Worth Pondering

[Canaryboy]

I have to say it almost makes me laugh how childish some of our supporters are  the speed in which some fan's opinions have changed is just astonishing. 

I think that describes fans of most teams to be honest, football fans are famously fickle, I don't think our fans are any more fickle than pretty much every other team at this level. 

In terms of this season it may be about expectations, and perhaps it isn't the fans who are to blame for them having been set so high? 

Stuart Webber has said numerous times that they are aiming for promotion this season, repeated it the other day. Whilst of course you don't want to come across like you lack ambition, some of us had more realistic expectations. It did momentarily look like we might have an outside chance of the play-offs, but realistically we aren't a top 6 side and we'd eb punching above our weight to get there.

So perhaps the club has set the bar high, and are now being judged by some on their inability to clear it? 

In the summer I said something along the lines of "We're either going to finish 1st or 24th", and I'm going to be completely wrong in terms of that prediction.... but the mean is 12th, and so it wouldn't surprise or necessarily alarm me if that is where we finished.  

Webber has got a massive challenge to steer us through the summer and leave us with a competitive side.

Hoolahan will be off, Klose will be sold, we'll end up with one out of Maddison and Pritchard here next season, Oliviera will probably be sold and replaced with a less able player but one who can complete a 46 game season without numerous injuries and suspensions.... 3 or 4 kids will come into the side (Godfrey, Lewis) and we'll have to hope they swim rather than sink. 

I'm more than happy to subscribe to reality and face up to the situation we are in, the problem is that the realistics get shot down by the denialists. Somebody on the Pink'un said that they don't believe the pot is empty, that we've got enough to sign a striker in January, and that we don't need to sell in January to do that.... and that we only need to sell Klose in the summer to fix our financial situation next season. That poster is respected on there and wasn't shot down at all. That's dream world stuff. 

I suspect we'll be selling somebody in January, and that any striker is going to be bargain bin. Probably sell Klose for about £3m and replace with Raggatt, Farke may get £750k of that to find some bang average striker from Bundesliga 3 if we can't recall Carlton Morris. 

Wouldn't be surprised if its Maddison who is sold to be honest if we get the right offer, if that one were to happen then perhap's we'd see a couple of new faces which will make up part of our side for next season. 

That's the real world unfortunately. Naismith and Jarvis will be a huge drag on our finances, their likely combined wages will be enough to pay 6 or 7 players on the type of money that Trybull, Watkins and Zimmerman will be on.

I subscribe to realism. We didn't lose 2-0 to Wolves because there is a problem with Farke, we lost to them because they've had the money to assemble a team which is far more talented than ours. 

 

[Fenway Frank]

Not sure I would describe Trybull or Zimmermann as bang average, if we could find a striker of similar ability I would be quite happy

 

[Canaryboy]

They are both successful examples of cheap signings, and don't get me wrong... I think its precisely the way that Norwich City should do business. Worthington did it with Leon McKenzie, Adam Drury and numerous others, built a side on a pittance. 

Dave Stringer did it (to build the side which Mike Walker then got all the glory for). Lambert did it. 

But you get both hits and misses when doing business that way, and strikers cost a hell of a lot more money than centre backs and defensive midfielders at all levels of football. They call it the 'strikers premium' and its also the reason you get lumbered with players like Lafferty and Becchio after you've given into their agents demands for silly money off of the back of a good season. 

Any striker who has recently had a good season in the Championship will be more than we can afford. Loan market may be an option, but do we need any more decent players to miss next season? May get Reed back, but can't see us getting Gunn back next season.

Franke and Vrancic are not pulling up any trees and they've both got 2.5 years left on their deals here, Trybull has got 7 months. 

Stiepermann is a decent player, but a good example of the 'placebo effect' with him because he came in and had a couple of good games after Husband had a nightmare month. 

Its the attacking players that will prove the biggest problem. If Vrancic is the best Farke could sign on the cheap for the top 3rd of the pitch, then does anybody have any confidence that he could sign striker for £1m that could actually score goals at this level? Missed a real trick with Waghorn who had played 166 games in this league before joining Rangers. 

Also, its probably harsh for people to use Jarvis and Naismith as examples of expensive deadwood without also mentioning McGovern. He turned down a Premier League side to come here, off the back of a good Euro 2016, he's probably on big wonga too and being stuck with him is probably the reason we didn't hang on to Rudd or offer Ruddy a new deal with a Championship wage.

I still think swapping Rudd with McGovern might be a good idea, if Alex Neil holds on to his job long enough to do that. Could be a smart bit of business, Rudd hasn't played for Preston and McGovern isn't wanted here.... I know which one I'd rather give a few games to in an emergency. 

 

[GJP]

The reality is that, despite the good run, we've won like 2 home league games and the last of those was 2 months ago. You don't look at that record at another club and think "Yup, they'll be in the mix".

And it's probably unlikely Maddison will score enough crackers to mask the lack of goals in the team.

If they don't beef us up in the final third in January it's hard to see us as any more than midtable.