Delia Out, Toys Out, Pram Empty

09/08/16

By Andrew Lawn So 1 week on from the end of the summer transfer window and frustration that we didn’t sign a second striker has mostly dissipated into a realisation that while another striker would have been nice, our squad is still chocked full of talent at this level. Mostly. In some bedrooms across the […]

By Andrew Lawn

So 1 week on from the end of the summer transfer window and frustration that we didn’t sign a second striker has mostly dissipated into a realisation that while another striker would have been nice, our squad is still chocked full of talent at this level.

Mostly.

In some bedrooms across the county the frustration has grown, solidified and found an enemy in the board, or “Delia and Co” as they have become known, leading for sporadic calls of an “organised” protest on Saturday.

This could be down to two things as I see it;

1 – A poor last game, followed by the international break meaning there was no City action to distract us

2 – A belief that the grass is always greener and that Jake Humphrey is right when he links how much money is spent with how successful a transfer window is

Either way, to protest against the board at this stage, for this supposed transgression is ridiculous. As is agreeing with Jake Humphrey on almost anything.

The rights and wrongs of our recruitment over the last few windows has been done to death, so I’m not going to go back over it now, other than to point out that sometimes not signing players is better than signing them. It is better say to have lb8m in the bank than a flash new hotshot striker called Ricky.

It is also worth repeating that signing a player isn’t as simple as Alex, Delia, Ed or Jez picking up the phone to, for example, Nottingham Forest and blithely chatting about how much we’re willing to spend on Britt Assombalonga.

As well as the clubs, there are also deals to be thrashed out with the player, his agent and even sponsors. For an excellent account of just how complex transfers are, read The Set Pieces Transfer Window Myth-Busting.

Finally, as Chairman Ed Balls wouldn’t be involved in this. Nor would Delia. Nor at that stage would Alex Neil or any of the recruitment team. Their job is identifying players that fit the bill, not haggle. To bemoan them for failing to sign people is the equivalent of bemoaning the Big Screen for not scoring more.

But I digress. Delia out?

Looking at the disparate voices on Facebook calling this week for “someone with a computer and printer” to help make flyers for their “organised protest”, the arguments against their management of the club appear to be;

  • A prevailing “small club mentality” – this I can kind of understand. We all see Norwich as a big club and would like to believe that we can compete at the highest echelons in the game. After all clubs of a similar size (Middlesborough, Fulham, Swansea etc) have all won major trophies or reached European finals in recent memory. If they can we can. However, I don’t think that is because our board use words like “shrewd”. After all, we have just been relegated and yet spent lb15m strengthening the squad over the summer

  • “Just add another million and get it done” – This is my favourite, mainly as it’s the most incorrect. As above, transfer deals don’t hinge on merely being less stubborn and adding another million. Added to this, as David McNally told our friends over at LYB, we are currently behind some of our direct rivals facilities wise. This is being addressed (but as it’s at Colney this kind of million pound investment goes unnoticed), but for now provides more context for why say Ross McCormack might choose Villa over us

  • Scattergun transfer targets – Leading on nicely from McCormack, this one blames the board for the rumours on Twitter of who we were after, appearing scattergun. It’s worth repeating a couple of words from that sentence; “rumours” and “appearing”.As fans we will never know who the club actually pursued this summer. The speculation we all read about Assombalonga or McCormack or N’Doye or any of the hundreds of other names we were linked with is just that; speculation. As far as any of us are aware, early on the club identified keeping Klose, Brady, Olsson, Howson and Wes and getting Pritchard, Canos (to replace Redmond) and Oliveira plus one more that didn’t happen to replace Naismith and Lafferty. If that’s true (and we don’t know) they achieved 8 out of 9. Not bad. The point is we don’t know what their plan was, so we can’t judge how successful it was. We can all agree another striker would have been nice, but we can’t complain that recruitment was scattergun based on rumours
  • The board are holding us back – From what? We have gone from the brink of bankruptcy to Premier League yo-yo club in 7 years, under this board. This must be seen as a success. Yes, we would all like to now kick on and become an established Premier League club, but rather than throwing your toys out of the pram maybe it’s worth taking a look at the bigger picture. This division is full of clubs with owners that prove that large bank balances does not make you a successful person. Ask fans of Blackburn, Ipswich, Fulham, QPR, Newcastle, Villa, Cardiff, Leeds etc etc if they would swap their new owners for ones who had steadied a sinking ship. As of yesterday Forest’s latest prospective owner is fighting match fixing charges. If you look below the Championship the list grows ever longer; Blackpool, Bolton, Charlton, Sheffield United and Portsmouth all spent big in a bid to preserve or regain Premier League status, or have other legitimate reasons to want their owners out of their clubs
Maybe this all just seems more pathetic to me because I remember the Chase Out protests.

Although I was at the very beginning of my Canary supporting days, I can vividly recall the reasons for the protests. Back then we really did sell our best players and not re-invest the money. As a comparison, imagine we sold all those players it will have cost us money to retain this summer, no more Wes, Howson, Klose, Brady etc who would all have been shipped out for peanuts.

I also recall my Dad as a Steward being kicked and spat at by our own fans for being a “Chase Monkey” purely because he worked for the club and despite him being just as vehement in his opposition to that regime.

We are so far from that now and it is thanks to Delia and Michael Wynn Jones stepping in back then.

All of this is not to say that the board have done no wrong and there aren’t things they could do better (cheaper tickets, safe standing etc etc), however to be annoyed at them for not announcing the signing of a name you just read on Twitter is not one of them.

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