Thank you Neil Adams

[The Great Mass Debater]

Heart in the right place, true club man. Left before he became vilified in the way Gunn was. Who can blame him for wanting the job and believing he could do a good job. Not worked out the way he wanted and probably under-qualified. Hope him coming back in a new role is true.

Now he has gone, lets say thanks to him for his efforts and move on.

 

[Brian Fantana]

Sad to see another club hero reduced like this, hopefully we won't offer it to Hucks next as I don't think I could stand to watch it again.

 

[Brian Fantana]

Forgot to add - Thank You Neil, a good man who was never going to win in this situation.

 

[Canaryboy]

Cheers Neil, probably the right manager at completely the wrong time. 

 

[Suffolk Canary]

Took over during an incredibly tough time, and genuinely gave everything he had for the club.  I'm just glad that he's going to come back to the club in the summer.  It'd be such a shame to lose a man who loves the club as much as he does. 

'Cheers Neyul' 

 

[GazzaTCC]

Cheers Neil, managerial potential, maybe, but the gap from Youth team to first team is just too huge for most to bridge.

I have no issue with internal appointments, if someone wants to ride through the ranks it must be done properly, academy, first team coach, assistant manager, then manager. Simples

 

[Canaryboy]

Cheers Neil, managerial potential, maybe, but the gap from Youth team to first team is just too huge for most to bridge.

I have no issue with internal appointments, if someone wants to ride through the ranks it must be done properly, academy, first team coach, assistant manager, then manager. Simples

Adams should have spent this season, and next season, as U21 manager with the responsibility of overseeing the development of the players that he had at U18 level (plus the new additions like McGrandles and Thomson), including ensuring their continuing development out on loan spells. As well as working at times with the first team. 

If we didn't get promoted during that two year period (when your parachute payments then drop by £14m) that would have been the time to appoint Adams, to rebuild the team with the likes of Loza, the Murphys, McGeeham, McGrandles, Thomson, Rudd etc. 

That's why I think he was possibly the right manager at the wrong time. He would have been an excellent choice if we were faced with a mass exodus of players and a fast shrinking budget, having to rely on youth mixed with old pros to build a new team. That day will still come if we don't get out of this league this season or next season.  

 

[Tomasz Blazak]

Aye, I'll add my thanks in here. Really sad it hasn't worked out for him, but delighted he'll be retained in some capacity. I'm praying we hear him back on Radio Norfolk in a few months for a game or two.

Top bloke, and really glad it has happened like this, and he's walked before it all got sour and nasty. He leaves with his head held high, and I wholeheartedly welcome the fact he is staying on with the club.

Thanks for everything Neil!

 

[Yellow Fever]

Without any of the qualifications, just a thank you for what you tried to do but weren't able to complete.

 

[lyb]

More experienced managers at Fulham and Cardiff haven't been doing as well as us this season. Too impatient, that's the trouble. 

Wording in the press release said 'agreed to resign' so that reads as much push as jump on Adams part. Whoever we get as manager, there's nothing to say they're going to do any better, and if they make a good fist of it then that's all well and good until a 'bigger club' like Aston Villa come knocking, which is what happens when a manager succeeds and has no personal association with the club. 

I think we'll be looking back on this with regret not so far down the line.

 

[Monty13]

More experienced managers at Fulham and Cardiff haven't been doing as well as us this season. Too impatient, that's the trouble. 

Wording in the press release said 'agreed to resign' so that reads as much push as jump on Adams part. Whoever we get as manager, there's nothing to say they're going to do any better, and if they make a good fist of it then that's all well and good until a 'bigger club' like Aston Villa come knocking, which is what happens when a manager succeeds and has no personal association with the club. 

I think we'll be looking back on this with regret not so far down the line.

Can't not agree with this, think the board blinked due to doing the wrong thing last year.

He may have still been learning, but he would have continued to learn here no matter who came calling. The problem with finding the next Lambert is they won't.

It may get us where they want this season, I suspect it just as likely won't, hope I'm wrong, but long term it feels like we just took a step back.

 

[Canaryboy]

Can't not agree with this, think the board blinked due to doing the wrong thing last year.

He may have still been learning, but he would have continued to learn here no matter who came calling. The problem with finding the next Lambert is they won't.

It may get us where they want this season, I suspect it just as likely won't, hope I'm wrong, but long term it feels like we just took a step back.

We are assuming that he was gently pushed though, it could well have been his choice, in which case he himself would have determined that he wasn't cut out for the job.

If he had the belief that he could become a successful manager and the desire to prove as such, then he wouldn't be taking a job at our club starting in July would he? He'd be holding out for another opportunity as a manager, somewhere further down the pyramid. Besides, if he were to succeed at York City or Oxford United, he could just get another Championship job in a few years? 

See this is the issue that I take with appointments like this, there are managers who go and cut their teeth in the lower leagues or even non-league because they are so determined to prove their managerial abilities. Then there are 'managers' who just take a job when it arises, opportunists? 

Adams' doesn't fit the profile of somebody who has ever been determined to make it as a manager, otherwise he'd have gone and done it, I wonder whether he has ever (for example) tried to get his foot in the door at Oldham, or tried to get another job in football whilst he was exiled and working at BBC Norfolk.

We could in fact say the exact same thing about Mike Phelan, who is 52. If he wants to become a manager, why hasn't he gone and done it? Granted, who wouldn't have wanted to assist Sir Alex between 2008 and 2013, but what about the 12 years prior to that? 

In League Two you have people like Gareth Ainsworth, Michael Appleton and even Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink cutting their teeth in management. A League Two manager earns an average of £50,000 per year. People like Hasselbaink (and James Beattie last season) don't need to go and take a job on £50,000 a year. They have ambitions to succeed in management and are desperate for a chance to prove themselves. 

If Neil Adams thinks that he is a capable manager, then why has he waited until he is nearly 50 to become one? 

Not since 1987 have we been successful in giving a manager his first job. Mike Walker and Nigel Worthington both had failed attempts at management before they managed here, and perhaps they got some of their naive mistakes out of the way and learnt from those failed jobs (much like Gary Megson went on to become a competent manager after his first dismal management job here). Paul Lambert wasn't on his first job, he'd gone and made his beginner's errors elsewhere.

Is it too much to ask that before a man is given the reigns at a big Championship club with 20000 season ticket holders and a budget sufficient to sign players for 7 figure sums, that they first go and manage a team of lesser stature so that they know what day to day management truly entails and decide whether they can handle the pressure?

If they can't handle the pressure at a club which gets gates of a few thousand, then they won't be able to handle the pressure at a club with 20,000 season ticket holders and higher expectations.  

Paul Lambert went and proved his worth at Wycombe, as did Martin O'Neil. If we are looking to establish an identity or some sort of "Norwich way", then I'd much prefer that the "Norwich way" when it comes to managers is that we recruit from League One or League Two, and have a club policy that we never give a former player their first managers job ever again. Or any man his first job. Surely we are far enough up the food chain to poach managers? We did it as a League One club from a divisional rival! 

It should be written into our constitution. 

Bryan Gunn

Peter Grant

Gary Megson

John Deeham

Neil Adams

We gave first management jobs to all five of those men, all former players, all failed. Not one of them had a scrap of management experience before taking the Norwich job. Delia & Co appointed three of them, have they not learnt anything from past mistakes? And indeed, past successes? The two successful managerial appointments of their 19 year reign (Worthington - 5 years, Lambert - 3 years) have both been relatively young managers who had first gone out and managed in the lower leagues. 

 

[Canaryboy]

Feel a bit guilty about writing that on the "Thank you Neil Adams" thread, doesn't feel like the right place for it! 

 

[Din]

A real shame that it didn't work out for him. Always got the impression that he genuinly wanted to do well, and was trying his best to make it work. He is clearly Norwich through and through, and it's great that he will be given another role within the club, and he hasn't met his end like Gunny did.

Thanks Neil, but unfortunately you weren't quite the right man. 

 

[lyb]

We are assuming that he was gently pushed though, it could well have been his choice, in which case he himself would have determined that he wasn't cut out for the job.

If he had the belief that he could become a successful manager and the desire to prove as such, then he wouldn't be taking a job at our club starting in July would he? He'd be holding out for another opportunity as a manager, somewhere further down the pyramid. Besides, if he were to succeed at York City or Oxford United, he could just get another Championship job in a few years? 

See this is the issue that I take with appointments like this, there are managers who go and cut their teeth in the lower leagues or even non-league because they are so determined to prove their managerial abilities. Then there are 'managers' who just take a job when it arises, opportunists? 

Adams' doesn't fit the profile of somebody who has ever been determined to make it as a manager, otherwise he'd have gone and done it, I wonder whether he has ever (for example) tried to get his foot in the door at Oldham, or tried to get another job in football whilst he was exiled and working at BBC Norfolk.

We could in fact say the exact same thing about Mike Phelan, who is 52. If he wants to become a manager, why hasn't he gone and done it? Granted, who wouldn't have wanted to assist Sir Alex between 2008 and 2013, but what about the 12 years prior to that? 

In League Two you have people like Gareth Ainsworth, Michael Appleton and even Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink cutting their teeth in management. A League Two manager earns an average of £50,000 per year. People like Hasselbaink (and James Beattie last season) don't need to go and take a job on £50,000 a year. They have ambitions to succeed in management and are desperate for a chance to prove themselves. 

If Neil Adams thinks that he is a capable manager, then why has he waited until he is nearly 50 to become one? 

Not since 1987 have we been successful in giving a manager his first job. Mike Walker and Nigel Worthington both had failed attempts at management before they managed here, and perhaps they got some of their naive mistakes out of the way and learnt from those failed jobs (much like Gary Megson went on to become a competent manager after his first dismal management job here). Paul Lambert wasn't on his first job, he'd gone and made his beginner's errors elsewhere.

Is it too much to ask that before a man is given the reigns at a big Championship club with 20000 season ticket holders and a budget sufficient to sign players for 7 figure sums, that they first go and manage a team of lesser stature so that they know what day to day management truly entails and decide whether they can handle the pressure?

If they can't handle the pressure at a club which gets gates of a few thousand, then they won't be able to handle the pressure at a club with 20,000 season ticket holders and higher expectations.  

Paul Lambert went and proved his worth at Wycombe, as did Martin O'Neil. If we are looking to establish an identity or some sort of "Norwich way", then I'd much prefer that the "Norwich way" when it comes to managers is that we recruit from League One or League Two, and have a club policy that we never give a former player their first managers job ever again. Or any man his first job. Surely we are far enough up the food chain to poach managers? We did it as a League One club from a divisional rival! 

It should be written into our constitution. 

Bryan Gunn

Peter Grant

Gary Megson

John Deeham

Neil Adams

We gave first management jobs to all five of those men, all former players, all failed. Not one of them had a scrap of management experience before taking the Norwich job. Delia & Co appointed three of them, have they not learnt anything from past mistakes? And indeed, past successes? The two successful managerial appointments of their 19 year reign (Worthington - 5 years, Lambert - 3 years) have both been relatively young managers who had first gone out and managed in the lower leagues. 

Vehemently disagree with this. When Lambert had his Championship season he had forward momentum from a squad that he'd had a season in League One to refine and get some belief into, not to mention having a jewel of a Captain that was the source of the dogged determination that made it happen. Adams on the other hand had a group of players that hadn't gelled in a whole season of Premier League together, brought in new players who had a positive impact and had us top of the table after 10 games. That was followed by a barren patch, barely any longer than what Lambert experienced, followed by a revival of form that had us back to 2 points per game over five games, at which point he's off. 

We've had too many no shows this season, for sure, but equally we've had quite a lot of really terrific performances that could have been built on. This has now been thrown out of the window and it's back to the drawing board with some as of yet unidentified guy with his own ideas about how it should be done. What an absolute joke.

 

[Monty13]

We are assuming that he was gently pushed though, it could well have been his choice, in which case he himself would have determined that he wasn't cut out for the job.

If he had the belief that he could become a successful manager and the desire to prove as such, then he wouldn't be taking a job at our club starting in July would he? He'd be holding out for another opportunity as a manager, somewhere further down the pyramid. Besides, if he were to succeed at York City or Oxford United, he could just get another Championship job in a few years? 

See this is the issue that I take with appointments like this, there are managers who go and cut their teeth in the lower leagues or even non-league because they are so determined to prove their managerial abilities. Then there are 'managers' who just take a job when it arises, opportunists? 

Adams' doesn't fit the profile of somebody who has ever been determined to make it as a manager, otherwise he'd have gone and done it, I wonder whether he has ever (for example) tried to get his foot in the door at Oldham, or tried to get another job in football whilst he was exiled and working at BBC Norfolk.

We could in fact say the exact same thing about Mike Phelan, who is 52. If he wants to become a manager, why hasn't he gone and done it? Granted, who wouldn't have wanted to assist Sir Alex between 2008 and 2013, but what about the 12 years prior to that? 

In League Two you have people like Gareth Ainsworth, Michael Appleton and even Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink cutting their teeth in management. A League Two manager earns an average of £50,000 per year. People like Hasselbaink (and James Beattie last season) don't need to go and take a job on £50,000 a year. They have ambitions to succeed in management and are desperate for a chance to prove themselves. 

If Neil Adams thinks that he is a capable manager, then why has he waited until he is nearly 50 to become one? 

Not since 1987 have we been successful in giving a manager his first job. Mike Walker and Nigel Worthington both had failed attempts at management before they managed here, and perhaps they got some of their naive mistakes out of the way and learnt from those failed jobs (much like Gary Megson went on to become a competent manager after his first dismal management job here). Paul Lambert wasn't on his first job, he'd gone and made his beginner's errors elsewhere.

Is it too much to ask that before a man is given the reigns at a big Championship club with 20000 season ticket holders and a budget sufficient to sign players for 7 figure sums, that they first go and manage a team of lesser stature so that they know what day to day management truly entails and decide whether they can handle the pressure?

If they can't handle the pressure at a club which gets gates of a few thousand, then they won't be able to handle the pressure at a club with 20,000 season ticket holders and higher expectations.  

Paul Lambert went and proved his worth at Wycombe, as did Martin O'Neil. If we are looking to establish an identity or some sort of "Norwich way", then I'd much prefer that the "Norwich way" when it comes to managers is that we recruit from League One or League Two, and have a club policy that we never give a former player their first managers job ever again. Or any man his first job. Surely we are far enough up the food chain to poach managers? We did it as a League One club from a divisional rival! 

It should be written into our constitution. 

Bryan Gunn

Peter Grant

Gary Megson

John Deeham

Neil Adams

We gave first management jobs to all five of those men, all former players, all failed. Not one of them had a scrap of management experience before taking the Norwich job. Delia & Co appointed three of them, have they not learnt anything from past mistakes? And indeed, past successes? The two successful managerial appointments of their 19 year reign (Worthington - 5 years, Lambert - 3 years) have both been relatively young managers who had first gone out and managed in the lower leagues.

I don't disagree with everything your saying, but there are some nuances that I dont think are as clear cut as you suggest.

Gunn was never a manager, he wasn't even a coach and not really deserving on that list, it's a ridiculous blip out of context with a qualified internal appointment. Walker and Worthington as you say both failed, how much different is it really to give someone with no experience or someone whose only experience is lower level failure there first job? Adams has failed in a percentage of supporters and the boards eyes, on paper his record is acceptable and our league position is hardly an abject failure, he's been pushed based on perception not reality.

And my issue with your main point is a hungry manager does not finish his success at Norwich City, which means you must find the next hungry one and the next, and as soon as you get that wrong you're back to square one.

 

[Canaryboy]

This has now been thrown out of the window and it's back to the drawing board with some as of yet unidentified guy with his own ideas about how it should be done. What an absolute joke.

EDIT: Scrap that. I argued that we don't know he was pushed, but then saw the words "agreed to resign" in the club statement. 

 

[Canaryboy]

and our league position is hardly an abject failure, he's been pushed based on perception not reality.

Not "abject failure", no, that would describe Peter Grant's tenure. But underachieving or failing to meet performance targets would certainly be applicable. Besides, none of the other names on that list had a squad as strong as the one that Adams had at his disposal. Adams has not got this group of players playing anywhere near to their full potential on a consistent basis. Some are blaming the players for simply not performing, some blame Adams for failing to motivate the players and getting the tactics wrong. Perhaps the truth probably lies somewhere in between, and that is probably usually the case. 

 

[Canaryboy]

Just seen these words in the club statement: "Agreed to resign", does imply that the board asked him to step down and made him the job offer (and probable gardening leave) as the sweetener. 

I'd be very surprised if it wasn't Phelan being appointed this week. Although part of me wonders whether it is..... Warnock 

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Maybe agreed to resign simply means the 'football board' they were all so proud of coming up with in the summer came to a group decision