CamCanBlog

So it looks like Robert Green is off to the Premiership at last, despite not having made a comeback from his unfortunate injury just before the start of the World Cup.  With all the talk of a deal with Charlton, it came as a bit of a shock that West Ham managed to jump in at the last minute and steal him away.  Considering Green has a season left on his contract and another year on option, the valuation could be considered to be a bit low.  However, his desire to play in the Premiership and advance his (International) career, his current injury status, Gallagher’s assured performances so far and the seemingly urgent need for income into the City coffers seems to be pushing the situation.  Perhaps there’s more to it and only time will tell.

The final score-line from the Luton game last Saturday hardly begins to tell the story of that match. Following a good performance against Preston at home a few days before, expectations were high and to some extent, City fans were expecting another quality performance and another three points. After 52 minutes, Norwich were two down and playing really badly. The first half performance had been dire and it could almost be considered lucky that Norwich went in at the break just one goal down.

To be totally fair to Luton, it wasn’t just bad play from Norwich that led to their two goal lead. The Hatters had clearly watched a video of the first two Norwich games and realised that Worthington was going to start with a 4-5-1 formation (oh sorry Nigel, 4-3-3, ahem), with Earnshaw up front by himself. It was therefore not to difficult to realise that you could pretty much let Croft and Huckerby do what they liked on the wings, as long as the middle of the pitch was well covered and Earnshaw had a tall defender or three on him. The first Luton goal was pure quality and well deserved. Norwich looked not only lack-luster in the first half, but incapable of dealing with a team that seemed to have their number.

It has been said that Worthington gave them a “kick up the backside” at half-time, but if that happened, it certainly didn’t register with the players for the first ten minutes of the second half. Following a second Luton goal which the Norwich defence seemed happy just to observe, City suddenly came alive. Even Huckerby came back and put in some defensive challenges a few times.

In just fourteen minutes, Huckerby, Croft and Earnshaw had put away three goals and left supporters on both sides totally amazed. From then on, Luton looked shell-shocked and Norwich did look the better team and actually managed to look reasonably comfortable in defence.

If Norwich can learn some important lessons from this game, perhaps it’s possible to go upwards from here. However, many more performances like that in the first half and the crowd will be on their backs in no time.

So three points from the first home game! Norwich won, got two goals and even Worthington looked smarter this game. So nothing to worry about? I think not.

First the good news. The Norwich midfield was fantastic. They controlled the game pretty much from start to finish, having the vast majority of possession. With Croft on the right, Huckerby on the left and three quality central midfield players, Norwich had complete control of the middle of the pitch.

However, playing 4-5-1 at home you would expect this to some extent, and the back four lacked discipline and shape on the rare occassions they were pressed. Too often Gallacher and the defence were guilty of hoofing the ball down the field for Earnshaw to vainly chase. Why do this with five in midfield and a striker who you could hardly describe as tall.

Preston were, in all fairness, a pretty poor team who offered little for the entire 90 minutes. After Norwich failed to convert any of their first half possession, Preston did initially look like they were getting back into the game at the start of the second half, but an own-goal in the 55^th minute put pay to that. For the rest of the game, Norwich dominated and Preston were unable to hold onto the ball for more than a few seconds. However it wasn’t until the 83^rd minute that a fantastic finish from Earnshaw sealed the game for Norwich.

Despite the lack of depth and cover in the squad, the first-choice Norwich eleven isn’t that far away from being a quality side. With the addition of one quality defender and a target man to work up front with Earnshaw, Norwich should be capable of a top six finish on this performance.

Carrow Road in the evening before kick-off.

Another level appears on the hotel in the Barclay/Jarrold corner.

‘On The Ball City’ video with sound from before kick-off.

Norwich got their season off to a bad start with a one goal loss at Elland Road. New boy Lee Croft gave away a penalty just before half time which David Healy put away. Despite some attacking play in the second half, Leeds and the woodwork were able to keep Norwich at bay.

By all accounts, Norwich didn’t actually play too badly, but an away game at Leeds is always going to be a difficult way to start the season.

PinkUn match report

Yep, it looks like Worthington has struck again. Despite making it perfectly clear that he was living in Norfolk and wanted to play for Norwich, he was not picked up by Worthington and now Sutton might well sign for Ipswich.

Really Mr Worthington, if Ipswich could get him on a pay as you play contract, why couldn’t we? Was this really a football decision or did personalities get too involved?

PinkUn story

At last, the new shirts have arrived! Bad photos here also:

Home shirt Away shirt

So that’s it for the pre-season fun, we can now start thinking about proper games that actually matter.

As ever, pre-season was a muted affair. I always think that if there were a mid-season break with friendlies that no-one would bother turning up, but the desire to see your own team back on the pitch after the Summer break makes you do silly things, like part with £13 at Cambridge United.

Anyway, the Northampton Town game was a very quiet event. Just over 5,000 people came to see what was probably the closest Norwich have come to putting a full first team being on the pitch (at the same time) for the majority of a game in the pre-season build up. As I always say, it’s difficult to take too much from pre-season games, but yet again Norwich didn’t look like a side about to set the league alight. Norwich had a great deal of possession, yet the simple but effective Northampton defending meant that little of it resulted in any sort of chance. To be fair, Northampton never really looked like scoring and therefore it was one of those games where you could concentrate on the abilities of the Norwich midfield. The one goal victory was nice to see, but not something you could take an awful lot from.

Everything did look somewhat predictable with the usual suspects doing the usual things. This should improve with the addition of Lee Croft to the City squad, and if Worthington were somehow able to pull a target man and a defender out of the hat, the regular first team side would actually look quite capable. Imagine Huckerby on the left, Croft on the right and a target man up front with Earnshaw!

It’s the lack of a couple of key personnel and the lack of strength in depth where most concerns lie. Clearly I was right when I previously thought that Worthington had put academy players in the first team squad to “make up the numbers”. In the press recently he’s been quoted as saying that “We have some young ones in the squad who haven’t had any experience in the first team and you can only blood them gently, so it would be unfair to throw them into the cauldron that we are going into.” If that is the case, why did they offer the likes of Spillane, Eagle and Fisk a pro contract if there’s no intention to play them? When you look at the first team squad photo and take out the 13 (yes, thirteen) non-playing members, you realise why. The Norwich squad was not large enough last season, and with a few departures and very few additions, it now looks very short indeed. There are clear areas where Norwich lack depth and cover, and it looks like being another season where a couple of injuries could leave Norwich with players playing out of position in the league.

Just having a target man would help the situation in my opinion. The Norwich defence is usually quite capable of holding off the opposition during regular times, but usually starts to buckle under sustained attack. Norwich suffered last season as they played far too deep which meant that defensive clearances usually resulted in the opposition team getting the ball straight back in their own half after most attacks. I know we can’t afford a multi-million pound striker but I do think that, if we could get him on a pay-as-you-play contract with no silly agent fees, Chris Sutton really would help Norwich out. I know that people say he’s too old and injury prone, but if you get him on a deal where he’s only earning if he’s playing, scoring and winning, then everyone at Carrow Road could be a winner. Perhaps there’s just too much water under the bridge to make anything like that happen now though.

Still, it certainly doesn’t look like things are going to change any time soon, so Norwich will have to go “with what we’ve got” as it has been said recently.

The new hotel in the Barclay/South Stand infill taking shape.

The new flybe.com seating

Northampton away fans in the South Stand

The Norwich bench, including Worthy in his nice white socks!

More pictures from the game. Click on the thumbnails for a bigger version:

Finally a short movie clip from the game is available as well; NCFC v NTFC video clip

So Delia thinks it would be a good idea to open a chapel at Carrow Road. Well, perhaps that means the board are hoping for divine inspiration as it seems that’s the only way we’ll get promotion any time soon. Really, Delia, this isn’t Spain or Italy. The UK is all but a secular society these days. If you really want to draw some inspiration from clubs such as Real Madrid, you’d be better looking on the pitch rather than in the pews.

The situation with the new strip has shown just how inept the club can be sometimes. Faced with around 20,000 season ticket holders, you would have thought that the club would have moved heaven and earth to ensure that lots of new (home and away) shirts would be available BEFORE the season started so that they could get the money in the bank for them as soon as possible. As it is, only 4,000 shirts are going to be delivered on Friday August 4th, a week later than originally intended and just one day before the season starts. It’s quite possible that a small delay now could mean that NO Norwich supporters have a current shirt for the first game of the season. Even then, they’ll be lucky to have all 4,000 out for the first home game just a few days later.

I know the club will point the finger at the manufacturer and production issues with the sponsor logo (or something like that) but this is something that should have been sorted a LONG time ago.

Another thing that bugs me is the away strip. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s quite nice in all white. What annoys me is that it’s only going to be around for one season. From folks that I’ve spoken to, this has put a LOT of people off buying it. It seems to be one of the most popular away strips for quite some time, but people are hesitant at forking out 40 quid for a shirt that’s only going to be worn on a small number of occasions and will be replaced before next season. Why does the club feel this is necessary? It would make more sense to keep the new away short for two seasons along side the home shirt, and perhaps introduce a “third” kit at the end of this season, which could then take over the away strip’s alternating expiration with the home shirt. Ah well, never mind.

With the World Cup already a distant (painful) memory, and a couple of pre-season games already gone, it’s all go on the Norwich City rumour mill again.

Despite winning both of them, the pre-season games so far don’t make me think that Norwich are going to set the league on fire this season, but then it’s always dangerous to draw too many conclusions from friendly games against lower league opposition.

Norwich have let a few players go, which is not always such a bad thing, but made no permanent signings. Yes, there’s a defender probably on the way from Arsenal (on loan), but there’s nothing permamnent. Whilst this is dissapointing, I’d rather see us sign no-one over signing players who we don’t really want and have no intention of playing, just to satisfy the need of people to see new faces. Indeed, one thing that we may have on our side this year is squad stability. Also it’s nice to see a few lads coming through the academy. After all we did (and continue to) spend a great deal of money on it, so it’s about time it started paying back! However, I’m concerned that Norwich may have offered a few academy lads a professional contract just to make the squad look bigger than it really is. We’ve all seen before that Worthington doesn’t seem to like playing the youngsters in the first team and would rather go out and get an experienced player on loan, even if it’s clear they don’t really want to play for us. Personally I’d give them a go a bit more often. For instance, why didn’t we “blood” a few more of the youngsters at the end of last season, when the games were pretty meaningless?

So why have Norwich not made any good signings over the Summer break? Well, ask yourself this question; if you were a player who was actually any good, would you want to move to Norwich right now? There’s lots of other teams in the Championship after players that can probably offer a lot more opportunity, stability and ambition than they could get at Carrow Road. It’s also pretty clear that everything isn’t great behind the scenes, and that’s also not going to encourage players to come to Norfolk either.

We all have our own opinion on what should happen at Carrow Road. I personally DO think that Worthington should go. My reasoning is quite simple. Football clubs are keen on reminding us (when it suits them) that they are businesses and have to be run as such. Now, if a company were to employ someone to manage a team of individuals, and they ALL started to consistently underperform, both individually and as a team, yet they had been shown to be able to perform at a much higher level, the manager would be the one facing the chop. If the board of that company failed to do anything about the poor performance and kept the manager on, then shareholders would start to ask some very awkward questions and eventually the board and the manager would go. None of that usual business logic seems to apply at Carrow Road right now. I’m a shareholder of the club, both in spirit and on paper, so perhaps it’s up to us now. Personally I’d think about moving someone like Hunter to a managerial position and then get Iwan back to coach the strikers, have Huckerby coach the midfielders and Doherty and Fleming coach the defenders. That puts some spirit back into the leadership of the team and also offers the more experienced (older) players some form of career move.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that the board have any bad intentions. This is nothing like the Chase era where people doubted the board on many levels. I just think that Delia and co don’t have that nasty streak required to get rid of people and sort the current mess out. If it weren’t for Delia and her husband, we probably wouldn’t have a club to watch at all right now, but I think they need a bit more “bite” in the boardroom. I’m not one of those people that think that Delia should just get her chequebook out and buy some players. She’s done more than enough in recent years. Also, people often confuse someones “worth” with their “wealth”. I’m pretty sure that whilst Delia is a valuable “brand” in her own right, she probably doesnt have mega-millions sitting idle in bank accounts. If she did, I’m sure much of it would head towards the Norwich coffers!

Still, Worthington seems determined to stay on no matter what, and it’s clear that the board have no intention of getting rid of him right now. Perhaps all of this will be forgotten if we somehow manage to win the first few games, but I’m sure that at the first sign of trouble in the season, people will call for Worthington to step down again.

For now, I think the Northampton game will offer a bit more of a challenge to the players than the Scotland and Newcastle games. I’ll be there for that game, so I’ll post my thoughts (and maybe a few more pictures) here then.

So here’s some more pictures and video links from the Cambridge pre-season game.

By the way, if there’s anyone from CUFC reading this, you might like to run your club a bit better if you want to earn some cash! When around 1300 away fans turn up at your stadium, try opening all the turnstiles, as when they’re in, they’ll buy food and drink. For that matter, at half time, open more than one food and drink window, especially if it’s really warm and people will buy stuff at just about any price!

Looking back at this game, one thing that I noticed (and perhaps I’m way off on this one) is that there didnt seem to be much management coming from Worthington. The team seemed to be run by Huckerby and Doherty, with Worthy just a bystander. With the experienced players and a keen training staff, Worthy didnt get involved in the warm up or training either. In fact, why IS here there????

Doherty looks to win the ball.

On your ‘ead son!

The lovely Abbey Stadium

Huckerby crosses the ball.

CUFC v NCFC - Norwich fend off a Cambridge attack [wmv]

CUFC v NCFC - A look around the Abbey stadium [wmv]

CUFC v NCFC - Cambridge take the lead with a penalty [wmv]

It’s always difficult and dangerous to take too much away from pre-season games. This is especially true when there’s more than a couple of divisions gap between the sides. Such is the case with Norwich and Cambridge. United have not had a great time in recent years, with relegation to the conference and well publicised financial issues. The desire of a side like Cambridge to prove a point to a higher side like Norwich is strong, especially when an ex-canary in the shape of Rob Newman is leading them.

Norwich did the usual two teams setup for the game, one for each half. Both halves were pretty dire stuff. In the first half the Norwich creativity consisted of “give the ball to Huckerby” which meant that the play was pretty predictable. A Cambridge penalty gave the home side the lead in the first half, and for a while it looked difficult to see where any Norwich goals could come from. However, by the end of the game Norwich had somehow managed to score three goals and avoid conceeding any more.

More to come tomorrow when I write this up a bit more….

The two benches, Newman for CUFC and Worthington (looking like your grandad) for NCFC

Norwich attack in the 1st half

Players take time out to dance for the ball

Norwich players train by doing the Okey Cokey

Safri delivers the free kick for the 1st half equaliser