deadline was pretty bruising experience for Norwich City fans.  While fans of other clubs were left celebrating last minute captures of exciting players, Norwich fans shook their heads sadly and wondered what on earth was going on…

Norwich's transfer business began quite brightly, following promotion to the Premier League via the Play-Off Final at Wembley; the permanent signing of Graham Dorrans (who had been on loan at Carrow Road last season) and the arrivals of Youssouf Mulumbu and Robbie Brady in midfield all showed promise and intent from the club.

But things have since turned very sour indeed.  Having been out a lot of Tuesday, I caught up on how all the Deadline Day news unfolded after the window had closed, and could barely believe what I was seeing.

I have long contended that Norwich have a strong core squad full of decent, hard working players – but that to be competitive in the Premier League the season, we needed to sign one proven striker, and one centre-back to partner Sebastien Bassong.  Dieumerci Mbokani has come in on loan from Dynamo Kiev, and Matt Jarvis has also been brought in (also on loan) from West Ham – but no defenders have arrived, which I feel leaves us shaky and vulnerable at the back, especially against the really top teams of this division.

Add to that the fact that we have let several players leave the club – including Bradley Johnson, who was undoubtedly one of our best players last season, as well as two other central midfielders who could've covered Johnson's position in the wake of his departure to Derby County – I can't see that we're much better off that we were before.

#Deadlinedaywaslike being slapped in the face by David McNally. #NCFC #DeadlineDay @BBCSport

— Kit Marsden (@manek43509) September 2, 2015

To see a club like Aston Villa sign a proven Premier League quality defender in Joleon Lescott for only £2m, while Charlie Austin – a striker with a fantastic Premier League record from last season – is passed over by every current top flight club, is painful.  Both of those players would've made excellent additions to the Norwich City squad (more so than endless midfielders!), and I'm left wondering why we couldn't make signings of that quality happen while Villa, Stoke City, West Ham and others spend money and add quality to their ranks to ensure they remain established in the Premier League.

This isn't the end of the world, of course – we still have players capable of doing a good job and winning games in the Premier League – but I feel we have left ourselves a much more difficult task than we needed to.  It's poor business from the club, indicative of a lack of ambition, and left me with a sinking feeling after reading through the transfer news after the window had closed.  I don't want to see us in a position where we have to pay well over the odds for mediocre players in the January transfer window, in the hope of salvaging an already floundering season.

Does Mark Lawrenson even watch the Premier League?

BBC Sport football pundit Mark Lawrenson writes his predictions for the weekend's Premier League matches each week on the BBC Sport website.  Or so we're told, anyway.  I'm beginning to suspect that he actually has a machine – working to some shonky algorithm, of course – churning them out for him, so he can collect a nice pay packet without actually having to do any work.

I doubt that Lawrenson has any idea who half the teams he's supposed to be writing about actually are.  That is the only explanation for how bizarre his predictions seem to be at times.

For my team, Norwich City, he consistently predicts losses.  Whether we're playing well, or playing badly, have injuries or a full squad, make signings or not – his reasoning seems to be simply "it's Norwich, so they'll lose".  We could have Messi and Ronaldo both playing for us, and Lawrenson would still tip us to lose 1-0 to West Brom (or something), just because it's Norwich.

Which is ridiculous.  Lawrenson's prediction for Sunday's away match is that Norwich will lose to Southampton.  This is in spite of the fact that Southampton are yet to win a league game this season, whilst Norwich have, and almost all football analysts seem to agree that although four points from the opening three games is a decent haul for the Canaries, we could – and quite possibly should – have more.

Lawrenson says so himself, in his writing for this week's predictions, as well as alluding to Southampton's slow start and also mentioning that they will be fatigued from a midweek game in the Europa League.

Sure, a team who 'have not really got going yet' are
bound to beat a team who 'have looked pretty
solid' so far…  There's no flaw in this reasoning! 

And yet, in spite of all the evidence he himself has presented to the contrary, he predicts Southampton to win 2-1.  Maybe they will.  Who knows?  But the pre-match form of both teams, and their differing circumstances, do not suggest that.

Lawrenson seems to work only from the reputation a team has in his own mind.  Southampton are generally perceived to be a club 'on the up', with a growing reputation – whilst Norwich would be considered minnows in this league even if they won it three seasons on the trot.

Thankfully, it's what happens on the pitch which counts, not what happens in Mark Lawrenson's mind.

Wembley: One week on

This time last week, I was taking my place in the stands at Wembley Stadium (Block 121, Row 19, Seat 274 – if you're interested), preparing to watch Norwich City play Middlesborough for the honour of promotion to the Premier League in what's been dubbed the 'richest match in football', the Championship Play-Off Final.  As I did so, I thought back to a piece I wrote in this Blog a few months before, called What If Norwich Don't Go Up? – and I wondered whether I'd need it in a few hours time.

Here we go…! #NCFC #PlayOffFinal #OTBC

A photo posted by Kit Marsden (@manek43509) on May 25, 2015 at 6:54am PDT

Thankfully, Norwich dominated the game, and ran out 2-0 winners to secure a return to the top flight at the first time of asking.  The jubilation of Norwich supporters at the final whistle was a far cry from the despair we'd all felt almost exactly a year before, as we were relegated from the Premier League.

Final whistle. 2-0 Norwich, we are going up! #NCFC #PlayOffFinal

A video posted by Kit Marsden (@manek43509) on May 25, 2015 at 1:56pm PDT

But even in the midst of these joyous scenes, I was conscious that we were now in for a long summer of speculation, transfer rumours, and arguing on fan forum websites and social media.  So, having deliberately waited a week for the dust to settle and the euphoria to die down slightly, here are my thoughts on Norwich City going forward into the Premier League in 2015…

Shortly after our relegation last season, I wrote a long piece about our attitude as a club, and about setting long-term aims.  I spoke about wanting to become an established Premier League club – not a 'yo-yo club' which bounces up and down between the top of the Championship and the bottom of the Premier League.

In my view, our approach should be the same as I outlined when I wrote about What If Norwich Don't Go Up? – evolution, not revolution.  The way to get the stability we need is to stick with what we know works; as I said before, we have a good thing going with Alex Neil, and with a squad of players who are hungry for success and working hard, and we shouldn't jeopardise that with big changes.

I was pleased to see that the club wasted very little time in making Graham Dorrans' loan contract into a permanent move.  I like what Dorrans brings to the team, and he has good Premier League experience with West Brom.  For me, keeping hold of the players – and the coaching team – that we currently have has to be our first priority.

After that, we can look at strengthening in a few key areas.  Not replacing the players we have, for the most part, but adding to the squad in subtle, but clever ways.  In my opinion, there are two main positions to look at: centre-back, and centre-forward.  Let's talk about each individually.

Defensively, Norwich City have been a case-study in how important it is to get the right manager.  At the start of the season which has just ended, we were shaky at the back, and unsure of ourselves; Alex Neil, however, has taken the same players and toughened up our defence no end.  Sebastien Bassong – a proven Premier League defender, and a former Player Of The Season for Norwich – was out in the wilderness until Neil took charge, but in the Play-Offs we saw Bassong back to his best.  Steven Whittaker has long been thought of as something of a weak point by Norwich fans, but when I saw him at Wembley he looked Premier League quality.

Unfortunately – and it pains me to say this – the same cannot be said for Russell Martin.  To be fair to Martin, centre-back isn't actually his favoured position – but although he has been a great servant to the club and a fantastic Captain all season, he has been culpable for some of the mistakes which have cost us.  Think back to the Play-Off Semi-Finals against Ipswich, and ask yourself whose poor clearances led to Ipswich's equalising goal at Portman Road.  We can't afford these sorts of slips against Premier League opposition.  This is why I feel another dedicated, quality centre-back to partner Bassong would be a worthwhile investment.

Who should be we get?  This is where, whatever you suggest, you get a load of stick from other football fans for being either unrealistic or unambitious (or sometimes, even, both), or just for not knowing what you're talking about.  Personally, however, I quite like the idea of Steven Caulker from recently relegated QPR.

The striker position is a more contentious one.  My opinion is that we already have some good forward players in Cameron Jerome, Gary Hooper and Lewis Grabban.  I think most people would agree with this.  But after that, it gets a bit tricky.  What is to be done, for example, about club record signing Ricky Van Wolfswinkel – currently on loan at Saint-Étienne in France?

Van Wolfswinkel is unfortunate in that he has come to symbolise everything that was bad about the disastrous 2013-14 Premier League campaign, which ultimately ended with Norwich being relegated to the Championship.  He arrived at the club with a lot of hype, and an enormous price tag, but ended up scoring only one goal on the opening day of what was otherwise an injury-blighted, disappointing season.  The case against Van Wolfswinkel rests entirely on this statistic – one goal in a whole season is poor for a player supposed to be an élite striker.  The obsession with this statistic is, however, wilfully short-sighted and – I think – slightly unfair.

I think it is worth giving Van Wolfswinkel a second chance in the Premier League.  It is true that his scoring record in what is so far his only season in the division is pitiful, but this doesn't tell the whole story.  I don't think it is simply the case – as some Norwich supporters have suggested – that Van Wolfswinkel simply "isn't good enough" for the Premier League; his 2013-14 season was compromised from the start by the pressure of stepping into the shoes of club legend and former talismanic striker Grant Holt – and he was further hampered injuries, and then by being rushed back into first team action too soon after injury, and then by ongoing confidence issues caused by being an obvious focal point for fan's frustrations during the season as he struggled to live up to the almost unreal levels of hype which accompanied his arrival at the club, and as the rest of the team floundered around him.

We have already seen that players such as Whittaker and Bassong have been revitalised under Alex Neil – I think Neil is a tactically astute manager, but also a manager who can handle people, and who has shown himself to be capable of getting the best out of players, and he would be able to work this magic on Van Wolfswinkel too.  With his confidence back, and in a somewhat less high-profile a rôle as an impact substitute or as a second striker playing off (say) Cameron Jerome, the dutchman may yet have a part to play in the Norwich City story.  It's worth a shot.

We should also, however, buy another striker.  There are clamours to discover "the next Michu" – a previously unknown player from outside the usual hunting grounds who turns out to be a revelation in the Premier League.  Unfortunately, the example of Michu shows what a gamble this can also be, considering his fall from grace after his first dazzling season with Swansea – an obscure player might turn out to be a twenty-goal-a-season bargain of the century, but could just as easily be another big flop.

My opinion is that it's better to buy a proven striker with a good track record at the highest level – but someone who is possibly coming towards the end of their career.  In the much the same way that, for example, Samuel Eto'o ended up at Everton after an illustrious career at Champions' League clubs.  Of course, we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves if we start comparing Norwich even with clubs like Everton, in terms of what we can afford when it comes to buying a striker – but there must be someone around who was previously a top-class player, who's getting on a little and wouldn't get a look in at the big clubs now, but who's looking to play one or two more seasons of football and could still do a decent job?

One name that's been mentioned a couple of times is Luca Toni.  He's thirty-eight now, but after a career playing for some of the biggest names in club football, the Italian has shown he can still score goals for mid-table Verona in Serie A.  Would they perhaps be willing to sell – or loan – him?  Would he be willing to come?  Who knows!  But it's got to be worth a try.

We're on our way to Wembley… Or, some of us are, at least

The following is an edited, cleaned-up, more coherent rendering of something I posted late last night to a 'Norwich City Fan Forum' group on Facebook, regarding the somewhat fractious exchanges recently between those supporters who've been able to get hold of tickets to the Play-Off Final at Wembley, and those who've missed out.

I can't believe some of the bollocks that's being talked regarding tickets for Wembley.  I would've loved to have gone.  The club have decided not to put any tickets on general sale – no obviously, now, I can't.  That sucks.  But it's up to the club to decide how to do their business regarding ticket sales, and I understand their reasoning. 

What I don't understand is a bunch of smug gits telling fans who are – completely understandably – disappointed not to be able to go one of the biggest occasions for Norwich City in a long time that they're not as 'worthy', not as 'loyal', or whatever.
Everyone understands that when demand outstrips supply, some people will lose out.  We (those people), for the most part, understand why that is, and respect that.  But when the response from those who have managed to get tickets is essentially "Well, that's your own stupid fault – you should've been a better, more virtuous fan, like me!" that can really grate on you. 

Nothing gives any supporter the right to strut about, lording it over others, thinking they're better.  It's "true fan" nonsense – the nasty mindset where some supporters think they are more 'pure', or that their support is somehow worth more than others', because they do it 'better' – and in the past, that has been (rightly) frowned upon by most of the Norwich City Supporters' community.  Lots of things determine whether or not somebody buys a Season Ticket, or Priority Membership – not just the 'quality' of their support – and you have to be either inordinately stupid, or insufferably obtuse, not to see that.  Or, you have to be the kind of self-absorbed, ostentatious cretin who likes nothing more than to feel a sense of superiority over other fans who, for whatever reason, can't have what you have.  And, frankly, that's how a lot of people are acting – which is rather sad, isn't it? 

If you think you are more 'worthy' than another supporter, someone needs to tell you what a stupid, venal attitude that is.  We're all Norwich fans, and we should be enjoying this momentous moment for our club, and celebrating together; instead, some people are bitter, whiney and hurt – while others are being pompous, gloating, self-congratulator popinjays.  It's not pleasant, it's not cool, and it's not a good look for any of us. 

Enjoy Wembley.

What if Norwich don't go up?

With three games left in the Championship this season, Norwich sit second in the table, one point off Bournemouth (who are top); promotion is entirely within our grasp, and our fate is in our own hands. Things are looking good.

So, ever the gloomy realist, my mind has turned to thoughts of what will happen if, from this position of strength, we fail to win promotion to the Premier League.  If we stay in the Top Two, where we currently are, automatic promotion will be ours and everything will be straightforward – but if we slip only a small way into third (which, in a league as tight as this, is eminently possible), we are faced with the unpredictability of the Play-Offs, where anything can happen and where there are no second chances.  Even now, it's not impossible that we will still be in the Championship next season.  So, what happens then?

Well, hopefully: nothing.  We've got a good thing going here – even if we don't achieve our stated aim of promotion to the Premier League, we must do everything we can not to mess that up!

Alex Neil has done a fantastic job since taking over at Norwich in January, and almost all Norwich fans are now giving him the credit he fully deserves for our recent good form.  Despite this, I fully expect to see a slew of 'sack the manager!' posts on social media if, for whatever reason, we don't go up this year.

Neil's record at Norwich currently is: Played 19; Won 14; Drawn 3; Lost 2.  That's a 73.68% win percentage – and 89.47% of games unbeaten.  Those are some pretty remarkable statistics.

On top of that, we have an excellent squad who – bar a few blips across the season – have worked brilliantly together, shown true team spirit, and played some excellent football.

Overall, we're doing a lot of things right, and should we fail to be promoted this season the call should not be for radical change, but to try and preserve what we already have, and everything that is good about it.

Well, you can forget knowing who's going to win the Championship!

As things stand, with seven games remaining until the end of the season, the top four teams in the Championship are separated by only three points.  It's going to be a very tense end to the season – anyone can win the league, and anyone can be promoted.

Why, then, do some Norwich City fans insist on throwing their arms in the air and acting like it's all over after one result which doesn't go our way.  After the 2-2 draw at Huddersfield in midweek, I knew there would be some chump popping up on social media to say "well, we can forget all about automatic promotion now!" – and, sure enough, there was.  It was the same after we lost to Wigan (our only defeat in the past ten games).

Why do some hysterical fans think every negative result is the end of the world?  It's such a crass, short-sighted overreaction!

When things are this tight at the top of the table, anything can happen, and things can change very quickly.  Bournemouth have have spent more weeks at the top of the table this season than any other team, but last month they'd slipped to fourth place – now, however, they're back on top again.  A month ago, when we beat them 3-0 away, Watford were sixth – but going into this weekend's round of games, they were first.  It doesn't take much for the picture at the top of the table to change completely.  It's not over yet – and to think that one result (either positive or negative) has sealed our fate is incredibly foolish.

The Championship top ten (correct as of Sunday 22nd March).

As things stand, Norwich have the best record over the last ten games (seven wins, two draws and one loss) of all the teams in the Championship; we have the second best goal difference in the league (only Bournemouth's is better); only Bournemouth (8) have lost fewer games so far this season than us (Norwich and Middlesborough have both lost 9); and we are two points off second place, and three points off the top of the table.

So is automatic promotion 'out of the question' now?  Quite the opposite, in fact!  Given all those statistics, there is absolutely no reason why we can't catch the teams above us.  Automatic promotion is still eminently plausible, and the volatility of the race for promotion means that this is likely to remain the case.

Of course, promotion isn't guaranteed just because the statistics are in our favour.  This unpredictability works both ways; the likes of Derby, Ipswich, Brentford and Wolves will be looking up the table at Norwich, thinking "there's no reason we can't catch them" – and they're right.  But what it does mean is that promotion is up for grabs, and anybody at the sharp end of the league table has a chance of grabbing it for themselves – and if we just keep doing what we're doing, we've as good a chance as anyone, if not better.

Off with his head!

Off with his head! they are screaming on the Norwich City football forums, like the Queen Of Hearts in Alice In Wonderland, following an embarrassing 4-0 defeat to Middlesborough last night.  As the blistering start to the season fades and gives way to the grit and slog of a 46-match campaign in the SkyBet Championship, more and more people are starting to espouse the view that manager Neil Adams should be let go.  The fools!

I have said before that Adams was not my first choice as a permanent manager, following relegation from the Premier League at the end of last season.  I stand by that.  But he's there now – and, at this stage, sacking him will almost certainly do more harm than good.

Far too many football fans see sacking the manager as a 'silver bullet' – an instant solution which will wipe away all the problems of a struggling club, as if they were never there.  It isn't.  It never has been, and it never will be.

(It is worth pointing out, at this stage, that Norwich are not a 'struggling club'.  We are seventh in the Championship, as things stand, and only four points off the top two clubs.  It is easy to throw around 'soundbite statistics' like only two wins in the last ten games; it's just as easy to express the same statistic as only three losses in the last ten games – either way, it's relatively meaningless.  It cannot be said firmly enough: this is not a crisis.)

Sacking the manager is, in many respects, the easy bit.  You tell him you don't want him any more, and he's gone – and, in doing so, you slake the disgruntled fans' baying for blood.  The tricky part is what happens next.  You have to appoint a new manager.  Who?

Who is there who's available, and not already at a club?  Who is there who's going to want to come and manage a Championship side like Norwich?  Who is there who's going to be a guaranteed step up from Adams (if the guy you get in next isn't going to be a guaranteed step up, what was the point of sacking the last guy, if the new one's not going to be any better?!)?

Nobody has any answers to these questions.  People don't consider the 'afterwards' – just as those who call for revolution don't have any coherent plan for what will replace the ancien régime.  All wrongs will be righted, 'come the revolution'.  How?  Nobody knows.  Managerial changes are messy, tumultuous upheavals, which have huge affects on a club; if you're going to put the club through that turmoil again, there had better be a bloody good plan for 'afterwards'!

As I have written before, the way to become an established Premier League club (which is, after all, the aim) is to have a long-term plan.  It is also worth stating, at this juncture, that stability is more important than timescale; that is to say, if promotion this season meant relegation again next season, whilst waiting for promotion until the season after next would more likely yield a prolonged stay in the Premier League, I would choose the latter every time – I want long-term success, not to become a 'yo-yo club'.  A managerial 'merry-go-round' is the opposite of all of this – it is a quick fix; it is short-term thinking; and it is very, very stupid.

#NCFC season comparisons

Norwich have now won four away games this season – twice as many as we won in the whole of last season. Which is great. But also completely meaningless.

Comparisons between last season and this season have very little worth because relegation to the Championship has made any cross-season analysis inherently uneven. Is it any surprise that a team will win more games in the lower division than in the top flight?

Of course, it’s brilliant to see Norwich doing well, scoring goals, winning games, and (at the time of writing) topping the Championship table. But holding up these facts as proof positive that the manager and/or the squad are an improvement on last year’s is to misrepresent the relative levels of the Championship and the Premier League; I’m not saying that Norwich haven’t improved from last year, but it is foolish to ignore that the opposition have got significantly easier also.

We need football, not faith

We are one match into the new football season, and already the shrapnel is flying.  After one game, Norwich have lost a match, had a man sent-off (and subsequently investigated for pushing a referee), had allegations of racism, and are still managed by a man who has never won a competitive match in his managerial career.  So, things are going well!

Even worse, though, the sadly predictable mudslinging from fans has started as well.  There are inevitable calls for Neil Adams to be sacked, and a new manager brought in - after six games in charge, that is demonstrably ridiculous.  So ridiculous that I don't need to dwell on it here.

Then there are the others.  Those who implore us to 'give Adams a chance', despite his abysmal record in first team football - which they are absolutely right to do - and who insist on constant comparisons between Adams and previous manager Chris Hughton, which is almost unfathomably stupid.

Despite his being sacked at the beginning of April (a decision which history has proven to be the wrong one - as I explained before it even happened), many Norwich fans seem unable to let go of the idea of Hughton as the 'villain' figure.  Despite his not having been at the club all summer, anything that goes wrong is still, somehow, Hughton's fault; every decision Adams makes is measured up against whether that is what Hughton would've done in this situation.  This infatuation with the past and refusal to move on and let go of old grievances is crippling and perpetuates the negativity which was supposed to have been alleviated by Hughton's dismissal.

I'm fed up of seeing the phrase 'attacking football'.  Style doesn't win you points, and style won't get us promoted back to the Premier League - results do.  Who cares whether Adams made an 'attacking substitution' when we were 1-0 down against Wolves on Sunday, when Hughton would never have done that?  We still lost!  That's not to say that Adams was wrong to make the substitutions he did, or that he should be removed from his post as a result of the loss against Wolves - of course not.  But to say that losing under Adams is inherently more virtuous than losing under Hughton is nonsensical.

But whilst I totally agree that we should give Adams a chance, I disagree that we need to 'have faith'. We get this with England during the World Cup - we have only to 'believe' in Roy Hodgson and his rag-tag band of journeymen, and they will do extraordinary things - and now Norwich fans are spewing the same rubbish about 'faith'.  This is fairytale stuff; football is about results.  The idea that all we have to do is 'believe' hard enough and everything will be OK is total rubbish; it's Peter Pan-like.  Close your eyes and repeat "I do, I do, I DO believe in Wes Hoolahan at the tip of a midfield diamond", and everything will be just fine.

Football results are not decided by which set of fans has the most faith.  But they are affected by the decisions made in the boardroom, and in the dressing room.  Neil Adams was not my first choice to be Norwich's new manager, but whether his appointment was a good or a bad decision is something we won't discover for some time yet.

One thing's for sure, though…  We need to get rid of this ridiculous notion that we can just light a candle, all hold hands in a circle and wish our team to victory - and we need to see each result for what it really is, neither praising the manager indiscriminately for no more spectacular feat than simply not being the previous manager, nor slating the manager and calling for his head after every minor setback.

This is a long season, with a lot of matches - none of which are going to be easy.  Let's get behind the team and support them all the way - but not hinder them with irrational hysterics of any kind.

#NCFC - the future's yellow

Every fairytale comes to an end after a while.  Norwich City's relegation to the Championship last weekend marked the end of an era which had seen the club gain back-to-back promotions after the dark days of a 7-1 defeat to Colchester United in League One in 2009, and go on to spend three successive seasons in the Premier League.

It is with no inconsiderable trepidation that I take to the airwaves of the internet to write about the situation at Norwich City now.  However, one of the greatest things about sport is its ability to get people talking; differences of opinion are common, but there is always room for debate.

For Norwich fans, the 2013-14 season has been characterised predominantly by acrimony and bitter disappointment.  It has been a season of frustration and anger, with few high points, considerable periods of misfortune, and culminating in relegation from the Premier League.

There is little mileage, however, in a backward-looking 'blame game', at this point - and fans who are looking for a single figure of woe at whose door they can lay all the responsibilities for this train-wreck of a season are going to be disappointed.  Who will be our scapegoat now that manager Chris Hughton is gone?  Club CEO David McNally?  Interim manager Neil Adams?  Record signing Ricky Van Wolfswinkel?  No, far more productive than a bile-satiating but ultimately fruitless quest to apportion blame is to look to the future, and think about how we move on from this.

down. RT @BobRutler: There's a special #canarycall from 9am tomorrow morning. Where do we go from here? #ncfc
— Kit Marsden (@manek43509) May 7, 2014

The question on everybody's lips now is "who will be the next manager?"  It's a good question.  Already, there are rumours flying around that Malky Mackay has been offered with the position.  A favourite with the fans, and widely regarded to have been very wrongfully treated during his time in the Premier League with Cardiff City, Mackay was already on Norwich fans' managerial radar long before the sacking of Hughton at the beginning of April.

When I wrote at the time about the various managerial options open to the club, I said that, in my opinion, Mackay was a good manager, but not necessarily a 'step up' - and although he should've been given more time by Cardiff, his record in the Premier League was, overall, quite poor.  Of course, the situation has changed now; Norwich will be a Championship team next season, not a Premier League team, and Mackay has a proven track record of getting a team promoted from the Championship.

However, I feel the club needs to tread very carefully here.  To allow ourselves to slip into the mindset of being a 'Championship club' could be a very slippery slope indeed.

Now, I don't buy this nonsense some fans seem to be pedalling that it's better to be in the Championship anyway.  Some people are saying that the Championship is a closer-fought, more exciting league; that the games are better to watch; that the league is more open because it's not dominated by a handful of super-rich clubs; that "at least, in the Championship, we might win some games".  I am reminded of an expression my Grandfather had - that "it's better to be bottom of the top group than top of the bottom group".  It might help to make you feel better about relegation to say these things, but this is a loser's attitude; the Premier League is the elite of football in this country, and it is where all clubs should want to be - if you don't want to be in the top flight, then what is your raison d'être as a club?

So, let's forget that argument straight away.  As a football club, we want to get back into the Premier League as quickly as possible.  But again, we need to be a little careful here, and not take too shortsighted an approach.  Winning promotion again would be fantastic, of course - but this time, that needs to be sustainable.  What we need is a strategy which not only gets us back into the Premier League, but keeps us there.

This is why I am slightly wary of the forthcoming managerial appointment.  I am worried that those making the big decisions at the club won't be thinking big enough - that they will start to think of us as a 'Championship club', and therefore appoint a 'Championship manager'.  The groundwork for becoming an established Premier League team needs to start now, not after promotion, and that comes from the top, with a good, ambitious manager.

Malky Mackay might win automatic promotion with Norwich, just as he did with Cardiff - and that would be excellent.  But would he then struggle in the Premier League with Norwich, as he did with Cardiff?  Mackay is a safe and solid choice, and would do a good job - but, in my view, there are better managerial options out there.

In my previous post about Norwich City's managers, I spoke of Michael Laudrup (inexplicably sacked by Swansea during the season just gone) as being my preferred candidate.  In his first season at Swansea, Laudrup's record was excellent, and I think his style and approach would suit Norwich well.  Another name to throw into the hat (which was not the case back in February), would be Tim Sherwood - with the highest win percentage of any Spurs manager ever, and with links to Norwich City already, Sherwood was let go by Tottenham just this morning, and will surely be looking for opportunities to get back into management.

Again, as I said before, it is easy to throw these names around.  Hey, while we're at it, why don't we try and get Jupp Heynckes out of retirement?!  The other side to the coin is whether these managers would even want to come to Norwich anyway.  As a newly relegated club, whose form in the league over the past few months has been pretty dire, we are surely an even less attractive destination for ambitious, forward-thinking managers than we were before?

Well, maybe so.  But this is where we need to bring our biggest strengths into play - namely, the club's strong financial position, and passionate fan-base - and, again, where our top brass need to be thinking big, and long-term.  We don't know what options Laudrup or Sherwood (or, for that matter, Heynckes!) have on the table already; it may be that an approach from Norwich would be by far and away the best job offer either of them has had since their respective sackings - or it may be that they're both already being courted by Man. Utd., Arsenal and Real Madrid.  Who knows?!

What we need to do, though, is approach these managers and set out a vision for the club.  We need to show them that there is money available for transfers, and that they will be allowed to bring in the players that they want; we need to assure them that we're not the sort of club to indulge in knee-jerk sackings the moment we concede a goal or lose a game; and, most importantly of all, we need to make it clear that the club has long-term ambitions to become an established part of the Premier League, and that we are building this from the ground up, starting now.

There is no doubt that this is going to be a very hard task for whoever takes over.  The Championship is very competitive, and lots of clubs are after that prize of promotion, and a shot at the big time.  But this is why it is now so important to lay the foundations for a long-term plan; relegation from the Premier League is not a reason to be less ambitious - no, it is a reason to be more ambitious.

Never say 'die'

For Norwich City fans, today's 1-0 defeat by fellow Premier League strugglers Fulham was a huge disappointment.  Billed as a 'must-win' game - as classic 'relegation six-pointer' - it was believed that whoever lost this match would be in serious trouble.

Serious trouble, yes.  But not certain relegation.  The Norwich City FC Facebook page has quickly filled up with comments saying "well, that's that, then - we're definitely going down now!"  I don't know how anyone can be so sure.

Football is inherently unpredictable.  How anyone can say with such cocksure arrogance that relegation is a certainty for Norwich now is beyond me.  After all, while the result at Fulham today doesn't exactly help matters, as things stand we're still not in the Relegation Zone even now.

Plenty of supporters are pointing to 'the Run-In', and the fact that Norwich's last four games are against four of the so-called 'big teams'; many people believe that, although Norwich are currently 17th, Fulham (and maybe even Cardiff, too) can catch us because their final four games are that bit easier.

Even though this ignores the fact that there are no 'easy games' in the Premier League, I am again at a loss to understand how these people can be so certain.  The prevailing attitude seems to be that the possibility of Norwich taking any points at all from their last four fixtures is so unlikely as to be discounted entirely - but the fact is, nothing is impossible, and stranger things have happened in football, over the years.  After all, few people would've given Norwich a hope of beating Spurs earlier this season, or holding Manchester City to a very creditable draw after having been hammered 7-0 the first time around.

Yes, staying is going to be difficult for Norwich, and there is no doubt that the task which now faces us is enormous - but there are so many factors involved in this equation, no one can really know for definite what will happen.  To act as though relegation is already a mathematical certainty is as foolish as to act as if survival is a certainty - and that sort of negativity and despair does nobody any favours.

If the manager, one of his staff, or any of the players came out after today's match and publicly stated that we hadn't got a hope they would be absolutely crucified by the media and the fans - and rightly so!  They would be expected to keep fighting right to the very end, giving everything they have for the club and its supporters.  So why do some people think it is OK for us, as fans, just to give up on our season with four games still left to play?

Let's not be under any delusions as to how tough the remainder of this season will be.  But we can still beat the drop, and there is still everything left to play for - so let's get behind the manager and the team, and give it everything we've got for these last four games!

Ignore my stupid Profile Picture - the points are still valid...!

Can Norwich City survive?

Yes.  Obviously.

But will we?  Well, these are worrying times for Canaries fans.  As I write this, we are currently losing 1-0 to Southampton.  For a variety of (non-footballing) reasons, this is the match this season which I have most wanted us to win - there's still time to take something from the game, of course, but at the moment it all seems very disappointing.

However, the most irritating thing is the way other people talk about relegation and survival chances around this time of year.  And when I say 'people', I mean so-called 'expert' pundits and commentators, and also the general public 'have-your-say' types who text or Tweet into the BBC Sport live text...

This whole season, Norwich have been haunted by the spectre of the run-in.  The 'run-in' has hung over Carrow Road like the sword of damocles; I think there is something in Alan Hansen's and Alan Shearer's contracts which says they can't make a comment about Norwich without mentioning it.

For those who are not familiar with the concept of the run-in, it is all to do the fact that the final four games of our season are against four 'big' teams, and that it will be difficult to pick up the points required in these games, if survival has not been ensured before that point.  I appreciate that this is a pretty tough run of games with which to end the season - but if you put things into perspective, and realise that all the teams in the Premier League have to play all the other teams twice over a season, and that the number of points available from these matches is the same irrespective of when in the season they occur, the significance of the run-in does diminish somewhat.

When you consider that, last year, everyone had discounted Norwich's trip to play Man. City at the Etihad on the final day of the season in their survival calculations (thinking there was no way we could win that match, and that we would need to have secured Premier League status ahead of that day) - and, in the end, we went there and beat Man. City 3-2, the significance of the run-in decreases yet further.

However, even more baffling is the way people talk about the games before these final four!  It is universally acknowledged that at least three of these four teams are playing some of the best football in the country, and have formidably impressive records this season.  The same cannot be said of Sunderland, Swansea, West Brom and Fulham.  But people are just as keen to discount Norwich's chances in those games as they are against the 'big' teams.

The logic here seems to be that games against top teams are very tricky because they are good teams with some of the most highly talented footballers in the world playing for them - whilst games against teams in the bottom half of the table are very tricky because they are desperately scrapping for their survival in a highly competitive environment.

This is, of course, true - and leads us to inescapable conclusion that every game in the Premier League is a hard game.  So why obsess over it?

Why do we continually point at the next game, or the next three games, or the last however-many games, and solemnly intone that 'these are hard fixtures' - when we know that the same could be said of any given run of games in any season.  There are no easy matches in the Premier League - everyone knows that - and those fixtures against the really world-class teams who completely destroy you all over the field are inevitable, whenever they occur in the season.

So, let's stop barking up this entirely unsatisfying tree.

I think we're all aware that there have been issues with Norwich's performances this season.  All too often, we have played well, but not got the result we deserved; or we have played poorly and got the result we deserve; or we have started well, gone ahead by one goal, and then let the lead slip and ended up losing.  We are not creative enough on the pitch, and our strikers have not been scoring at the rate we need.  The extent to which these issues are down to bad management is still open for debate, and not something I'm going to discuss here.

But I still believe that we are not one of the three worst teams in the division.  We are in a precarious position, and it would be wrong to kid ourselves otherwise - but I think we have a decent chance of staying up.  To do that, we need to pick up points; how we get them, or against whom, is entirely irrelevant - but poring over our fixture list with tears in our eyes, writing 'tough game' against each date in thick red marker pen won't help at all.

We know these games are going to be difficult - we've accepted that fact - now let's not fixate on that fact, let's focus on the football.

The Premier League Sack Race

As you probably know, I am a Norwich City supporter - so the current Premier League season has so far provided me with relatively few good times.  Yesterday's game away at West Ham, however, was a particularly low point...

Despite playing well, creating lots of chances, and seeming to dominate play for prolonged periods, Norwich failed to score, and ended up paying the price for that wastefulness in front of goal as West Ham scored twice late on to take all the points - leaving the Canaries travelling home to Norfolk empty-handed.

This is not the first time this season that we have found ourselves in the situation of being easily the better team on the pitch, and still coming away with no points to show for it (Manchester United at home and Cardiff away are both prime examples of this).  But the loss to West Ham last night - coming at a time when the team and supporters were full of confidence following a well-deserved and highly creditable draw with Manchester City just a few days before, and when all the teams in the lower regions of the League table are bunching up close together on points - is the one which has stung the most.

Predictably, Norwich fans were queueing up on social media to stick the knife into the club's management hierarchy - with first team manager Chris Hughton unsurprisingly coming in for the majority of the flack.  Despite being the usual illiterate, ad hominem rubbish which usually makes me embarrassed to call myself a football fan, these supporters do have a point; their anger and their frustrations are completely understandable.  Clearly, something needs to change.  The question now is: what?

As I pointed out in a similar post back in November, sacking the manager never has been (and never will be!) a 'silver bullet' to end footballing woes.  No matter how much the fans are baying for blood, it is always a much more complex issue than that.

Some City supporters are pointing out the upswing in Sunderland's fortunes since they changed their manager earlier in the season; I think it is short-sighted and foolish to compare our situation with Sunderland's.  But that does raise an interesting point; of the seven Premier League sides to part company with their bosses so far this season, how many have benefitted?  Let's take a look...

Paolo Di Canio - Sunderland AFC (sacked: 22nd September 2013)

Since jettisoning Di Canio, Sunderland have brought in ex-Brighton & Hove Albion manager Gus Poyet, who has done a fantastic job of lifting the Black Cats (formerly tipped as almost certain relegation candidates) out of the Bottom Three and towards the middle of the table.  Poyet seems to have restored harmony to a dressing room left divided and dispirited by the controversial and unpopular Di Canio, as well as bring back into the fold various players who found themselves marginalised under the previous regime and galvanising the spirit of the team as a whole.

Has it worked?  Overall, a great success, and with Poyet at the helm, Sunderland have at least given themselves a fighting chance of surviving the drop.

Ian Holloway - Crystal Palace (sacked: 23rd October 2013)

Despite being a fun, likeable figure in football, it quickly became clear to Palace that Holloway was somewhat out of his depth in the top flight, and the decision was taken to bring in former Stoke City boss Tony Pulis - a manager not without his critics, but with plenty of Premier League experience, and the distinction of never having been relegated English football's elite division.

Has it worked?  As with Sunderland before them, Crystal Palace have benefitted hugely from their managerial change - previously everybody's favourites to go straight back down to the Championship, under Pulis they now look like a team capable of holding their own in the Premier League.

Martin Jol - Fulham FC (sacked: 1st December 2013)

A run of abject results which saw Fulham propping up the Premier League in 20th place, coupled with the marked improvement in close relegation rivals Crystal Palace and Sunderland following managerial changes, did for Dutchman Jol.  Instead of bringing in a new manager from outside the club, Fulham promoted René Meulensteen to the hot seat from within their existing coaching structure.

Has it worked?  No.  Despite a few glimmers of hope (such as the nail-biting draw with Manchester United at Old Trafford last weekend, and the capture of highly-rated German midfielder Lewis Holtby on load from Tottenham in the January Transfer Window), the Cottagers are still in the Drop Zone, fighting a fierce relegation fight - and their fortunes are, for the most part, no better than they were under Jol.

Steve Clarke - West Bromwich Albion (sacked: 14th December 2013)

Following a brilliant debut season as a manager last year, Steve Clarke's sacking in the middle of December was one of the more unexpected moves of the current Premier League season.  Whilst not exactly matching the success and glory of their 2012-13 campaign, Albion were not in an especially bad position when Clarke went, and had achieved some decent results to boot (beating Manchester United at Old Trafford in wonderful style, in particular).  A few weeks later, the Baggies brought in Pepe Mel as Clarke's replacement.

Has it worked?  No.  West Brom find themselves one place (and one point) above the Relegation Zone, and despite holding Chelsea to a 1-1 draw yesterday, it is difficult to see at this stage why those in authority at The Hawthorns think Mel is particularly an improvement on Clarke.  West Brom's slump in form from last season to this seems to be much more closely linked to losing key attacking talent from the 2012-13 season (most notably Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, who spent last season on loan at The Hawthorns from parent club Chelsea) than any managerial deficiencies.

André Villas-Boas - Tottenham Hotspur (sacked: 16th December 2013)

As pressure mounted on Villas-Boas to improve results after spending so much money on so many new (and mostly highly-regarded) players over the summer, the Portuguese began to run out of excuses - and, as tensions flared within the club in the weeks preceding his exit, it became clear to us all that the writing was on the wall as far as his future at Spurs was concerned.  Like Fulham, Tottenham chose to promote an existing member of their coaching setup - Tim Sherwood - rather than bring in somebody new from outside the club in their quest for that ever elusive Top Four spot and the Champions League place that would come with it.

Has it worked?  Sort-of.  But not really.  Like Poyet at Sunderland, Sherwood has brought players who were passed over by Villas-Boas back in from the cold - especially striker Emmanuel Adebayor, who has since repaid his new manager's faith in him by becoming Spurs' top scorer in the post-AVB era.  As a result of the change of style, Spurs are a noticeably better team now - but in League table terms they are no closer to their goal of a Top Four finishing position now than in December (Spurs are 3pts off 4th place, as things stand - the same points margin as at the end of December 2013), and I can see them missing out again this season.

Malky Mackay - Cardiff City (sacked: 27th December 2013)

Another sacking which came as no surprise to those who had followed the unhappy saga of Cardiff's first season back in the top flight, Mackay was finally given his marching orders after weeks of agonising at the end of December.  Unlike Malaysian owner Vincent Tan - whose decision it was to remove him - Mackay was popular with the fans and the players, and the sympathies of the football world were entirely on his side when Tan inevitably showed him the door.  Former Manchester United star Ole Gunnar Solksjaer was brought in shortly afterwards.

Has it worked?  No.  Cardiff remain bottom of the table, looking likely to be relegated.  Whether the situation would be any better had Mackay remained in charge in uncertain, but that things have not improved at Cardiff since the change is self-evident.

Michael Laudrup - Swansea City (sacked: 4th February 2014)

This decision has caused considerable consternation within the footballing world.  Just as at West Brom, the consensus seems to be that a very capable manager was just unable quite to live up to his triumphant debut season, and has since paid the price.  Central defender Garry Monk, who has been at the club as a player since 2004, was elevated to 'Player-Manager' status for the remainder of the season.

Has it worked?  Rather too early to say - but Monk has been a Swansea man for ten years, and the Swans aren't going to be relegated this season, so it may prove a success in the long run.  That's not to say Swansea wouldn't have been just as successful had they stuck with Laudrup, though...

Of those seven managerial changes, only two (or possibly three, if you include Spurs) have demonstrably been changes for the better.  In those cases, too, there have been clear indications as to what the issues are that need addressing - at Sunderland (and, to a slightly lesser extent, at Spurs), issues with performances were mainly due to unrest off the pitch, and under a new manager those wounds have been allowed to heal, and previously ostracised players have been brought back into the fold, bringing unity and focus back to the club.

At Norwich, we don't have that situation.  The players are not angry.  There is no unrest in the dressing room (so far as we, as outsiders, can tell, anyway).  Some supporters may claim that Hughton is out of his depth in the Premier League, as Ian Holloway was at Crystal Palace - but Holloway didn't record victories over Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal in his first season in the top division.

The trouble I see with sacking Hughton is that it is risky.  It is a huge gamble to take - especially at this stage in the season.  We could be another Sunderland or Crystal Palace, yes - but we could just as easily end up another Fulham, Cardiff or West Brom.  In my opinion, Hughton should go only when it is certain we would be able to replace him with somebody better - not somebody as good, but somebody better.

The usual brigade of "act-first-think-later" fans on the Norwich City Facebook page are full of suggestions as to suitable replacements for Hughton.  At various points throughout this season, Malky Mackay, Gianfranco Zola, Neil Lennon, Roberto Di Matteo, Martin O'Neill and Micky Phelan have all been touted as potential new Canaries bosses.

Mackay is a Norwich City legend as a former player, and a very likeable and popular figure, but I don't believe he is objectively any better as a manager than Hughton.

Zola is unproven in the Premier League, and was sacked by Watford this season being unlikely to scale the play-off heights of last year.

Lennon would never want to leave Celtic for Norwich.

Di Matteo is a good manager, but again I struggle to see why he would want to come to Norwich after winning the Champions' League in his last managerial post.

O'Neill is managing the Irish national team now.  Once again - why would he want to come to Norwich now?!

Phelan could be a good option - although technically unproven as a manager, he does have significant experience of coaching in the top flight, and of working alongside the most successful manager of the Premier League.

One option which hasn't (yet) been put forward, though, is Michael Laudrup.  Recently out-of-work, and someone who is (in my opinion, at least) certainly a step up from Hughton, I think it would definitely be worth the club's while to approach Laudrup and see if they can get him in.

The trouble with sacking the manager is not sacking the manager - it's what you do after you've sacked him.  The fans whose apoplectic comments are blowing up the Norwich City Facebook page don't seem to realise this; they are angry (and with good cause), and they want to see someone suffer as a result - they want their pound of flesh.  What they don't have is any meaningful solutions to the challenges facing the football club, beyond simple revenge upon those they perceive to have wronged them.

At this juncture, I would not be averse to a managerial change at all - providing it is a rational, well-thought-out decision made in the hard light of day, not a knee-jerk reaction driven by emotion and rage.  And, unless we can be sure of bringing in a new manager who will be a distinct improvement on the last - well, at this stage of the season, it's better the devil you know.

C. Hughton (Manager)?

This is going to be a bit of a (unstructured) rant...

Not been the best week for me, personally - but this hasn't been a good week for Norwich City Football Club either, after being knocked out of the League Cup by Manchester United, and then losing 7-0 away to Manchester City today.  I'm struggling to know what to make of all this, to be brutally honest - of course, both Manchester teams are tough opposition, particularly when they're playing at home, but a 7-0 scoreline is just embarrassing and we (that is, Norwich) have a much stronger and more talented quad than eighteenth in the Premier League would suggest.

If you believe most of the 'fans' commenting on the club Facebook page, and generally chattering on social media, the answer is staring us in the face - sack [manager] Chris Hughton, and instantly we'll be in the top half of the table, and beating all the top teams.  I'm sorry, but that is overly simplistic, and just won't wash.

Before today's game at the Etihad Stadium, Norwich City posted a short video on their Facebook page, in which Hughton says he 'has to take the positives' from the past weeks; the first comment I saw said 'I haven't seen any positives'.  Seriously?  No positives at all?  Nonsense - they may only be small things, but they are there.

This is the sort of thing which really irritates me; it's not the fact that fans are frustrated with the team, or with the manager - that's perfectly understandable - but the uneducated, ill-informed way in which that frustration is expressed.  Hughton is often slated by Norwich fans for being 'a defensive manager', and for playing 'negatively' - a charge still inexplicably levelled at him following last week's draw at home to Cardiff, in which the Canaries broke the season's Premier League record for the most number of shots on target.  Of course we should've scored one, and we should've won that game - but in what universe does that constitute 'defensive' play?!

Are Norwich dead-and-buried?  No.  Despite currently sitting in the Relegation Zone, with nine points we are still in touch with the next five or six teams above us in the table, and we are lucky that there is already a small gap opening to the bottom two teams - Sunderland and Crystal Palace - which means that in order for either of them to overtake Norwich they would have to win two games in a row, with Norwich losing both their fixtures.

Yes, something is seriously wrong.  Is it the manager?  Perhaps.  But let's not forget, in our lynch-mob hysteria, that we started very slowly last season too (under the same manager), but then went on an unbeaten run of games better than that of any other team in Europe besides Barcelona.  We beat Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City last year - all with Chris Hughton as manager.

I think some people must have spilt beer on their computers' numeric keypads, as the '4' and the '2' key seem to be sticking...  Commenting '4-4-2' followed by about eight million exclamation marks doesn't exactly make you a football expert.  Presumably, these are the same people who stick the knife into the England manager whenever the national teams plays a 4-4-2 formation because it's an old-fashioned way of setting up a team?

If those supporters who are screaming 'Hughton Out' want to be taken seriously, they need to provide a viable alternative.  Sacking a manager is a big deal - it will cause unrest and upheaval, it could unsettle the team and have the opposite effect to the one for which we'd be hoping.  But even assuming it would be the right course of action, the biggest question is still: who would we get instead?

A lot of managerial names were being bandied about by the Facebook know-it-alls today; including Malky Mackay, Neil Lennon, Gianfranco Zola and Roberto Di Matteo.  Can you honestly see any of those managers even wanting to come to Norwich?  Who else is there who is available, and is a genuinely better option?

Now, let's be absolutely clear here...  I'm not saying that Hughton is blameless in this situation (he isn't), and I'm not saying that getting rid of the manager is not the right way forward - but if we are going to sack our manager, that needs to be a carefully considered, well-thought-out move, and not a knee-jerk reaction brought on by mindless panic after a tough start in the first quarter of the season.  I, for one, am extremely glad that the football club I love is not being run by these same idiots who like to act first, and think later.

Reading and QPR sale?

With the news that both Queens Park Rangers and Reading have been relegated from the Premier League today, my thoughts have turned to the Summer Transfer Window, and which star players may well be shuffling out of the back door either at Loftus Road or at the Madejski.  I have been trying to decide which current members of the QPR and Royals squads it would be worth having at Norwich next season - and, to be honest, not many spring to mind...

Just to be clear here, I'm talking specifically about which QPR or Reading players would enhance the Norwich City squad - not which players are good enough to play in the Premier League in general.  I know both sides have goalkeeping talent, with both Alex McCarthy for Reading, and Rangers' Júlio César turning heads during this season, but I have faith in Norwich's current 'keepers of John Ruddy and Mark Bunn, so I have little interest in seeing McCarthy or César at Carrow Road next year, even though I think there's a strong chance that both will still be playing in the top flight.

So, who would I want to take from Reading?

Hardly anyone, frankly.  However, considering that most of the problems we (Norwich) have had during this Premier League season have been to do with not being able to score enough goals, I wouldn't mind giving Adam Le Fondre an opportunity at Carrow Road.

And who would I want to take from QPR?

Again, keeping in mind the Canaries' goal dearth during the current season, I'd be more than happy to take Loïc Rémy on - of course, I feel sure that plenty of Premier League clubs (and their fans!) have been eyeing up Rémy for some weeks, and many more illustrious names will be chasing his signature in the summer, but that's not to say I wouldn't be happy to see him wearing yellow next season.  Another QPR player who's caught my eye, though - particularly in the earlier stages of this season - is Jamie Mackie; I don't think Hoops' manager Harry Redknapp has given him a fair chance in the latter part of the season, but I was impressed by him at the start of their campaign, as he struck me as a hard-working, positive thinking footballer with a lot to give.  I think Mackie could be an excellent addition to the current Norwich line-up, and I would be glad to welcome him here.