I think we're broke.

[Canaryboy]

I struggle to believe that Delia has gone rogue and turned into some sort of bitter sociopath and control freak. Although I'm not discounting that theory entirely, people can get strange when they get old and they start thinking about death - to be very frank (especially in the year of the celebrity death!).

I saw a Norwich fan on facebook float the theory that they won't replace Alex Neil now because the club can't sustain the cost of the current playing squad, especially with promotion looking unlikely, and that the plan is probably to sell several players in January to balance the books and give us some sort of playing budget. Could even be possible that these transfers are already agreed, makes sense when we see Pinto looking like he may have been saying goodbye, and Klose and Pritchard not getting any minutes recently. 

The current bizarre refusal to talk to the local media could also be related to this, and the wheeling out of our spin merchant / Chief Exec to deliver some pre-prepared answers to scripted questions, asked by a club employee. Its weird, and its worrying, but it does make sense. If the club is honest about its situation and says that it needs to sell, then that is only going to reduce the size of the offers we receive for players and will result in vultures circling making silly offers for good players. 

That theory is the most plausible I've seen so far, that the club knows that we have to sell several players in January to balance the books and then give the next manager a bit of a transfer budget (possibly announcing several departures in the first couple of days of January?), and that they don't want the next manager to be here to have to try and deal with the fall out. Or indeed, whoever they have in mind refuses to arrive until after the point at which those departures have been announced and its been confirmed that they have a budget to work with?

A few players to leave next week, new manager to arrive soon? Perhaps a dose of wishful thinking on my part, but I just struggle to believe that Alex Neil will be allowed to rebuild this squad, if the board can't see that he has failed then I expect us to end up in League 1. 

Moxey came across as completely disingenuous. We know it, he knows it. Even for a spiv like him he must have been embarrassed to have to talk more sh*t than Eddie Hearn, lets hope he was just taking one for the team and lying because he feels its in our best interests and that there is some sort of half decent plan which makes a smoke screen necessary.

The above theory is at least preferable to the other possibility, which is that everybody at the club has completely lost the plot and we are on a downward spiral. 

 

[Din]

To be honest I thought about this possibility a while ago, but dismissed it as surely it couldn't be true? There is absolutely no excuse or reason as to why we should be broke unless the board members are complete and utter f*cking morons who have about as much idea of what they're doing as a Chimp in a suit.

If we are aware now that we need to let players go to balance the books then there is absolutely no reason why the board wouldn't of known it in the summer. We had numerous opportunities to sell Brady in particular and the likes of Klose and Naismith attracted interest. We probably could've got £25-30m for the 3 of them, yet the board and manager didn't want to let any of them leave. We also spent £8m on Pritchard when he hardly gets played, if we were apparently so close to having money troubles why on Earth would we do that? There was a rumour floating around when I was on the coach to Reading a couple of days ago that Klose has a clause in his contract that if he plays more than a certain amount of games this season then we have to pay Wolfsburg an extra £3m. Don't know if that has any truth to it.

As I said as well, we have no reason to be in this situation. Last time we were relegated from the Premier League we sold Fer, Snodgrass and Pilkington, three of our higher earners, and the money we spent on new players was about £3m less than the money we got for players leaving. That season we were still able to get rid of our manager and appoint someone new, and that was the season after we'd spent nearly £30m on the likes of Ricky, Hooper, Fer etc. Since then we've sold Johnson, E.Bennett, Hooper, Grabban, Redmond, Van Wolfswinkel, Odjidja, all would've been on decent money, and we got nearly £35m for them combined. Alright we've spent some of that on the likes of Naismith and Klose, but realistically their wages and transfer fees wouldn't cancel out the money we've got in. As I keep saying, there is absolutely no reason for us to be broke.

This is the first time I can remember in my 12 years or so of watching Norwich that I have been actively angry with the board and its members. The theory that we have no money may or may not be true, however the fact that Alex Neil is still here, regardless of the situation, is an absolute f*cking travesty. I've always said that I'm proud of the fact that we have owners of the club that are actual supporters rather than some rich Arabian bloke who doesn't know a thing about the club before he bought it, but I have to say if somebody came in now wanting to buy the club I'd be praying for Delia and co to accept it. I really f*cking hope everything gets sorted to because it's gone past the point now where I don't care what team we select, or even to an extent what the result is, and I hate myself for that but I just feel so disconnected from the club at the moment because of the moronic actions of those in charge.

 

[Canaryboy]

If we are aware now that we need to let players go to balance the books then there is absolutely no reason why the board wouldn't of known it in the summer.

I think the bit which didn't go to plan was our chances of automatic promotion disappearing so early in the season, it could be that the club was prepared to borrow to subsidise the squad, having been over-confident of our abilities / the managers abilities, and that now that a return to the promise lans obviously relies on an outside chance of getting in the top 6, and then a 25% chance of being promoted via the play-offs if we get there, any willingness to borrow would have evaporated or been suicidal.

What if we were prepared to run at a £10m loss this season to achieve promotion, and that our budget now projects a £10m loss for a mid-table finish, that would change a lot. 

The club may be accepting that the club needs to break even this season and then use next seasons parachute payments to try and gain promotion, rather than using next seasons parachute payments to cover this seasons losses.

Possible financial gamble which didn't pay off? Now panicking and working out how we can finish this season without adding huge amounts of debt?

 

[Canaryboy]

But yes, it is all confusing. Spent a huge amount on Pritchard without first shifting Naismith, but then seemed to leave ourselves short of the money required for a flagship striker signing. Seemed to be presumptuous about our ability to shift Naismith, but couldn't shift him because we are paying him too much money!

Rumours of a stupidly high asking price for Brady, Leicester fans baulking at £20m, but that could be paper talk and we could have had insulting offers for all we know. 

Then again, we rejected a £1m bid for Ruddy despite Alex Neil deciding that he was a number 2 at that point. Would think he was one of our highest earners? 

It is all a bit strange. But essentially, we clearly have a wage budget which will be almost Premier League levels and yet we've screwed the season up already, so I'd expect us to be trying to cut the wage budget. 

I don't have a huge issue with that, I bet there are plenty of players who are not earning their money, plenty of talented players earning a fraction of what they are who would jump at the chance to join us, and its about time we started shifting some deadwood and building a young team. 

But Alex Neil isn't the man to do it. I just hope that the club is basically unwilling to unveil a new manager until we've announced a few departures in early-January, that would be a decent scenario. Give the new man some of the money and tell him to start building for next season. Warburton has shown himself capable of building a team on a tight budget, somebody like that would do, reminds me of Lambert in the way he plucks the best of the young, talented and hungry out of League 1 and the smallest of the Champs teams. A return to that sort of transfer strategy would be welcome for me. 

Its all about who they appoint to do that job, and Alex Neil has been the opposite of shrewd in his transfer dealings here. He has made some good signings, but he's also wasted a lot of money, £16m on Naismith and Pritchard, and we still all want an ageing Hoolahan playing in their position, no centre backs signed. Madness. 

£16m on just two players, neither can nail down a place, could have rebuilt the back 5 with that much money in this league. 

 

[Canaryboy]

The club used to give David McNally a slice of any profits when he was at the club, in the form of a bonus (you may remember that he got a big bonus when we got relegated, because we broke a profit). 

A bizarre policy for a club which consistently claimed to be profit-neutral. 

I sincerely hope that Moxey isn't on a similar deal, because he'd then have a vested interest in selling off any valuable playing assets this season (should he take a short termist view). Would be somewhat concerning if selling Howson, Pinto, Klose and Brady would see the Chief Executive get a big financial reward for his efforts. 

I always found that an odd arrangement with McNally, but I trusted him not to abuse it. I don't have any reason to distrust Moxey, but you earn trust and I've not had any reason to trust him either. 

 

[Fenway Frank]

It's all guesswork and rumours though isn't it ? The asking price for Brady in the summer was £15m, this extra £3m to be paid to Wolfsburg has been flatly denied, which if we were winning matches people would accept, but because we're in the brown stuff nobody wants to believe anything they're told. Pinto gives a fan his shirt which apparently means he's leaving, Josh Murphy gave his shirt away too and that's ignored. We'll see some players leave soon, some because of the fee we can get and the others because they don't want to be here. 

 

[ZLF]

Yes - I too think we are broke - financially and metaphorically.

As demanded and promised the board have put every spare penny into the squad, and the inability to drive through a sale in August is now hurting us.

Add in a failure to get in the structure right, an ever changing scouting/recruitment team who seem unable to find a defender or players that can break into a comfortable clique of senior,  a change in CEO who looks like he has some ideas he wants to put in place it look like a certain 18m+ period of change is upon us.  We need the recruitment team to start working,  it hasnt for seasons.  Especially in moving players out (although non will want to leave behind their career high wages & that will prove a serious blockage)  

The squads drive has gone faster than their ability has dropped of a cliff. And that is not all just ANs fault  The squad needs a complete overhaul - even our best (eg howson) have looked poor compared to the likes of Mooy, Palmer, Hourihane etc - and thats just one position.   We are weak across the pitch  but especially down the spine (GK, CB, CM & striker) - the tactics may be questionable but the players are simply not doing the very basics such as simple passing or ownership leadership and team spirit.   When did we last see any player cover another position?  When did we see a play have any discipline and hold a shape?

Promotion, even via the play off has gone (6th place has an average of 74 pts,  to get that we have to hit auto promotion equivalent form from Sat through until the season end - it is simply not going to happen,  even with a new manager) so we should prepare for next season;  sell who we can shift, even at reduced prices (Klose, Brady, Naismith, Olsson Ruddy Howson most likely,  Bennett martin whittaker bassong simply not going attract anyone) in the next two windows and get in the young hungry players we need.  The reduced wage bill alone from that that activity

My recurring nightmare is the +1 year contract extensions are enforced and last seasons Turner shock is the first of many that hamstring our whovian regeneration.       

 

[BroadstairsR]

I'm not sure that we are totally broke because I think the board may be holding some money back aware that we run at a loss when we are in the Championship.

As far as the transfer budget goes though it appears we have nothing left.

Hence the sell to buy mantra.

I believe this situation came about last year at this time. In their failed last ditch attempt to stay in the Premier League most of the funds were used up when buying Klose, Pinto and Naismith (the latter being the biggest let down, but not quite on a par with RVW.)

The Redmond money has enabled us to buy the like of Dolly and Pritchard.

Any way you look at it, it's turned into a massive balls up.

We haven't seen the best of Brady this season. A decent wedge for him might enable us to make one biggish signing supplemented by picking up a few lower league gems. Angus McDonald seems a reasonable start in this respect. Meredith is another one mentioned.

MCarthy down the road has had to survive using this route and has got the very best from his players for the most part. Is Neil capable of the same?