Norwich City and The Mass Exodus

[Dave]

Now, whilst they were fantastic last night against Chelsea, they have lost several experienced Championship players this window already.

Club Captain Russell Martin has joined Rangers, key playmaker Alex Pritchard has joined Huddersfield, and they've let Cameron Jerome join a league rival in Derby County.

On top of this, Steven Naismith has suggested he's keeping his options open.

I know Daniel Farke is a believer in youth, and there Academy has been relatively successul over the years. Surely however the sale of several experienced players is a bit far fetched? It's not like they've failed to get promoted for multiple years. Is something else going on that we don't know about?

[Stan]

We're also in for James Maddison, as well as a few other Premier League clubs. 

I wonder if they have to balance the books somewhat. 

[Smiley Culture]

It does suggest that they are reducing their wage structure and putting an emphasis on younger players, who’ll inevitably be on less money than some of the experienced players they’ve had at the club in the past few years. 

Younger players are often risk free, as most will have either come through the Academy set-up or be signed for a relatively cheap fee from a lower league club or from a smaller league abroad. If they work, it’s a great bonus and possess great re-sale value but if they’re a ‘failure’ then they’ve cost very little and the club can get rid of the player without counting the cost (a la Jack Roswell/Sunderland). 

It’s an interesting approach but how likely is it to get them promoted? 

[Honey Honey]

Ed Balls what are you up to

[Danny]

Depends doesn't it? You don't need to spend all the money in the world to compete in this division, you just need to scout well and spend wisely. But I think this will be more about cutting back funds.

[Dave]

Naismith has signed for Hearts on loan.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

We've signed Wildschut on loan as well for the rest of the season.

[Smiley Culture]

Norwich have signed Onel Hernandez from Eintracht Braunschweig and Daniel Srebny from Paderborn. 

[Marc]

We need to balance the books. Massive wage bill, a string of terrible buys over the last 2 seasons and we don't have a super rich owner to fall back on. Last season we had the second highest championship wage bill ever after QPR (Villa and Newcastle are yet to release their accounts for last year, both of theirs for last season will be higher). 

Apart from Pritchard all of the other players we've got rid of in January are fringe players at best and all apart from Wildschut are over 30. We had some good times with Jerome, but he's past it now, Russell Martin likewise. Naismith is just fucking AIDS and must be on huge money. Wildschut is a strange player, Farke clearly doesn't like him. He's big, powerful and can beat players but has zero end product. I haven't seen many players like him in pro football (probably for a fucking reason). Even Pritchard has flattered to deceive, clearly very talented, but i'm surprised Huddersfield paid 12m for him. Maddison is younger and better and plays in the same position.

We've also signed Leitner on loan. He was a bit of an FM gem a while back, i believe. Played a lot of Bundesliga and CL games for Dortmund, was on the bench in the CL final apparently. I get the impression he went off the rails a bit and started believing his own hype and hasn't lived up to expectations. Fuck knows who the other two players from Germany are, never heard of either.

We signed Marcus Edwards on loan too. Spurs fans rave about him, but there has always been question marks over his attitude, I believe. Farke has already hinted that he needs to work harder in training and 'isn't ready' to be in the first team squad yet.

 

Oh we also paid that useless cunt Jez Moxey's wages for 6 months then got rid of him. That cost us his wages plus a £700k payout.

 

Patience is key with the 'new regime'. We've got to give Farke till this time next year, as long as there's no danger of going down.

[Marc]

On 1/18/2018 at 19:31, Cannabis said:

Did he lose his place in the first team? 

Hardly played all season, injured or not picked. Wank when he did play last season and the season before.

We've all still got MATT FUCKING JARVIS. Apparently ready to return to training too. I checked his contract length and it runs out summer of 2019, god help us. We'll never get rid of him

[Stan]

welcome to the forum @Marc  

[Marc]

5 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

Great first post mate (welcome to the forum !). I suppose investing poorly and not bouncing back to the Premier League has hurt you with the big wage bill that you've mentioned. I suppose that trimming the fat and restructuring is what's needed to ensure that you don't go the same way as Hull/Blackburn/Birmingham who have all been relegated from the top flight and suffered. 

What happened with Steven Naismith too? I think I mentioned it in the thread but he was always great for us, gave 110% but seems to have been shipped out as part of this exodus?

Edit: Just seen you've replied to me . Shame to hear that he was pretty wank for you lot. Matt Jarvis is a shocker too, other than an overrated left foot he's not really all that. 

5 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

 

When Naismith was rumoured to join there was rumours that he didn't want to move 'down south'. I don't think he's ever wanted to be here. He's always put the effort in, he's just been shit.

Jarvis is just always injured, probably played about 10 games in 2 and a half seasons.

[Dave]

I completely forgot about Matt Jarvis playing for Norwich. He was great for Wolves. He was never the quickest from memory but relied on technical ability. So if he's still got that hopefully he can make up for some lost time.

The best bit of business Norwich could do now is keeping Maddison. His value is just going to continually soar every window at this rate. Quite glad he chose Norwich over us and has been allowed to flourish.