The Big Feller

Who stays and who goes as the Canaries rebuild?

2007-03-08T05:51:00.000Z

It is a rare day indeed when this intrepid pundit proves correct in his analysis of the immediate future at Norwich City: but sure enough, the last-minute victory at Kenilworth Road did indeed prove a critical turning point. Last Saturday, the Canaries cruised to an unexpectedly easy 3-1 victory over admittedly shocking opponents at Oakwell; and with the Championship's bottom six clubs plainly in a league of their own in terms of incompetence, as good as assured their status for next season in English football's second flight. Admittedly, Derby County's 2-1 victory on Tuesday night proved something of a reality check: but that said, Norwich performed well against the league leaders, and that they failed to emerge with something to show for their efforts was arguably as much due to the vicissitudes of referee Lee Probert as anything else. There remain signs of a genuine team ethic, balance and shape emerging under Peter Grant's watch: and for most City supporters, it is still very much a case of the glass being half full.

Taking the Canaries' survival as read, therefore, today's piece will focus on the options available to the pugnacious young manager as he rebuilds and strengthens his squad over the summer. He can already be said to be somewhat in credit having released the perenially disappointing Carl Robinson during the transfer window, and announced his intention to do the same with Matthieu Louis-Jean, whose chances of establishing himself at the club have been ruined by a succession of injuries, and - however unlucky - rendered him a luxury City can ill afford, as soon as the season ends.

Moreover, although Chris Brown still has it all to prove following his arrival from Wearside, Simon Lappin can certainly be considered a success thus far, David Marshall made a huge difference between the posts before sustaining a desperately unfortunate injury at Chelsea, and there is every reason to hope both Mark Fotheringham and Luke Chadwick can go on to prosper in the yellow-and-green shirt too. At the very least, Grant's acquisitions in his short time at the helm have begun to address a midfield which went appallingly neglected during Nigel Worthington's final year in charge: even, when everyone is fit, to start creating the competition for places so vital to any club's prospects of promotion, and so utterly lacking in the final dog days of his predecessor.

What the manager needs above all during the summer is a quality goalkeeper (ideally Marshall, but it seems highly unlikely Gordon Strachan will be persuaded to part with his services on a permanent basis), centre back, perhaps a left back, certainly a central midfielder, and - depending on the future of Robert Earnshaw - maybe a striker too: no mean task in any circumstances, but especially those whereby the club will see its revenue fall by £7m following the end of its Premiership parachute payments. Doubtless, Grant knew only too well how careful his husbandry would need to be when he took the job: the coming summer will test it to its very limits.

Out, surely, will go Youssef Safri, a marvellous player at his best, but whose consistent application seems questionable at times, and who still fails to impose himself on matches as someone of his class surely should; and following him through the exit door will be Jurgen Colin, whose performances have actually been much improved during this campaign, but who fails to offer the slightest attacking threat, and Grant has jettisoned in favour of the far more adventurous Andy Hughes ever since the depressing first hour against Blackpool.

There must also be a significant question mark hanging over the future of captain Adam Drury. The man once hailed by his former manager Barry Fry as "the best defender outside the Premiership" was, together with Gary Holt, an integral part in Norwich's transformation into promotion contenders in 2001/2: the side suffered whenever he was absent, and it continually appeared that if Drury played well, so did City. But much like the club, he seemed to peak during the title-winning campaign two seasons later: this writer expected him to surprise many observers while playing in the Premiership, but he struggled for confidence at times, and has yet to regain his dominant former self since. He still rarely lets the side down, still provides balance on the left, and remains a solid Championship full back: but may feel that it's time for a change in order to reinvigorate his somewhat stagnating career.

If Drury does leave, Grant may choose to replace him with Lappin: equally though, with Hughes on the right, this would surely be too offensive a strategy to attempt. So a more defensive-minded replacement is likely - though it should be stressed that the skipper's departure is by no means certain in any case. Gary Doherty's exit does seem highly probable, though: in so many ways, the club's decline can be traced back to the foolhardy release of Malky Mackay early in 2004/5, and Doherty has rarely filled supporters with much confidence as the inspirational Scot's long-term replacement. True, he was named Player of the Year last season: but this was as much a comment on the poverty of Norwich's appalling campaign as anything else, and sadly, he has demonstrably regressed this year. The replacement of Doherty with someone truly worthy of partnering Jason Shackell in the heart of defence is an absolute necessity.

Moving into the middle, with Chadwick likely to be duelling with Lee Croft for a berth out wide, and Lappin a possible alternative on the left for when Darren Huckerby is played in a more central attacking role, the key question is what Grant does about Dickson Etuhu. Signed as Damien Francis' replacement, Etuhu is someone with the capacity to truly impose himself on games: as he has done very occasionally, notably at home to Preston and more recently at Stamford Bridge. But far, far too often, he seems uninterested, and is capable of the most appallingly casual play: giving the ball away and failing to close down his opposite number continually against Blackpool, at Luton and on Tuesday night too. All too frequently, he is not so much an asset as a liability, sometimes seems unhappy at the club, and it was notable how much better Norwich looked when Fotheringham was brought on at Kenilworth Road, and especially when starting at Barnsley at the weekend.

But his manager has continually persevered with Etuhu because, as the club's only genuine box-to-box midfielder, he is close to indispensable: any team looking to succeed in modern-day football need a player of his ilk in order to do so. It is perfectly possible that Grant will look to retain him, and coax his more frustrating, indulgent displays out of him: perhaps more likely, though, is that either a like-for-like replacement will be brought in, or just possibly, a holding player recruited with the intention of giving Fotheringham the chance to make a central midfield slot his own.

All of which leaves the attack: and one, perhaps two, deeply unpopular decisions may be on the cards. Dion Dublin, whose arrival in September was bemoaned by so many as the ultimate sign of the club's chronic lack of ambition and direction, has been such a revelation that his award as Player of the Year seems now a virtual inevitability. Whether leading the line, or more often marshalling his troops from the back, Dublin's immense leadership and magnificently positive attitude have seen the club through some highly treacherous times: nobody, indeed, is more deserving of a new contract than he. But there must be a very serious question whether a club about to enter a vastly changed financial climate can afford to keep a 37-year-old on its books, however talismanic, however much he might still be capable of: at some stage, a decline in his form and/or fitness must surely set in. To gamble on him lasting another season at the top (or at least, near the top) may well prove a risk the Canary board are unwilling to take.

And then, finally, there is the question of Earnshaw. How, many will ask, could Grant even contemplate selling someone who would surely have gone on to be the division's leading marksman had injury not cut him down so cruelly in early January? But it may well not be a coincidence that, paradoxically, the fluency of Norwich's displays has improved considerably in his absence: the little Welshman is a fantastic finisher, but rarely adds much to any team's overall play. And moreover, his manager will be faced with the dilemma which confronts so many of his colleagues every season: keep hold of your most valuable player, or cash in on him in order to strengthen across the board? Earnshaw's injury may well mean he is retained until January, as it seems highly unlikely the board will see its valuation for his services met: equally though, it is very possible he will be sold in the summer regardless. Such a move will almost certainly provoke fury amongst the supporters - but it may well prove necessary if the club is to have a squad which can genuinely challenge next time around.

On the bright side, the astonishing emergence of Chris Martin - the hottest young prospect to be unearthed via the Carrow Road youth system since Craig Bellamy, perhaps even Chris Sutton - already means the Canaries are not as short up front as had been assumed. Many will want to see an Earnshaw/Martin combination in action next season; but economic reality may mean Huckerby, or perhaps someone entirely new, end up partnering the brilliant young tyro.

Nobody should underestimate the difficulty of the decisions facing Grant: how he goes about building a genuinely robust squad, while keeping the supporters onside and operating within extremely tight constraints will be highly instructive. But the reality is that in the absence of a benefactor such as Milan Mandaric, the Premiership money enjoyed this season by clubs such as Birmingham or West Bromwich, or five individuals prepared to put £5m each into the club as at Derby, Norwich are one of a clutch of clubs believing they should be in strong contention for a return to the top flight, but forced to perform an extremely delicate balancing act in order to have even a chance of achieving this. Dublin, perhaps even Earnshaw, may well prove victims of such a reality.

Turning point

2007-02-28T18:46:00.000Z

For around twenty minutes during the second half at Kenilworth Road last night, the unthinkable seemed to be becoming a reality. Following yet another awful blunder by goalkeeper Paul Gallacher, who appeared for all the world to be metamorphosing into the role of devil's familiar played by the unforgettable (much as we would all wish to forget him) Simon Tracey as the Canaries crashed out of the Premiership twelve years ago, Norwich City's travelling support - as raucous as ever during the first half - fell strangely silent; and the players visibly wilted. Everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing: with Gallacher doing his worst, Dickson Etuhu as anonymous as ever, City continuing to concede goal after ridiculous goal, and both Robert Earnshaw and David Marshall ruled out for the rest of the season, just how were Norwich going to accrue the points needed to survive? Make no mistake: League One football loomed before our very eyes.

But then, out of nothing, we were reminded that it isn't only the Canaries who seemingly cannot defend for toffee. Jason Shackell, whose continual improvement and development into a genuinely solid centre back tends to go unremarked upon, equalised out of nothing; and as the game drew towards its frantic conclusion, Luton just managed to scramble Gary Doherty's header off (or, it appeared to some, away from behind) the line. Finally, deep into injury time, Lee Croft was brought down on the edge of the area after another of his trademark surging runs. Free kick, in a ideal position.

Many Norwich fans said afterwards that they'd had a similar feeling prior to the kick being taken as the whole country did before David Beckham's famous strike against Greece in 2001: that it was just meant to be. But not this supporter: indeed, in my eternal pessimism, I simply turned to the friend I went to the game with and uttered a succint "Row Z!" Youssef Safri, surely, would waste the chance just as he had done with a similar opportunity at Stamford Bridge: and sure enough, up he stepped... But this time, it was as a decoy - and following Simon Lappin's perfect connection, the ball arced up, over, and beyond Luton 'keeper Beresford's despairing dive.

Amid the pandemonium which erupted on the terraces, yours truly the eternal misery was still yelling at the players to focus and see out the final seconds: and of course, Norwich still gave us all another heart attack by gifting their opponents a free header, from which Gallacher's goal was lucky to escape. But then, at length, it was over: and although your correspondent is aware of the derision he will almost certainly attract after uttering such a hostage to fortune, and that he is about to break every unwritten footballing rule in the book, I would humbly suggest it was not merely the game itself which had ended in success. In a nutshell, teams just don't win games like this only to be relegated anyway: indeed, yesterday's was the sort of match which Norwich have thrown away on all too many occasions down the years. But not this time: this time, it was the Canary players celebrating; this time, it was their opponents and relegation rivals who were left devastated. And this all means only one thing: although City need two more victories to be sure, this writer can say with absolute confidence that Norwich won't be going down.

Not, of course, that this will be any cause for celebration: quite the reverse. That the club finds itself in this position in the first place remains a cause for deep alarm and profound embarrassment: and that Luton, with their ramshackle, tight little ground and minimal resources started last night's match just one position below opponents who were in the Premiership only two seasons ago means that the joke is very much on us. But just as during City's interminable years of toil during the late 1990s and around the turn of the century, it is simply bewildering how bad a team has to be in order to drop from English football's second flight: and invariably, those who do fall are either clubs punching considerably above their weight such as Southend United, or indeed last night's opponents; or operating amid astonishing degrees of off-field chaos (step forward and take a bow, Leeds United and Queens Park Rangers).

Although something behind the scenes is clearly amiss for things to have gone so utterly wrong over the past two years, the Canaries still don't suffer from anything like this extent of boardroom incompetence; and however alarming the team's recent slide has been, both Luton (fourteen points from the last 66 available), and Burnley (nine from the last 54) are in far greater freefall. As, indeed, are our good friends from south of the border - and although Ipswich should still ultimately be alright, suddenly it is they who are looking anxiously over their shoulders, and they who are worrying about their bitter rivals pushing them closer towards calamity when the two clubs meet at Carrow Road on 22 April.

Norwich's aim must now be to pick up those aforementioned two victories and reach safety as soon as possible. That way, Peter Grant will have the chance to experiment with the team - perhaps blooding the promising young Joe Lewis between the posts, not to mention giving the wonderfully impressive Chris Martin a deserved extended run in the side - with a view to hitting the ground running with a revamped squad in August. Goodness knows, there is an enormous amount of work ahead: last night, indeed, was very nearly an action replay of the 3-3 draw at Loftus Road which immediately preceded Grant's arrival in the Canary hotseat. Still, there is the same mixture of slapdash ineptitude and individual inspiration: still, the same question one minute of what a team with obvious talent is doing residing in the Championship's nether regions, only for it to be answered in no uncertain terms in the next.

Quite how Grant wrestles with Norwich City's eternal inability to defend properly, and develops a real team, rather than a collection of often misfiring individuals, remains to be seen; not least given he clearly won't have the funds available which his predecessor enjoyed six years ago. But he does, on last night's evidence, at least have a side prepared to battle, scrap, and rescue their poor teammate from goodness knows how many sleepless nights after his mistake put them in trouble in the first place: and if the manager can add a real sense of collective purpose and honesty to the abilities his side already has, the future may yet be bright. As it is, the supporters can simply enjoy this victory, and look forward with optimism to the trip to Oakwell on Saturday: a game that once appeared likely to be fraught, but should now represent another step towards survival. Because, to repeat one final time: survive, we will.

Two steps forward, one step back

2007-02-22T04:42:00.000Z

In spite of the optimism expressed on these pages last week, it was always asking an incredible amount of a side placed eighteenth in the Championship to travel to the home of the Champions on Saturday and get a result. But what happened at Stamford Bridge wasn't really about the outcome of the match at all: it was about 6300 supporters, who have endured so much dross over the last season and a half, having the chance to rediscover and show to all quarters their tremendous sense of pride in their club.

And that, most certainly, was achieved: the players did all that could have been asked of them and more, to the point where Norwich City were the better side for much of the first half, could and really should have taken the lead, and kept hustling and harrying their famous opponents even as Chelsea gradually pulled away from them. The eventual scoreline of 4-0 was, as Jose Mourinho himself admitted, desperately harsh: a consequence of the Canaries continuing to attack and go for it in the closing stages of the contest, rather than sit back and treat a two-goal defeat as a moral victory. Tired minds, as Peter Grant rightly acknowledged, contributed to the pair of injury-time goals which gave the score a highly deceptive gloss: but the rousing reception the team received as the final whistle was blown was entirely merited. It was, in many ways, a thoroughly enjoyable and encouraging day.

But on Tuesday night, it was back to reality, as Norwich fell to an all-too-predictable 2-1 reverse at Deepdale, so sinking back towards trouble. With Darren Huckerby and Dickson Etuhu suspended, Youssef Safri crying off, and David Marshall out for at least six weeks after his desperately unlucky injury on the disgrace of a pitch at Stamford Bridge, most supporters could only really envisage defeat against Preston's promotion hopefuls; and that Dion Dublin, the club's talisman, hobbled off early on only made the outcome all the more likely.

That said, Grant too greatly contributed to the defeat: his bizarre decision to start Gary Doherty in midfield instead of Andy Hughes, retained at right back ahead of Jurgen Colin, was curious enough; but his inexplicable switch of the promising Chris Martin out wide following Dublin's injury, and introduction of the pathetic Peter Thorne, rather than the obvious move of bringing Colin on, moving Hughes into the middle, so allowing Simon Lappin to continue his encouraging start to his time at the club from the left wing, was arguably the decisive moment of the match. Preston scored twice; and by the time Grant admitted his mistake, and took the laughable Thorne back off again, the damage had already been done.

Many supporters have chosen to focus on the positives engendered by City's rousing second half fightback, which could easily have mustered a point; but it is hardly a case of 20-20 hindsight to question why the manager, who has a difficult enough job in the first place given the desperately thin squad he has to work with, made things even harder for himself by playing people out of position. Understandably, following Hughes' remarkable, man-of-the-match display (from a Canary point of view) on Saturday, Grant clearly wanted to give him a chance to make the right back berth his own; but Colin has been one of Norwich's better performers this season, was very unfortunate to be omitted from the line-up against Chelsea, and his continued absence throughout a game crying out for the balance he could have provided (and especially the steel Hughes could have brought to the midfield) can only suggest something must have gone on behind the scenes. Oddly, no local reporter appears to have questioned the manager on what, exactly, Colin is supposed to have done wrong - but if he is being punished for something, it backfired completely during the first half in Lancashire.

In mitigation, it must be remembered that Grant himself is on a steep learning curve. In his short time at the helm, he has already demonstrated qualities of honesty and occasional daring: and this observer's sense is that he has a deep, instinctive understanding regarding the tradition and uniqueness of the club. Moreover, it is hardly his fault that, for example, the absence of decent cover for Robert Earnshaw has necessitated him playing Huckerby in a central attacking position, where he is invariably shackled, rather than out wide or in a roaming role between midfield and attack, which would offer far more space, not to mention angles from which he could cut in, run at defenders and do what he does best; and that, with only one quality central defender (namely, Jason Shackell) on the club's books, he has been forced to deploy Dublin at the back, rather than up front, which the ageless wonder would surely prefer.

But the mistakes made on Tuesday night were glaringly obvious, and entirely avoidable: indeed, one would hope that Grant's new assistant, Jim Duffy, would have had the gumption to point them out before they were made (though a glance at Duffy's miserable record in management perhaps suggests otherwise). Moreover, Grant's risible post-match comments in which he declared that his team had 'battered' Preston didn't just miss the point, and suggest he was trying to deflect attention away from a defeat which had largely been his responsibility: they harked back to an ignominious former City manager, whose continual attempts to insult the intelligence of the supporters attracted scorn from all quarters (except, of course, from those who had foolishly given him the job in the first place). One hopes and trusts that parallels between the present incumbent and the appalling Bryan Hamilton cannot be made at any future point, however well or badly things may ultimately turn out.

All of which leaves Norwich once again anxiously peering over their shoulders, and facing a hugely important trio of matches immediately ahead. Given all Coventry City's recent woes, their visit to Carrow Road this Saturday had seemed likely to represent a home banker: but all that changed when Iain Dowie, who for all his troubled experiences at Charlton, remains one of the country's finest young managers, was appointed as Micky Adams' successor. Now, the match seems balanced on a knife-edge, and this writer can only see a point being garnered: not least because Andy Marshall, Coventry's goalkeeper, and who is as much a hate figure for Canaries' supporters as Paul Ince is to West Ham fans or Sol Campbell is to Tottenham followers, has held an apparent Indian sign over Norwich ever since his acrimonious departure south of the border, to say nothing of his subsequent bad mouthing in the Suffolk press of the club which had given him his chance in professional football, and whose fans had just voted him their Player of the Year, in Summer 2001.

And if victory against the Sky Blues, and long overdue moral justice against Marshall, is not forthcoming, that will only increase the pressure for the crunch, dangerous trips to Kenilworth Road and Oakwell over the following week. Anything less than five points out of the next nine will leave Norwich mired deep in trouble; and while this correspondent still cannot foresee them finishing any lower than eighteenth, and a finishing total of anything less than 52 points, it is up to Grant's men to turn the promise exhibited at times over recent weeks into tangible results. City battled gamely and hauled themselves over the line against Blackpool, were immensely unfortunate against Wolves, came back deservedly against Leeds, maintained their spirit in a vastly improved second half at Preston, and could hold their heads up high after their display at Stamford Bridge: but the perception of things gradually starting to improve now must be vindicated by the accumulation of points.

In spite of the club's continued misfortune with injuries, and especially the many errors made by the board before the manager's arrival, the fact remains that, at a time when the Canaries are extraordinarily continuing to attract the second-highest crowds in the division, they are nonetheless still on course for their lowest finish in 47 years: a state of affairs both deeply embarrassing and totally unacceptable. The next few fixtures offer Grant's team the opportunity to ease away from such ignominy, and build on the sense of a brighter future ahead which was so tangible at Chelsea last weekend: seize it, they must.

The right to dream

2007-02-15T00:40:00.000Z

So in the end, after 210 minutes of an FA Cup tie in which they'd been by turns gritty, vulnerable, slipshod, resilient and occasionally inspired, Norwich City did manage to scramble past a gallant Blackpool and on to a date at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. In many ways, indeed, the Canaries' 3-2 extra time victory encapsulated their whole season to date: flirting with disaster, and causing the pulses of their supporters to quicken to an at times feverish rate, but ultimately having just enough class and desire to get the job done.

Just as Norwich appear to have that bit too much quality to avoid becoming embroiled in a relegation battle so many had feared only a couple of weeks back, so they ultimately had too much for their League One opponents: indeed, for all the utter frustration of the first hour or so of Tuesday night's replay, and for all that the Tangerines were briefly allowed back into the tie during the additional half hour, there were - albeit fitfully - once again signs of the kind of team Peter Grant is trying to build, and the football it may be capable of producing. It would have been all too easy for a depleted Canary side short of both confidence and spirit to have subsided at Bloomfield Road in the first match almost three weeks ago; and indeed, to have gone on to lose to Leeds, so becoming ever more stranded in the relegation quicksand.

Instead, while this observer is aware such words may be tempting fate, the battling draw secured in Lancashire followed by vastly improved performances against Wolves and Leeds really does suggest this season, perhaps even the club's miserable fortunes over the past eighteen months, have finally turned, with the remainder of the campaign offering the chance for Grant to really stamp his authority on the club, continue to shake up the team, and provide encouragement of the bright future which may yet lie ahead. And moreover, with Blackpool having been disposed of, the immediate future offers genuine excitement, and what is arguably the club's biggest match since that day of despair at Craven Cottage two seasons ago. For only the second time in twelve years, City are involved in the FA Cup fifth round; and there, fiendishly unlikely though it undoubtedly is, they have the opportunity to do something truly remarkable and make a little bit of history.

When either Blackpool or Norwich were initially drawn to play Chelsea away two-and-a-half weeks ago, it's fair to say most Canary supporters found the prospect distinctly underwhelming. At that stage, of course, the team was struggling desperately, and there was no guarantee at all that the replay against the Seasiders wouldn't be an occasion for further misery; but in any case, given Jose Mourinho's men sauntered to a 4-0 victory over a pathetically timid Norwich when the two sides met in the Premiership in December 2004, what chance the Canaries given they'd fallen a further twenty places or so in English football's pecking order since? Appallingly, some fans even voiced a preference for Blackpool to go through, in order to avoid the prospect of total humiliation being reported on by the national press and laughed at by the Match of the Day audience.

But in sport, sometimes the most ideal environment for success comes when a team or individual has literally no chance on paper, and absolutely nothing to lose. Norwich, indeed, are now the lowest-ranked team left in this season's competition, and up against the second-strongest one: what hope can there possibly be? But the thing about the FA Cup is, however much it is dominated nowadays by the same four clubs which exhibit a complete strangehold over the Premiership, and even allowing for the fact that, in spite of the three marvellous fourth round replays which have showcased the English game over the past two evenings, there were ultimately no upsets whatever in the last 32 of this year's tournament, it does still offer supporters of all clubs the right to dream.

Newcastle fans, for example, continue to hold the competition in considerably higher esteem than they do the league; Tottenham supporters do likewise. And for Norwich fans, whose team has three times reached the Cup's penultimate stage, and three times fallen at that heartbreaking hurdle, the dream endures as powerfully as ever. Followers of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal, who have come to expect regular success in an increasingly predictable event, even when often treating it as a poor third to the Premiership and Champions League in terms of importance, will never be able to comprehend what it can mean to other clubs: for the Canaries to reach the final just once would be something to cherish for a lifetime, and pass on down to future generations of supporters.

The writer knows this, because of the way the extraordinary 1959 Cup run by Archie Macaulay's side - then of the old Third Division - has passed into Canary, indeed Norfolk legend, and continues to be talked about to this day by those lucky enough to have experienced it. One-off shocks occasionally happen in football, but those responsible for producing them invariably come down to earth with a resounding bump in the next round. But not the 1959 Canaries, who produced not one, not two, but four shocks, including among their victims both Manchester United and Tottenham en route to a desperately unlucky semi-final replay defeat by Luton. No side from the third tier has ever gone further, and no side has ever bettered City's number of higher-division victims either.

One other season in Norwich's FA Cup history stands out too. Forty years ago, on 18 February 1967, a Canaries team nineteenth in the old Second Division, and with very real fears of the drop, travelled to face Matt Busby's Manchester United at Old Trafford. United were then second in the top flight, and would go on not only to win the championship that season, but become the first English club to plunder the European Cup the following year: yet astonishingly, Norwich won 2-1. Indeed, perhaps that moment of triumph provided the impetus for City to believe they themselves really ought to be dining at English football's top table: something which was accomplished at last five years later.

Now, on 17 February 2007, a Canaries team eighteenth in what used to be known as the Second Division, and still harbouring some concerns about relegation, will be facing a Chelsea side currently placed second in the top flight: parallels which would surely strike any observer as eerie, to say the least. The Blues might well go on to secure the title, and conquer Europe too; but surely it won't be after the modern-day shock to end all shocks, will it?

Rest assured that this fan hasn't been taking something he shouldn't: football is vastly different nowadays compared with four decades ago, and upsets of this scale almost never happen - indeed, never mind losing to lower-division opponents, the last time a member of the modern-day Big Four was knocked out at home by opponents who didn't happen to be part of this elite group was a full four years ago (Crystal Palace's 2-0 success against Gerard Houllier's desperate Liverpool). And even if many fans are now rather more hopeful than when Chelsea initially emerged from the hat, a realistic prediction for Saturday is still something like 3-1 to the Blues, rather than the four or five-goal drubbing which appeared inevitable before Norwich's recent upsurge in fortunes.

But this is the FA Cup: there is the right to dream. And if Chelsea's supporters turn up expecting a stroll in the park, if the Champions are complacent and continue to function more as a collection of individuals than a real team, if Darren Huckerby's recent hot streak continues, if Dion Dublin continues to turn back time on his run to a surefire triumph as Norwich's Player of the Year, if David Marshall is as inspired as he famously was when helping Celtic eliminate a star-studded Barcelona from the UEFA Cup in 2004, if Grant instructs his players not to sit deep and invite pressure but adopt the same commitment to countering quickly and with numbers which served Mike Walker's men so well in Munich fourteen years ago, and if the visitors have all the luck going... well, who knows?

Of course, an upset is unlikely - it's very unlikely - but Dublin certainly, and Huckerby possibly, will never have a similarly big stage on which to shine in the future. And moreover, there has been the sense throughout the encounters with Tamworth and Blackpool that a Norwich team which has underperformed chronically in the league has saved something extra for this season's FA Cup: with the pressure off, now is their chance to be positive, enjoy themselves, and put the club back in the headlines for all the right reasons. Whatever happens, 6,000 Canary fans will be there to cheer their favourites on, not in expectation, but the enduring hope that something incredible could yet transpire, and this excited supporter will be among them. All the logic going suggests a highly chastening afternoon awaits - but this is football, this is the FA Cup: and anything can happen.

Money talks: so how do Norwich make themselves heard?

2007-02-08T02:08:00.000Z

Sometime during the 48 hours leading up to last Saturday's must-win affair against Leeds United, something about Norwich City seemed to change. For the best part of the previous eighteen months, its supporters had been at loggerheads with the club, and even each other: with the togetherness and upward mobility which characterised the Canaries earlier in the decade collapsing amid a torrent of recrimination, in-fighting and bitter frustration at the decline from the Premiership to an apparent battle to avoid relegation to League One in less than two years. But late last week, a huge number of supporters appeared to have reached the collective realisation that there was no point in continuing to pontificate and harbour regrets: the club is where it is, and it's up to everybody connected with Norwich to accept it, unite, and look with confidence to the future.

This sudden shift in mindset was followed by an uplifting second half fightback and priceless three points against the fallen giants from Yorkshire, not to mention highly encouraging displays from debutants Mark Fotheringham and Simon Lappin. Now, this weekend's trip to Luton inspires a good deal of optimism, rather than fear; and given how positively the team played for much of its last two encounters with both Leeds and Wolverhampton Wanderers, the first seeds of recovery can at last be glimpsed. With Chris Brown, signed during the transfer window from Sunderland, and youngster Chris Martin also involved, Saturday may in effect have represented the de facto birth of Peter Grant's new Canaries: for it had always been woefully unfair to judge the manager merely on a squad of players inherited from his predecessor, and a very thin squad lacking in confidence and quality at that. But with Fotheringham a probable long-term replacement for Youssef Safri, and Lappin maybe ultimately intended to succeed Adam Drury at left back, the future is suddenly starting to take shape: and on the evidence of the second half against Leeds, it may hold considerably more promise than many - not least this observer - had allowed themselves to believe.

So in today's piece, what I want to do is, at least for now, draw a line under the many criticisms of the club and those running it articulated all too frequently over recent months, and simply pose the question: how, in the absence of a sugardaddy, with debts of around £20m, and the end of its parachute payments looming, can Norwich best hope to move back into contention for a place in English football's ever more monied top flight in the months and years ahead? Emphasising these harsh realities isn't intended as a criticism, incidentally: it is simply meant as a reminder of the enormous challenges faced by clubs either not in their first year of parachute payments such as Birmingham City or West Bromwich Albion, who have not recently been taken over by rich consortia such as Sunderland or Southampton, who have not had £25m ploughed into them by five new board members as with Derby County, or who lack the good fortune of having a wealthy benefactor on hand such as Reading, Fulham or Wigan Athletic: clubs who are considerably smaller than Norwich, yet have been able to hold their own in the top flight thanks at least in part to the largesse of Messrs Madejski, al Fayed and Whelan respectively.

Doubtless, many reading the above few lines will smile to themselves and conclude that this writer has become a sudden apologist for the Canary board: but not a bit of it. All I am trying to do is ask, in the absence of the advantages enjoyed by the various clubs above, how do City seek to redress the balance? It is not a sign of craven defeatism to acknowledge that, in English football 2007, money talks as never before: with those fortunate enough to be part of the gravy train enjoying a quality of life far removed from a number of clubs who, according to fanbase and tradition, should in theory have a far better chance of prospering. Never mind the chasm between the Premiership and Championship: merely the gap between clubs relegated only last season and those forced to cut back as a result of failing to make a quick return has become astonishing. Wolves and West Brom are historic rivals, with the Molineux club traditionally perceived as slightly bigger than the Baggies; but the on-field gulf between the two sides, illustrated by two 3-0 victories for Tony Mowbray's team already this season, is down essentially to finance. Wolves, relegated in 2004 after only one season, don't have it; West Brom, demoted last season and with three of the previous four years spent enjoying the riches of the top flight, very much do.

Indeed, while the Championship has always been depicted as topsy-turvy and immensely unpredictable, the simple fact is that four of the last six clubs to be relegated are in strong contention for a swift return; and an exception, Derby, benefited from the cash injection mentioned above. Moreover, with even the side finishing 20th in the top flight receiving £27m next season, the position can surely only become worse: with a group of clubs effectively between the Premiership and mid-table morass of the second flight beginning to detach themselves, perhaps for many years to come.

This is the context within which Grant and his board have to operate: so what should they do? Build slowly, focusing on cheap acquisitions from Scotland and placing a particular emphasis on unearthing further young tyros such as Martin; or, once the club has adjusted to the loss of parachute payments, gamble just as it did earlier in the decade? The 2001/2 season was a wonderfully evocative and memorable one: for many, it was the year when Norwich at last woke up from the hangover of Munich, Milan and relegation, and developed a whole new twenty-first century identity: in essence, a huge number of supporters rediscovered their pride in their club.

But an awful lot of nonsense was written by journalists throughout that centenary campaign, and uttered by the manager, players and board members too: so the theory went, Norwich were that season's surprise package, expected pre-season to be threatened by relegation rather than challenge at the top of the division, and who unlike big spenders such as Manchester City, Wolves or Birmingham, were operating under no pressure, and with literally nothing to lose. Take this startling quote from Nigel Worthington, uttered on the eve of the play-off final, a contest which had become the richest in world football, with a difference of at least £20m on offer between winner and loser. According to the manager, in a contest which presented a fantastic opportunity for his side, led to such an exodus from Norfolk that the Milennium Stadium at times appeared to be drenched in swathes of custard, and offered a long-overdue ticket back to the promised land, "there (was) nothing at stake at all for us in this game".

There's kidology, and then there are self-fulfilling prophecies, and Worthington's comments fell very much into the latter camp. For while Norwich played with inventiveness, pride and passion for so much of the final, what was noticeable was what happened when they took the lead in extra time. All of a sudden, the players seemed to realise there was something at stake: tens of millions of pounds in fact, and in a panic, fell back and fatally began playing for time with almost half an hour of the match still to run. Birmingham's equaliser was a virtual inevitability; and with all Norwich's momentum lost, so arguably was defeat in the unutterably cruel penalty shootout which followed.

But the curious thing was just why Norwich had portrayed themselves as such plucky, overachieving underdogs in the first place. For while Worthington undoubtedly represented the right fit for the club, and brought with him a practical common sense which was both refreshing and served him immensely well in his dealings with the board, actually, the relative success of 2001/2 was not some minor footballing fairytale: it was the direct consequence of a real gamble taken by the board in the months following Worthington's arrival. With supporters' faith in the directors at a desperately low ebb following the debacle of Bryan Hamilton's ignominious spell in charge, and the club apparently drifting bit by bit towards the-then Second Division, Worthington was effectively able to hold a metaphorical barrel to the board's head: the squad I have inherited is woefully inadequate, and needs real, significant investment if I am to turn the club's fortunes around, and you are to recapture the fans' confidence.

ITV Digital's deal announced with the Football League gave the board the impetus it needed: and the key was not just the £2.3m spent in transfer fees alone over the next year or so, but the quality of player the club was suddenly able to attract. Drury, Mark Rivers and Clint Easton were all individuals in their early to mid-twenties who arrived with strong reputations, and were expected to improve and enjoy their best years in Norfolk; Gary Holt was already proven, and provided crucial bite and drive in the middle; and Marc Libbra and David Nielsen offered something different, and on their day, something a little special up front. All came from a category of player the club had been priced out of competing for since its financial collapse of 1996: and signalled a total change in strategy. In reality, the bare minimum which should have been expected from such a squad (which already boasted such reliable figures as Craig Fleming, Malky Mackay and Iwan Roberts) was a place in the top six: perhaps even a strong challenge for automatic promotion.

But no club of Norwich's means can afford to commit to such a gamble without real success being quickly forthcoming. The Canaries' conduct throughout that campaign was bizarre: in reality, it could scarcely afford not to win promotion, and that was even before the collapse of ITV Digital in March 2002 threatened a disastrous shortfall between what had been spent and what was likely to be recouped. Perhaps it provided the impetus for the late surge into the top six which resulted; but it still didn't stop the manager's continued insistence that anything beyond real progress on the previous year's miseries could be treated merely as a bonus, rather than something which should have been the demand all along.

There is bound to be a temptation among many supporters to compare where the club is now to where it was in 2001: but if those at the helm do opt to gamble again at some stage in the years ahead, several lessons from the experience of earlier in the decade should be borne in mind. Above all, it needs to be far tougher and more demanding in its whole approach: such investment doesn't just make success a possibility, but actually renders it a requirement. Norwich's ultimate failure - albeit by the narrowest possible margin - to be promoted meant, thanks especially to the ITV Digital fallout, it had to gamble still more: failure to go up within three seasons of its policy shift to one of speculating to accumulate would have had horrendous long-term consequences.

And sadly, although the move in 2003/4 into signing an even higher bracket of player, whereby Darren Huckerby, Matthias Svensson and Leon McKenzie were recruited permanently, and Peter Crouch and Kevin Harper arrived on loan, all but guaranteed promotion, the board had little option other than to direct the revenue provided by a year in the Premiership towards covering the losses resulting from the initial spending spree which began three years earlier. Supporters assumed that the arrival back in the land of milk and honey meant that all the club's economic woes had been solved: actually, the hole dug was so deep that only by remaining in the top flight for a number of years could it have really transformed its status in the game.

That was the impact of defeat in the play-off final: it dramatically narrowed the club's window of opportunity, and also prevented it from significantly profiting from life in the Premiership, as opposed to just bailing itself out of its worst problems. The gamble taken by the board demanded immediate success: and in its absence, it has to be said that (here's the second lesson to be drawn) it ultimately failed. Instead of consolidating in the top flight in 2002/3, coming down and bouncing straight back up with a squad expecting to survive comfortably, Norwich's belated return to the big time was with a squad which could have stayed up, but was considerable odds against doing so. The best chance had already gone: and when relegation did follow, the club's debts remained so significant that much of its parachute payments had to be put towards safeguarding the future, rather than creating a team likely to go staight back up again.

Hence the stagnation and discord which has followed, among a fanbase which had had a taste of success, and not unreasonably expected it to continue. Charges of 'lack of ambition' and 'mismanagement' have frequently been made: but the economic realities of the modern game mitigate hugely against a club like Norwich transforming its status back into an established Premiership outfit. Yet with all that said, the final, paradoxical lesson is this: the only way in which the Canaries' fortunes began to improve again in the first place was by gambling its future in the hope of success. Without it, the fans would have become ever more disenchanted, attendances would surely have fallen creating a knock-on commercial impact, and City's slide would have been bound to continue.

Such, therefore, is the incredibly fraught, delicate balancing act which the board has to perform. It could now opt to live very much within its means - but in the absence of the kind of miracle performed by Adrian Boothroyd at Watford last year, that will almost certainly condemn it to mid-table mediocrity or worse for as far as the eye can see; and of course, will inevitably result in the fans becoming more and more angry, and at least some drifting away in disillusionment. Grant's initial signings are certainly encouraging: but he is unable to operate in the kind of market inhabited by the club between 2001 and 2004, and as a result, it is wholly unrealistic to expect a similar surge back into contention.

Brave words have already been expressed by Chairman, Roger Munby, about the need to be "better, more clever and more competitive" in terms of how the club maximises its off-field revenue, and certainly, the progress in this area over the past seven or eight years has proved surprising at times: the club has grown considerably off the pitch. But it is still extremely difficult to envisage how the sort of income needed to catapult City back towards the top of the division can be raised; and in its absence, barring a freakishly talented group of youngsters being developed through the academy, the same dilemma is likely to remain. The club cannot afford to gamble its future again; but such are the growing iniquities even within this division, let alone the Premiership, in many ways it cannot afford not to. How those in charge go about attempting to square this fiendishly challenging circle will provide the key to what progress and success can realistically be hoped for in the months and years ahead: whether, indeed, what happened on Saturday represented the birth of a brave new world, or merely, an all-too-frustrating false dawn.

Canaries slide into trouble

2007-02-01T05:37:00.000Z

As recently as at the turn of the year, Norwich City appeared to be the one club in the Championship whose season was already - the FA Cup apart - as good as over. Out of contention for a place in the play-offs, the Canaries also seemed in no danger at all of slipping into a relegation battle: all of which suggested manager Peter Grant would have the opportunity to experiment over the remainder of the campaign, blooding younger players and those signed during the transfer window with a view to kicking on and making his mark on the club in the years ahead.

But such is the cut-throat nature of this league, results can have a nasty habit of turning an apparently comfortable looking run-in into something rather more fraught: and really, given Norwich's notorious habit of collapsing in the months after Christmas, this correspondent should have known an awful lot better. Capitulation at home to Plymouth Argyle quickened fans' pulses a little, but it was the long-term injury to leading scorer Robert Earnshaw which really began to set alarm bells ringing. And if the prospect of a grim struggle to avoid the drop still seemed unlikely even then, it certainly does not now: Tuesday night's defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers means only one thing. With a record of just nine points accrued from the last 36, four points off the bottom three and a mere seven off bottom spot altogether, Norwich City are in trouble.

As a result, City now face two huge matches which will define the rest of their season. A minimum of four points from fixtures at home to Leeds United and away to Luton Town will keep their heads above water, and allow the fans to breathe a lot more easily; but two points or fewer will signal a frantic scramble to avoid what would be a calamitous and unthinkable plunge into English football's third flight. Defender Jurgen Colin has insisted that the side are too good to go down: but make no mistake, if it can happen to Manchester City, Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest, and look like happening to Leeds, it can most certainly happen to Norwich too.

Quite how the Canaries ended up in this mess needs little retelling, with the consequences of Delia Smith's board's chronic dithering throughout last season, and especially the disastrous lack of signings during the summer, now coming dramatically home to roost. It remains wholly unfair to blame Grant for such a state of affairs: indeed, one wonders if he can believe how a club which beat Manchester United only twenty-two months ago could have a squad so frighteningly lacking in quality and especially in numbers now. In a nutshell, clubs which fail to plan for the future and enter a season with a dangerously thin squad invite the injury-plagued scenario which has unfolded at Carrow Road over recent weeks: a division above, Newcastle United have done wonderfully well to remain in the calm waters of mid-table despite fielding extraordinarily inexperienced line-ups over the last few games, but their success has been very much the exception to a time-honoured rule.

With Jason Shackell, the club's best central defender, and the talismanic and probable Player of the Year, Dion Dublin, joining Earnshaw on the sidelines, Grant has at least been able to bolster his side's chronically understaffed and insipid midfield by recruiting Mark Fotheringham and Simon Lappin as the window slammed shut yesterday. Neither signing is particularly exciting, but with the club light years removed from the intent signalled by a succession of loan and permanent captures during 2003/4, the manager is clearly working within extremely tight constraints, and will have to gradually build a team in his image the hard way: and in any case, Lappin especially arrives amid rave reviews from his previous club, St Mirren.

Moreover, one confidently assumes Fotheringham will prove a vast improvement on Carl Robinson, whose apparently imminent transfer to Major League Soccer side, Toronto, will not exactly be greeted with dismay by most supporters. In many ways, Robinson has epitomised much that has been wrong with the club over the past two seasons: making a rod for his own back by notoriously insisting that it would be promoted this year, but continually failing to live up to the game he happily boasted about off the pitch. Indeed, the fact that he has played unusually well in his past two appearances against Wolves and at Blackpool having plainly already been given permission to travel to Canada for talks says it all: for whatever reason (attitude being this writer's strongly-held suspicion), he just never fitted in during his time in Norfolk.

Fotheringham and Lappin are, of course, both Scots, and signings of similar ilk can surely be anticipated in the summer as Grant makes use of his contacts north of the border. Jim Duffy, formerly manager of Dundee and Hibernian, and briefly Director of Football at Heart of Midlothian, is also being linked with the club in some form of coaching capacity: but while he is and has always been an engaging thinker and talker on the game, and while long-time assistant Canary boss Doug Livermore has failed to inspire confidence for some considerable time, Duffy's arrival would certainly not fill this supporter with much enthusiasm. He has always been a highly rated coach, but would it really be advisable to appoint someone who led both Hibs and Dundee to relegation, and whose short spell assisting Graham Rix at Tynecastle was notable only for the desperately poor quality of football produced by the stuttering Jambos?

The role of assistant managers is often vastly underestimated by supporters: but many believe Brian Clough was never quite the same after falling out with Peter Taylor, Jim Jefferies' Hearts went into decline following Paul Hegarty's departure in order to pursue his own managerial ambitions, and Nigel Pearson, whose work at West Bromwich Albion under Bryan Robson was very highly regarded by most Baggies' fans, has surely had a major impact in Newcastle's revival over recent months since his arrival there in November. If Livermore, who cut a deeply uninspiring figure at the club's recent AGM, and about whom the necessity to be put out to pasture was apparent to many fans just as their faith in Worthington's abilities began to wane, is to be replaced, it is imperative that Grant makes the right choice: and especially, that his board gives him every resource in order to do so. Far too many cheap options have been taken by the club for the best part of three years now, and as the old saying goes: if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

All the fans can do now is hold their breath, and truly get behind the team this weekend against Leeds. Such would be the financial consequences, relegation is simply not an option; but such is the chronic lack of confidence running through the side, the players need all the help they can get. It's up to the supporters - whose loyalty has been astonishing, and is apparently remarked on by observers the length and breadth of the land - to unite, once again show their worth, and roar the team on. There is still the chance that a heartstopping final few months of the campaign can be averted, and that Grant's new signings can settle in amid relative calm: but results simply must now be forthcoming, if an already dispiriting season is not to descend into something truly frightening.

Up for the Cup? Not in Norwich's case...

2007-01-25T05:09:00.000Z

Amidst this thoroughly dispiriting season for Norwich City, with the Canaries beginning to flirt with a hitherto unthinkable relegation battle, much if not all of the goodwill Delia Smith's board had earned from the fans over several years earlier this decade having been lost, Robert Earnshaw falling victim to a long-term injury, and Darren Huckerby now understandably feeling the need to voice his and other players' mounting concern over the chronic lack of leadership at the club, it could easily go unnoticed that this weekend, with the FA Cup fourth round now almost upon us, a real opportunity to at last give the supporters some reason to be cheerful is about to present itself. Rest assured, this blog will be devoting plenty of time to discussing the many current problems at the club over the weeks and months ahead - but today, this supporter wishes to take readers on a trip down memory lane, in order to ask the question: just what is it about Norwich City and Cup competitions?

I first started following Norwich in the late 1980s. Back then, of course, they were enjoying a hitherto unprecedented spell of success in the top flight: and Cup runs, if not quite the norm, tended to be enjoyed with considerable regularity. The club enjoyed one of its finest hours when lifting the Milk Cup at Wembley in 1985, and over a period of four seasons between 1989 and 1992, two FA Cup semi-finals and one quarter-final were reached too: indeed, incredible as it seems now, I can just about remember Bob Wilson, then presenting the BBC's Grandstand, recommending the Canaries as a decent bet to win the world's oldest cup competition as third round weekend arrived in 1991/2.

But on that thoroughly miserable Hillsborough day in April 1992 - when Norwich, with everything in their favour, and destiny apparently awaiting, turned in a performance of stunning incompetence before tens of thousands of their supporters in losing to a desperately moderate Sunderland - something fundamental seemed to change. Of course, the heady days of moving eight points clear at the top of the Premier League in Autumn 1992, and even more so of glory in Munich and Milan, were still ahead: but ever since John Byrne's early goal (offside, but it's a measure of the poverty of City's performance that hardly anyone bothered to utter a word of complaint) eliminated Dave Stringer's bedraggled lot, the Canaries have become a virtual caricature of themselves whenever involved in one of the two domestic knock-out tournaments.

The flip-side of being a club which, in theory at least, prizes attractive, entertaining football above all else, is to have a soft centre at times: but in Norwich's case, it's almost ridiculous how often this has proved the case since Hillsborough '92. Think the shambolic capitulation before a live BBC audience against Spurs the following year, or Manchester United's stunningly easy cruise at Carrow Road in 1994: after which, Ruel Fox was almost immediately sold to Newcastle, and the disintegration of the club - which had started when Mike Walker resigned a few weeks earlier - suddenly began to gather alarming degrees of momentum. Think too the 5-0 thrashing at Goodison in the 1995 fifth round, a display which confirmed the extent of the disaster which, having crept up almost unnoticed, was about to overwhelm John Deehan's men.

Indeed, whereas Cup competitions provide excitement, or at least some degree of relief, for supporters of so many other clubs, in Norwich's case they have provided not only constant disappointment, but at times too an eloquent commentary on the struggles which were either ongoing or about to follow. FA Cup humiliations at Grimsby and at home to Brentford, and perhaps worst of all, a League Cup exit against lowly Barnet, were horrendous reminders of how far the club had fallen since Jeremy Goss and Mark Bowen famously led them to victory in the Olympic Stadium.

And still more frustrating were the missed opportunities: an insipid League Cup exit at Bolton in 1995, with only a near-catatonic Swindon standing between them and a place in the final: a tie which could've provided a gateway to glory, but is instead remembered for Ian Culverhouse ridiculously being sold on the eve of the game by his utterly foolhardy manager, and Mark Robins absurdly being dropped: meaning the club went into its most important game of the season with - wait for it - Rob Newman as its chief marksman. And similarly, with doomy inevitability, last-minute defeat at Birmingham a year later, with only a shambolic Leeds to get past in order to return to the Wembley showpiece. Indeed, it's often forgotten that not only did Martin O'Neill's exit that year effectively end Norwich's hopes of returning to the top flight: it also cut a very promising cup run off in its tracks too. O'Neill went on to take Leicester to two triumphs in the competition: what might he have achieved had he been able to stay at Norwich?

At least, as the club's fortunes began to pick up under Nigel Worthington's stewardship, there was the excuse that Cup competitions needed to be sacrificed in order to maximise Norwich's chances of success over a gruelling 46-game campaign. But even then, it hardly justified a succession of miserable League Cup exits against Brentford (again), Northampton and most infamously, Cheltenham: a game when, with echoes of the mass downing of tools which heralded Worthington's long-overdue departure against Burnley earlier this season, the players, to the dismay of the poor unfortunates who paid to watch, did not try a leg. Now, soft-centred Norwich had been replaced by 'concentrate on the league and who cares about the Cups?' Norwich: but what about the supporters? Did their dreams not matter in any of this?

Sunderland, Bolton, Tranmere, Birmingham, Millwall: all these clubs have reached the final of a major domestic competition from a lower division within living memory. Many more have at least got to a semi-final: Wycombe (twice), Chesterfield and Stockport, indeed, have done so while residing in one of the bottom two divisions. A simple browse through the current inhabitants of the Premiership and Championship reveals desperately few without so much as a last four place to their name over the past fifteen years: Norwich are not only one of them, but in that time have been knocked out by a lower division side on no fewer than ten occasions. And not once - not a single time - have the Canaries recorded an upset of their own: nine times they have had the chance, and on each occasion they failed, with only the draw forced with Chelsea in 2002 standing out as some sort of tangible achievement.

It is, by anyone's definition, an absolutely shameful record, and a slap in the face to supporters who, surely, have a right to expect some sort of Cup run from their favourites at least every now and then. Even when City at last got back to the fifth round in 2003, the feeling was one of deep frustration - the display in defeat at Southampton was creditable enough, but when you consider that Saints had not one Premiership side to face en route to the final: it could only be marked down as yet another priceless opportunity squandered.

All season long, we have been told how much better the team should be doing: all season long, it has flattered miserably to deceive. Well, now the excuses stop: for a trip to Blackpool, however awkward, simply must be successfully overcome on Saturday. Looking at the remainder of the draw, there is, somewhat unusually, a fair chance of the Canaries continuing to avoid top flight opposition should they reach the last sixteen - and there is still the nagging sense that, even without Earnshaw, Norwich's first choice XI has enough about them to worry and even beat most Championship sides and perhaps even the odd struggling Premiership team on their day. If the season isn't to descend into total despair, City have one final chance to show their worth: the law of averages suggests they're many years past the point of being due some success in this most venerable of competitions, and they owe it to the fans - indeed, to themselves - to deliver.

Canaries drift on: but to where?

2007-01-18T05:32:00.000Z

The day after it was announced that, from next season, even the bottom placed finisher will receive almost £27m of Premiership prize money as a result of a yet more lucrative global television rights deal, it is surely all the more necessary to remind ourselves of what life continues to be like for the clubs struggling desperately to return to the top flight. Such are the realities of the English game nowadays, when a side suffers relegation, it is imperative it bounces straight back at the first attempt: for the repercussions of failure are invariably harsh and long lasting. Manchester City, Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest and Queens Park Rangers all either dropped into the third tier or - in the case of the twice former European champions - are still scrambling to climb back out of it, Leeds United look set to emulate them in this unhappy fate, while others such as Coventry City and Derby County have suffered years of interminable toil as they battle to recapture former glories.

Norwich City, too, fell into a six-year malaise of mid-table monotony or worse after falling from the top tier at arguably the worst possible time: 1995, just when English football's modern day economic boom was beginning to gather pace. And sadly, after the Canaries' brief resurgence under Nigel Worthington, history would appear to be repeating itself - with Norwich's spineless second half collapse against Plymouth Argyle last Saturday leaving the side with a pathetic recent record of nine points from the last 33, and beginning to peer anxiously over their shoulders towards the drop zone.

Following Worthington's ludicrously belated departure at the end of September, few City supporters doubted the difficulty of the task facing new manager, Peter Grant: with precious little available to spend, and the club's parachute payments about to run out, it was up to him to make the most of what he had while gradually beginning to build his own team. To this end, striker Chris Brown and midfielder Luke Chadwick have both recently been unveiled, and goalkeeper David Marshall's on-loan capture from Celtic was confirmed only yesterday; with Robert Earnshaw and Youssef Safri likely to depart Carrow Road in the summer, along, surely, with a number of others too.

But for all Chadwick and Brown certainly have genuine talent, and for all Marshall's temporary recruitment will surely help shore up a defence behind whom Paul Gallacher has often looked uncertain for much of the season to date, in many ways, the names of the players brought in are simply a reminder of how far the club has fallen over recent years. To be sure, it is a far cry from when the purchases of Adam Drury, Gary Holt, Mark Rivers and Marc Libbra represented a clear change of strategy and provided the impetus for the club's revival to at last begin in 2001; and even further from when the loan acquisitions of Darren Huckerby, Peter Crouch and Kevin Harper, and especially the permanent purchases of Huckerby, Leon McKenzie and Matthias Svensson took the Canaries over the top and bounding joyfully back into the promised land in 2003/4.

The argument is often made that, however dreadfully disappointing the past two seasons have been, the club is in a far better overall state than when Worthington took over from the hapless Bryan Hamilton a little over six years ago. Take this rather curious recent piece by Mick Dennis: never mind the football, it seems to be saying, feel the quality of the new Jarrold Stand, hotel, restaurant and friendly ticket office staff! But the last time your correspondent glanced at the table, Norwich had fallen three points behind Crystal Palace, the very club Dennis appeared to gazing down loftily upon; and of course, have lost both games against a desperately average Eagles side this season too.

Moreover, while it must be acknowledged that Worthington was charged with clearing out a squad bloated by the acquisitions of some of the most preposterous figures ever to wear the Canaries' colours (step forward Fernando Derveld, Raymond De Waard and Steve Walsh), the club's current squad is not only desperately thin, but alarmingly lacking in quality too. At the back, while the improvement of Jurgen Colin has been one of the season's few pleasant surprises, Drury - once one of the most promising left backs in England, and an integral part of City's success during Worthington's first three full campaigns in charge - has continued a decline which set in during the sojourn in the top flight two years ago, and is plainly struggling for confidence; Gary Doherty gives his all, but still fails to convince; and time has sadly but inevitably caught up with Craig Fleming, who nevertheless must be lauded for his magnificent service for the club over the past decade.

In the middle, Dickson Etuhu shows fitful inspiration, but fails to even approach the consistency a player of his potential influence ought to be capable of, Andy Hughes is wholehearted, but often utterly out of his depth, Carl Robinson continues to be one of the most infuriatingly unreliable players this fan has witnessed, while even Huckerby flits in and out of games, and carries nowhere near the authority with which he bent this division to his will three seasons ago. If it weren't for the marvellous Indian summer being enjoyed by Dion Dublin, and especially the goals of Earnshaw - astonishingly still the Championship's leading scorer in a team which has sunk to 17th place in the table - one wonders where Norwich would find themselves; and with it confirmed only this morning that Earnshaw is expected to be out for several months with a serious groin injury, we are about to find out too.

Does any of the above smack of a club in a completely transformed position compared with the days immediately following Hamilton's ignominious period in charge? Does its most recent set of accounts, the announcement of which was accompanied by the stark warning that, "Failure to win promotion at the end of 2007 will reduce our income by a minimum of £7m following the loss of the Premier League parachute payments. While the club remains in the Championship it will be necessary to balance the cashflow and generate surplus funds for future player acquisitions by selling assets" suggest anything other than a grim future ahead? It must be concluded, surely, that it does not.

Grant, too, is painfully aware of the lack of competition within his squad: as his furious comments following Saturday's miserable defeat amply demonstrated. Doubtless, further new arrivals can be anticipated before the transfer window slams shut at the end of the month: though whether they are of the quality or potential to help propel City back up the league, and provide real hope for the immense challenges which lie ahead, is of course the real question. Moreover, while it would be outrageously harsh to hold the manager responsible for a desperately weak squad inherited through no fault of his own, and created both by the board and his predecessor, after a relatively encouraging start to his spell in the hotseat, it has to be acknowledged that he has failed to convince since: the quality of football has been dreadfully poor at times, the team has often played with little sense of structure, or clearly defined roles, and he has continued to straddle a dangerously fine line between the honesty and directness which initially proved such a refreshing change from the uninspiring dirges offered by Worthington, and simply undermining and alienating a playing staff short not just on numbers, quality or form, but above all confidence as well.

In a nutshell, a manager can only deliver the sort of stinging public broadsides at his players which have already become the pugnacious Scot's trademark if he can be confident of taking his squad with him. Throughout his career, for instance, Martin O'Neill has tended to mix occasional strong criticism of players when clearly warranted with a staunch defence of their performances to the press on many other occasions; but in Grant's case, all too often he seems unable to control his desire to vent his spleen following City's latest disappointment. Describing his players as "very, very weak", and guilty of "passing the buck to everyone else" is a dangerous game to play: partly because it may only be a matter of time before certain amongst his team might begin to ask themselves whether he is failing to take ultimate responsibility as their boss; still more because, as Drury's utterly deflated words following Saturday's debacle bear eloquent witness to, this is a team now woefully lacking in belief or inspiration. If verbal kicks up the proverbial have failed to work so far, what makes Grant so confident that they will succeed now?

Norwich now face four critical league matches which will determine whether they move back into the uninspiring, but at least comfortable waters of mid-table, or begin to be dragged into a relegation battle which surely none of even the most pessimistic of observers deemed to be possible before a ball was kicked back in August. On current form, and even against opponents who have drifted down the league after a remarkable start, it is difficult to see them taking much from this weekend's awkward trip to Turf Moor; and the home match with Wolves, while certainly winnable, doesn't offer much in the way of comfort either. In the potentially disastrous absence of Earnshaw, it are the subsequent two fixtures against Leeds and away to Luton which really stand out: both offer the opportunity to move clear of danger, but equally, one point or fewer from these games could mean big, big trouble ahead.

In spite of all that has been written in this piece, Canaries fans can at least take solace from the lesson drawn from their side's continual toil of the late-1990s and around the turn of the century: namely, that it is simply staggering just how poor a team needs to be, or how shambolic a club's off-field affairs need to become, for a club such as Norwich to be relegated from this league. And however dispiriting this season has undoubtedly become, and even if their top scorer does not kick another ball in anger over the remainder of the campaign, it must be acknowledged that, as yet, Norwich do not conform to the requirements of either category. This observer does ultimately expect the team to stay up: indeed, there are at least six clubs in the division which I still cannot foresee City finishing below. That said, there must be a very real fear that, in the inevitable absence of key players following the cost cutting which is bound to occur in the summer, things could easily get considerably worse: and in any case, the real issue here is just how a club which ran out at Craven Cottage just twenty months ago with its Premiership survival in its own hands found itself in such a position in the first place. And for that, the board are very much culpable.

Nobody doubts how difficult it is for clubs such as Norwich to compete effectively in an era when the gap between the top flight and the rest becomes dramatically wider year-on-year; nor can anybody question either the commitment or good intentions of those charged with leading them to success. But the Canaries utterly failed to make the most of a wonderful opportunity which presented itself to first survive and then begin to establish themselves back in the big time; and worse, at precisely the point when it literally could not afford to take its collective eye off the ball, it did exactly this, with bells on.

This is a club which, in spite of everything, astonishingly continues to attract the third highest average attendances in the entire league: the writer hopes it won't be considered an abandonment of his duty of objectivity to suggest, in the strongest possible terms, that such remarkable loyalty deserves far, far better. But sadly, thanks to the mistakes and inertia of those in charge over the last two years or so, it is increasingly difficult to envisage it being tangibly rewarded, in the foreseeable future at least: indeed, the consequences of the board's collective paralysis are, all too clearly, already being demonstrated.

Mourinho: In defence of the Special One

2007-01-14T04:24:00.000Z

Few footballing figures of recent times have so polarised the opinions of fans and media alike as Jose Mourinho. At his very first press conference after being unveiled as Chelsea's new manager in June 2004, when referring to himself as a 'special one' and remarking that "we have top players and, sorry if I'm arrogant, we have a top manager", it was clear something truly different had arrived in English football: and as his team proceeded to take the Premiership by storm, smashing the Manchester United/Arsenal duopoly which had held sway for much of the previous decade, the fascination of many observers continued to lie not so much in his utterly dominant side, as in Mourinho himself. Many accomplished managers have preferred to allow their players to hog the limelight, but not the extraordinary Portugese: whether perched by the touchline in a particularly sharp suit, or indulging in psychological mind games with rival managers, Mourinho represented his own personal revolution. Thanks to him, football management was now suddenly as glamorous and sexy as being a top player: indeed, to adopt a phrase once employed regarding Bill Clinton, men wanted to be him, while women wanted to be with him.

Of course, his apparent arrogance (though in reality, it has rarely been anything more than immense self-confidence) would have seen him come a spectacular cropper had his team not delivered as swiftly as it did: not that there was ever much danger of that under such a shrewd operator. Mourinho landed the Chelsea job on the back of his astonishing Champions League triumph with Porto, who remain the only club from outside Europe's true elite to have taken the crown since the competition's expansion at the turn of the decade: and the methods he had used to achieve such success in Portugal were quickly brought to bear at Stamford Bridge.

Above all, he demanded relentless hard work and an 'all for one' attitude from his players, with anyone not prepared to toe the line (such as Hernan Crespo or Adrian Mutu) quickly shown the exit door. Blessed with an unprecedented degree of spending power thanks to owner Roman Abramovich's largesse, the manager was nothing if not mindful of what had occurred over the preceding decade at Internazionale, and was beginning to happen at Real Madrid too: with expensively-assembled star players falling out with their coach and indeed themselves, and forming destructive, ego-ridden cliques which had a ruinous impact on morale and team spirit. Given the extraordinary levels of remuneration, to say nothing of the lavish lifestyles enjoyed by today's top players, it has arguably never been more difficult for a manager of an elite club to motivate his team in order to win matches and trophies: and moreover, with his enormous budget came a very high level of expectation from his board too: nothing less than the Blues' first Championship in fifty years, and in time, the European Cup as well, would suffice.

Mourinho, in other words, may have faced very different demands from those occupying the attention of the vast majority of his fellow managers throughout England's four divisions: but in their own way, these were just as difficult and challenging. Particularly astute was his desire to maintain a relatively shallow squad, with just two top players competing for each position: again, a strategy followed in order to prevent the kind of trouble which bloated, bickering units had created in Milan and Madrid, and had led to years of underachievement at Barcelona prior to Frank Rijkaard's appointment there as coach. He also adopted a relatively simple playing system of 4-5-1/4-3-3 (albeit one he could swiftly change during a match should circumstances demand it), which was at its most effective when Arjen Robben and Damien Duff provided speed and width from the flanks: and ultimately, this system swept all before it, was emulated by rival managers across the Premiership, and provided a secure structure from which Chelsea cantered to two successive titles.

Of course, once it became clear that the Blues' pre-eminence was likely to last, and they were no longer perceived merely as a 'breath of fresh air', public attitudes to the coach quickly began to change. Now, his frequently provocative comments - almost always made in the name of getting under the skin of rival managers and especially of deflecting pressure away from his players and onto him - began to infuriate, rather than amuse: and certainly, it must be acknowledged that he hardly helped himself at times. In accusing referee Anders Frisk of colluding with Rijkaard during half-time of the first leg of the tempestuous Champions League tie against Barce in 2005, yelling obscenities at Liverpool players during the Carling Cup Final the following month, droning on endlessly about how the same opponents' winner in that season's European Cup semi-final was 'not a goal' (always while neglecting to mention that had it been disallowed, Chelsea would have been reduced to ten men with almost the entirety of the second leg still to play, not to mention the highly dubious legality of John Terry's decisive goal against the Catalan giants two rounds earlier), and arguably worst of all, making disgraceful insinuations regarding Reading's Stephen Hunt's entirely accidental challenge on Petr Cech earlier this season (not to mention utterly unsubstantiated allegations about the quality and speed of the Berkshire club's medical response), Mourinho has all too often completely crossed the line: and appeared to many observers as though he wanted to win at all costs, regardless of who was hurt or trampled upon in the process.

Equally though, it is difficult to see how, in the case of such an inimitable, complex character, we could get one without getting the other: with Mourinho, it is surely a question of accepting the good along with the bad. For as well as the deeply unsavoury behaviour outlined above, the manager has often demonstrated both humour and a highly perceptive intelligence during interviews and when holding forth at press conferences: a stark contrast from the all-too-predictable platitudes invariably offered by his colleagues. And away from the pressures of football, he is actually a thoroughly decent man, who has done a lot of unreported work for charity, and has often credited his happy family life for providing the grounding he - indeed, we all - need(s) in order to succeed.

In essence, the key to understanding Mourinho is to see that, in his view, management is all a game: and while he is often guilty of playing that game too hard, there is no question that he does it extremely well. Moreover, this writer will be arguing later in the year that, if England are to stand a chance of at last winning a major international competition, its footballing culture needs profoundly to change. The Chelsea manager's emphasis on caution, and especially the theatrical antics of players like Robben and Didier Drogba, have often exasperated; but arguably, until the English club game fully embraces that which has been pursued for decades both on the continent and in South America, the national team will surely continue to come up short: whether in being wound up by macchiavellian Portugese or Argentine opponents, or in its tactical and technical deficiencies being exposed by Brazilians or Italians. Mourinho is simply a product of his footballing culture: and given it is one which has provided arguably the world's best manager, not to mention a national team which has eliminated England from both the last two major tournaments, it is a bit rich to start lecturing others on the virtues of 'fair play'.

In the opinion of this correspondent, it is necessary to outline the above in such detail because, in football just as in life, we often don't realise what we have until it is gone. And, as is increasingly clear both from reports in the press over recent weeks, not to mention his alarmingly pale, drawn appearance, not only does the Chelsea board plainly not realise what it has, but Mourinho will indeed soon be gone: if not within the next few weeks, then certainly come the summer. Almost from the outset of his third, and far and away most troubled season in charge, there has been the sense that something was different: not merely in the occasional vulnerability of his team, but in the mounting perception that he was being increasingly undermined from above. Abramovich craves Champions League success above all else; and although the coach's desire for an efficient playing system, and to avoid recruiting the kind of star players who could imperil the squad's morale, had been entirely vindicated domestically, there was a clear sense that Chelsea plainly lacked something extra when eliminated by Barce in last season's competition.

Moreover, both Abramovich and chief executive Peter Kenyon have their sights set ultimately on hegemony within the global footballing marketplace: and Chelsea's style, which while effective, can be painful to watch at times, paled in comparison with international competitors such as Barcelona or Manchester United. So last summer, the owner began to enforce an apparent change of strategy which, however well-intentioned it may have been, bore worrying overtones to that which turned Real Madrid into a laughing stock under Florentino Perez' chronically misguided command. Both Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko were acquired, the latter plainly thanks in no small part to his wife's close relationship with Abramovich's wife: but it seems doubtful in the extreme whether Mourinho was genuinely happy about it. Moreover, control over Chelsea's transfer policy gradually started to slip away from the manager, and towards Frank Arnesen, the club's Sporting Director: almost imperceptibly, individuals who were critical to the club's continued upward mobility were now pulling in different directions.

Both Ballack and Shevchenko have, so far at least, proved extremely expensive flops; but in order to incorporate them, Mourinho was forced to abandon not only his preferred 4-5-1, but also his profound belief that the only star should be the team itself. Sven-Goran Eriksson's time in charge of England was undone by his unfathomable, self-defeating desire to pick the best individuals, rather than the best team: now Mourinho appeared to be doing the same, although whether it was his idea in the first place is the real question here. Indeed, the rather curious 4-1-3-2 which was often deployed as a result (as opposed to a simple 4-4-2, which would at least have continued to place an emphasis on width) seemed to this observer to be a calculated attempt by the manager to draw attention to the fact that this system wasn't what he wanted: others had forced it upon him.

And while Mourinho has continued to express public support for the still under-performing Ballack, he has clearly come to view Shevchenko as both appallingly lazy, and a drain on team morale. Hence his desire for a new striker to be signed during the transfer window: which, astonishingly, his board rebuffed. According to reports from a variety of this weekend's newspapers, proposals to either recruit Tottenham's Jermain Defoe in a swap deal with Shaun Wright-Phillips, or merely loan Milan Baros from Aston Villa, were blocked by a group of directors infuriated that the club had fallen behind Manchester United in this season's title race, and who instead instructed the manager to play Shevchenko in a 'proper manner'. To make matters worse, in order to help the misfiring Ukrainian, the board proposed that Mourinho's assistant, Steve Clarke (not only a highly trusted and loyal deputy, but a favourite of the fans thanks to his long, dedicated service as a player) be dismissed, with a Russian-speaking Israeli coach (presumably Avraham Grant, currently working at Portsmouth) appointed in his place.

Hardly surprisingly, an infuriated Mourinho baulked at such a suggestion: if Clarke was to go, he would do so too. He was also disappointed in his entirely correct demands for central defensive cover to be brought in for his injured captain, Terry. Deals for Micah Richards, Oguchi Onweyu and Jorge Andrade were all knocked back: and only the Brazilian international, Alex, was offered instead. But this was because Alex was a favourite of Arnesen's: he has never been rated by Mourinho, and having been burned already by Shevchenko's acquisition, he was not about to be so again.

What is astonishing about all this is the Chelsea board's apparent belief that they somehow know better than their manager. Mourinho would hardly be likely to offer Abramovich business advice; yet his directors still seem prepared to dictate to a coach who has won four consecutive championships, the European Cup, the UEFA Cup, and has not lost a league match at home in well over four years. Kenyon, who recently travelled to China in order to launch the club's first website in Mandarin, has Mourinho to thank for the international recognition which the club now enjoys: to lose him would all too easily begin to threaten the project which both Abramovich and the chief executive have prioritised: namely, to turn Chelsea into the world's leading club.

Many reading this will doubtless wonder what all the fuss is about. Surely, a man who has been blessed up to now with a budget which dwarfs those of his rivals, has simply been told that it is not a bottomless pit, and is merely now subject to the same restraints with which all other managers in England have to work under? But no club can possibly succeed on the pitch amid a climate of turmoil and broken relationships off it; and no manager, whoever he might be, can work effectively when his decisions are continually being undermined.

Reports over the New Year suggested that Mourinho was given a severe boardroom dressing down simply for the crime of presiding over his first indifferent spell of results during his time at the helm: but however much money it might spend, the reality is that no club in one of Europe's most competitive leagues can possibly win the title ad infinitum. Motivation and form levels inevitably dip, rivals catch up and enjoy periods of brilliant form themselves, and injuries to key players occur too.

United's rampaging domestic form thus far this season has been close to revelatory: yet just as an injury to Roy Keane midway through 1997/8 proved pivotal in Arsenal having the chance to wrest the Premiership crown from Old Trafford, so arguably the single most important moment of the entire campaign to date was Cech's injury at Reading. At least Mourinho had an accomplished reserve in Carlo Cudicini, but he immediately became a victim too: and how can any manager possibly plan for having both his main two goalkeepers forced out of action? If the third choice 'keeper was genuinely top class, he'd already be playing for another club in the first place: and all the manager could do was entrust his faith in Henrique Hilario, who while certainly giving his all, has proved out of his depth, and plainly affected the confidence of the defenders in front of him too.

That Mourinho can actually be blamed by his board for an entirely unforeseeable chain of events - one which, lest we forget, has also seen injuries to Terry and Joe Cole - takes one's breath away. In reality, it is remarkable that his side has continued to pick up as many points as it has: with Drogba's irresistible form as strong a testament of his manager's excellent coaching as the progress of players such as Terry, Cole, Robben, Cech and Frank Lampard has been in preceding seasons. It should also be remembered that the squad's morale has been undermined by a decision taken, at least in part, from outside Mourinho's sphere of influence: and with Shevchenko at last dropped yesterday in a direct challenge to the board, the result was a 4-0 victory over an admittedly weak Wigan side, and the Blues' best performance in many weeks.

Reports this morning suggest Mourinho's brilliant attempt to emulate Claudio Ranieri and win the sympathy vote of both his fans and the public at large have won the day: that Abramovich has been faced down, and the manager will be allowed to bring in a central defender at least, and perhaps a striker too. It would also be entirely in keeping with his career thus far if the manager - who thrives upon creating siege mentalities in much the same way as Sir Alex Ferguson has continually done both at United and Aberdeen - is now able to galvanise his squad so effectively that they both hunt down Ferguson's team in the league, and deliver Abramovich's longed for Champions League triumph too: indeed, Mourinho is clearly motivated above all by the prospect of lifting the European Cup with clubs from Portugal, England, Italy and Spain, before ending his career by leading his country to its first world title.

Nevertheless, it is now impossible to envisage him remaining at Stamford Bridge beyond the season's end; and as the Chelsea board may well discover, there is no guarantee at all that whoever succeeds him will enjoy anything like the same levels of success. Indeed, there is a growing contradiction between their goal of transforming the Blues into the biggest club in the world with a desire to cut costs: given the historical and commercial advantages which clubs such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United will inevitably continue to enjoy, how can the former possibly be achieved if the latter is put into practice too? And in any case, it is arguably Abramovich and Kenyon's obsession with marketing the club more effectively - and hence, in signing internationally-renowned players such as Shevchenko and Ballack - which created all this in the first place.

Whether he moves to Real or Inter, Mourinho will doubtless continue to prosper: he is simply too good a manager not to. But in his absence, Chelsea supporters will be left with the worrying realisation that Abramovich's ultimate goal is bound to be thwarted if a new strategy of promoting players from within is embarked upon. And if the owner realises he cannot achieve what he above all desires, what then? That he has already been prepared to undermine such a brilliant manager is alarming enough: unless he learns from his mistakes, and leaves the running of the team to its coach, the club could quite easily begin to encounter difficulties which would make its recent handful of disappointing results look like what a more sensible board should have always regarded them as in the first place: a picnic. If Abramovich genuinely believes that another manager can be expected to operate under such pressure, while still being expected to deliver championship after championship, one thing is certain: he will be in for a very rude shock.

Exit Le Guen, re-enter Smith - but who's REALLY to blame for the turmoil at Ibrox?

2007-01-09T02:52:00.000Z

When, in March of last year, Rangers confirmed that they had recruited Paul Le Guen to replace Alex McLeish as manager at the season's end, it seemed a genuine coup. Le Guen's capture of three successive French titles during his time at Lyon had made him a much sought-after man, who could, it was thought, take his pick from many of Europe's top clubs. That he ultimately chose Rangers seemed an exciting confirmation of Ibrox chairman Sir David Murray's ambition: here, surely, was the man to restore the Glasgow giants to their once unquestioned pre-eminence within the Scottish game, and make long-overdue inroads in continental combat too.

This observer, certainly, assumed the highly-regarded Frenchman would, given time, gradually turn the Gers' flagging fortunes around. Yet, as so many Old Firm managers have discovered in the past, time is a rare commodity where either Rangers or Celtic are concerned. John Barnes actually made the best start in statistical terms of any Parkhead boss in history: but as the Bhoys' great rivals disappeared into the distance early in the New Year, it was his unhappy fate to discover how quickly boardroom and fan support can turn into opprobrium - with the infamous Scottish Cup elimination by Inverness Caledonian Thistle proving the straw which broke the camel's back. Le Guen did not even last as long as his club's entry into the Cup: exiting by mutual consent last week, with Murray's lack of backing for the manager's stance in his much-publicised standoff with captain Barry Ferguson apparently proving decisive.

Given all that has been written, not least on this very blog, about the ongoing culture clash at Hearts under Vladimir Romanov, one is immediately drawn to the stark contrast between Murray's refusal to accept the ostracisation of Ferguson and the Jambos' decision to strip Steven Pressley of the club captaincy and release him. The Rangers chairman plainly felt extremely uncomfortable about publicly humiliating a highly popular, talismanic player, whereas Romanov's message was that no individual, however popular, however much service he might have given, was to be considered indispensable: especially not if he was thought to be an obstruction to the changes which the Tynecastle supremo wishes to bring forth. And it must be acknowledged that, however controversial Pressley's parting of the ways with the Edinburgh club was, and however angry many Hearts supporters were at the time, events since have, so far at least, largely vindicated the club's decision: with a hitherto troubled season at last beginning to flatline, the squad seeming more at ease with itself than in many months, and ten points from a possible twelve having been accrued, not to mention a smooth passage past Stranraer as the defence of the Scottish Cup began on Saturday.

Yet one also cannot help but wonder whether the decision to dispense with Le Guen's services hadn't already been taken before Ferguson was apparently stripped of the armband. Certainly, reports confidently (and, as will be confirmed within the next 48 hours, correctly) predicting Walter Smith's return to Ibrox appeared within hours of the Frenchman's departure: indeed, rumours had been circulating precisely to that effect during the previous week. Smith was a remarkably short-priced favourite for the job with the bookmakers as soon as Le Guen's exit was announced: and the almost immediate signing of Andy Webster - never someone who particularly interested Le Guen - would surely not have been made without the consent of any new manager. The evidence, in other words, strongly suggests that Le Guen's battle of wills with his captain was not so much an attempt to at last instill his ideas and values upon the club, as merely the final, valedictory throw of the dice of a man who already knew his time was up.

Moreover, as a number of reports confirmed in the broadsheet press over the weekend, Le Guen had in fact been struggling to overcome the resistance to his methods of players like Ferguson and Kris Boyd ever since his arrival: indeed, just as the Hearts dressing-room had developed into a number of debilitating cliques - one featuring Lithuanian players, another, senior Scottish professionals - so the Ibrox squad had rapidly polarised into one pitting Scottish players against Le Guen's mainly continental signings such as Filip Sebo, Karl Svensson and Lionel Letizi. Le Guen wanted a vastly more rigorous training regime, and the end to what he clearly perceived to be a drinking culture at the club: but the likes of Ferguson and Boyd plainly felt differently. Of course, had the Frenchman delivered rapid results on the pitch, he would have had a far better chance of taking the squad with him: but when these failed to materialise, the relationship between him and a number of players became ever more strained.

It is important to underscore here just what a massively difficult task Le Guen undertook when agreeing to become McLeish's successor: for the Rangers of 2007 are anything but the often hugely impressive side of the 1990s. This is a club which at different times in the not-too-distant past boasted individuals such as Paul Gascoigne, Brian Laudrup, Ally McCoist, Andy Goram, Ian Durrant, Terry Butcher and Trevor Steven: yet as it subsided to a miserable third-place finish last season, had suddenly become reliant on the likes of Thomas Buffel, Marvin Andrews and Charlie Adam. How had such a state of affairs come to pass?

The answer lies partly in the lack of resources - and especially of television revenue - which continues to undermine all Scottish clubs; but more in a catastrophic period of overstretch embarked upon by Murray and Dick Advocaat in the late 1990s and early this decade. Advocaat joined Rangers at a time when the breakaway Scottish Premier League had just been formed, complete with a four-year television deal with SKY, football as a whole continued to enjoy a boom which had begun in the aftermath of Italia 90, and many clubs believed the future lay in selling their own rights to telecommunications companies. Cable organisation NTL became the sponsors of both Celtic and Rangers, and the Scottish Media Group made an £8m investment (over half of which was made up of convertible loan stock) in Hearts.

Against this backdrop, Murray believed the time was right to attempt to gatecrash Europe's true elite: but in the continued absence of anything like the revenue enjoyed by clubs in England, Spain, Italy or Germany, there was never the remotest chance that his plans could succeed. At Hearts, chief executive Chris Robinson absurdly believed a mere £8m could bridge the yawning chasm to the Old Firm, even when a Champions League qualification berth wasn't even available yet to the side finishing 2nd. With Celtic and especially Rangers spending far more, third place, and with it a probable early UEFA Cup exit (both of which would have been perfectly attainable on a far lower wage bill), remained the limit of what Hearts could realistically hope to achieve: but by the time this was realised, SMG had entirely predictably decided not to convert their loan, which quickly became a monumental, near-fatal albatross around the club's neck.

And similarly, Rangers - while already Scotland's dominant club - faced an unbridgeable gap to those clubs enjoying bountiful domestic and Champions League riches year-in, year-out. An excellent Gers side featuring players such as Stefan Klos, Jorg Albertz, Andrei Kanchelskis and Rod Wallace swept all before it in the SPL, and gave a good account of itself in Europe too: but there it faced the combined might of Bayern Munich and Valencia, both of whom reached the last four of that season's Champions League, and would contest the final the following year too. Rangers, albeit a little unluckily, were eliminated following the group stage: exactly what would have occurred in any case on a much lower and more sustainable wage bill.

The transfer fees and wages now being paid by the club made sustained European success not just desirable, but entirely necessary: but it was impossible to attain. To make matters considerably worse, Celtic now finally got their act together, and recruited the brilliant Martin O'Neill, who within a matter of weeks had left Advocaat's team trailing in his wake. Now, even Champions League qualification of any description was under serious threat: which explains the disastrous decision to spend a ludicrous £12m in acquiring Tore Andre Flo from Chelsea in November 2000.

But it made little difference: O'Neill's Celtic were suddenly pre-eminent, while Rangers began to implode amid a sea of competing egos and injuries to key players. Only when Advocaat departed midway through the 2001/2 season was the club's spending (which included a bewildering £6.5m on Michael Ball in Summer 2001) at last reined in: but in the meantime, its debts had soared, and would eventually peak at a whopping £90m. So belatedly, over-priced, under-performing players at last began to be sold off: but even though the title was snatched on goal difference in 2002/3, the damage had already been done. Thanks to the disastrous mistakes which had been made, and which had nothing whatsoever to do with him, McLeish could not hope to shop in the same market which, thanks to his board's relative parsimony, O'Neill occasionally enjoyed: yet he still had to deal with the expectations of a fervent support who could not possibly tolerate the prospect of their club playing second fiddle to their great, eternal rivals from across the city.

Indeed, it is to the highly underrated McLeish's immense credit that he was somehow able to match his far more celebrated rival's haul of seven trophies despite a slightly shorter period in charge: but this statistic, however impressive, papers over more than a few cracks. In reality, but for a couple of bounces of the ball here or there, Celtic would now be well on their way to securing seven titles in a row: and have become every bit as dominant as Rangers were over the previous decade.

Football fans often forget how much success on the pitch owes to financial stability being achieved off it: and while Rangers' achievement of nine championships in a row between 1988 and 1997 was undoubtedly remarkable, it was thanks both to their own sensible economic strategy, as well as their great rivals being in a state of continual chaos, with the gates to an almost-derelict Parkhead very nearly locked for good in early 1994. Similarly, Celtic's pre-eminence now owes a huge amount to the foundations laid in place by former chairman Fergus McCann, who attracted an unfathomable degree of fury amongst Bhoys supporters while modernising the club, transforming the stadium, and building a team which recaptured the title in 1998, and then began its period of dominance under O'Neill two years later; while it has been their rivals' turn to suffer the consequences of economic folly.

That is the background against which Le Guen became manager: and although Rangers' debts have been reduced considerably, they are still playing catch-up to a Celtic whose board remember all too well their near-death experience of thirteen years ago, and have carefully followed a strategy which, while often infuriating their supporters, and even at times O'Neill, is likely to provide for both stability and success for many years to come. Only because Celtic's finances are relatively healthy was Gordon Strachan's board prepared to at last loosen the purse strings in order to sign Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Thomas Gravesen: but this was not a luxury available to Le Guen, who focused instead on signing cheap, young foreign imports with an emphasis on building for the long term.

In light of all this, it is astonishing that Murray was not prepared to offer Le Guen his full, unwavering support for the sweeping changes which the manager correctly deemed to be absolutely necessary. Last season demonstrated with abundant clarity that Rangers were off the pace, and required a radical change of approach: such change is often painful and demands patience, both from the supporters and especially from the board. It should also be remembered that, however much Le Guen's acquisitions struggled to adapt to the peculiar demands of the Scottish game, his side was still very much on course to achieve 2nd spot and Champions League qualification, and had demonstrated surprising levels of progress in the UEFA Cup.

Arsenal's board displayed qualities of patience and vision when Arsene Wenger's first fifteen months in charge proved difficult; and Liverpool's directors maintained their faith in Rafael Benitez while his side struggled badly to gain a foothold in the Premiership during his initial season at the helm. Both were rewarded, and there is no reason to believe those in charge at Ibrox would not have been as well, had they provided the backing which a coach of Le Guen's repute surely warranted. If the manager deemed individuals such as Ferguson and Boyd to be a bar to his ideas bearing fruit, his board should have supported him: instead, in turning tail only midway through an inevitably problematic first season, they took the easy way out.

Smith's imminent return surely suggests that those players most opposed to Le Guen's way of doing things have very much won the day: but without real change, how can Rangers hope to close the gap on their rivals? The club are still paying heavily for colossal errors of judgement made seven or even eight years ago, and it is absurd to expect an immediate transformation against such a grim backdrop. If Rangers supporters are looking to find the individual or individuals responsible for their proud club's current state, they should look not at Le Guen or McLeish, or even at Ferguson or Boyd, but to the very top: to their chairman.

Sir David Murray may be the man who together with Graeme Souness transformed the club in the late 1980s; he may be the owner who oversaw nine-in-a-row; he may even be the man who returned in order to help reduce the Gers' enormous debts over recent years. But he was also responsible for the monumental blunders which landed the club in such a mess in the first place: and in failing to back a manager who was sensibly attempting to build for the long term and gradually sort that mess out, he has been guilty of diverting the fans' attention towards an all-too-easy scapegoat. It is now Smith's remit to revive the club and restore past glories; but with a chairman like Murray still in place, it must be doubted whether such a task can be accomplished: whoever the manager might be.

An apology: and the year ahead on The Big Feller

2007-01-09T02:10:00.000Z

Dear all,

First, profuse apologies are due for the lack of activity on this blog over the past month. While many people's festive periods were, I trust, full of glad tidings and good cheer, mine involved tending to some extremely difficult family circumstances which are now, I hope, on the mend. And with those dealt with, I'm at last able to begin refocusing both on this website, and on finishing my PhD.

My aim is to update this blog at least twice a week, and I have plenty of pieces planned: one on Rangers which will follow later on today, an article on the inimitable Jose Mourinho and the current difficulties of his Chelsea side, and also a feature on Wealdstone, the non-league team I followed in my youth. We will also be dipping into the Six Nations and Rugby World Cup, reporting on how the cricketers recover from the Ashes debacle, and keeping a close eye on the progress, or possible lack of it, of Steve McClaren's England side towards Euro 2008. Plus, of course, there will be the usual regular updates on the goings-on at Carrow Road and Tynecastle.

Huge thanks to all who've logged onto this site and read or commented on my articles so far: your feedback, whether positive or, ahem, not-so-positive, has been massively appreciated. Particular apologies are due to the select band who, I know, frequent this site particularly regularly, and have been greeted for the past month with an article dated December 10: such tardiness may be typical of a student, but is hardly ideal for a budding journalist! I promise to do rather better from now on.

Best wishes to all for the year ahead: whatever team you follow (even if it's Ipswich or Hibs!), may it prove a successful, points-laden and perhaps even silverware-adorned one. And may we all continue to be entertained, infuriated, uplifted and deflated by whatever sport we hold particularly dear: the debates that it engenders are, surely, what it's all about, and it's a pleasure to be able to engage in a few such discussions with people from all over the world on messageboards, in chat rooms, and even on this very website.

Have a good one, everybody: and now (and not before time), it's on with the show...

Elvis has left the building

2006-12-10T01:48:00.000Z

In almost all revolutions, much blood is often spilled along the way. And this, at least in metaphorical terms, has certainly proved the case in the ongoing struggle at Heart of Midlothian: with bells on. First George Burley left having led the club to its best start since the Great War, then its popular and highly regarded Chief Executive and Chairman, Phil Anderton and George Foulkes respectively, followed soon after. And now, just over six weeks after his statement at Riccarton underlining the 'significant unrest' within the dressing room triggered a saga which once more led to the goings-on at Hearts being thrust into the national spotlight, club captain Steven Pressley has been released, with immediate effect.

First things first: both on and off the pitch, Pressley has been a magnificent servant for Hearts. Joining the club in Summer 1998, at a time when the Jambos were expected to kick on from lifting their first piece of silverware in 36 years to provide a concerted, and long-overdue challenge to the Old Firm, 'Elvis' instead had to settle in during a season which saw the team career in the opposite direction, and even flirt with relegation. Played out of position, his form and confidence suffered: but as the side at last started to recover near the season's end, he began to win the fans over with the kind of wholehearted reliability which would become his trademark.

As the club's financial position suffered, the team broke up, cut-backs were made and Chris Robinson's stewardship attracted more and more opprobrium, Pressley remained a constant, becoming a Scotland regular as well as a marvellously consistent player and leader for the club; and last season, when at last it appeared Hearts had a team capable of giving the Glasgow giants a real run for their money, he demonstrated qualities of diplomacy which would have put Henry Kissinger to shame as Burley, Anderton, Foulkes and Graham Rix all abruptly departed, and Vladimir Romanov's handling of things came under increasingly close scrutiny. "Crisis? What crisis?" As long as Elvis was around, the fans could be confident that the club was in safe hands.

Which is why, of course, the fact that even he has been deemed surplus to requirements would appear so alarming: if Elvis can be treated like this, nobody is safe from 'Vlad the Impaler''s wrath. But strip away the emotion from the situation, and take a step back for a moment. How many of those either reading this, or who have expressed contempt for Romanov's 'dictatorship' of the club, could criticise their employers in public and get away with it? How many British football clubs, or even businesses (especially those taken over by foreign investors) make their decisions according to the wishes of the employees, rather than the boss or owner? In both cases, my suspicion would be hardly any.

Moreover, since making his statement alongside Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon on October 27, Pressley has been offered both a new contract and a coaching role at the club, and for whatever reason, has failed to reach agreement with those in charge. We cannot know why this might be: for all we know, the terms offered may have been derisory, and not worth the paper they were written on. But more likely, surely (and I must stress this is purely speculative on my part), is that the club doubted the extent of Pressley's long-term commitment, were aware of his gradually declining performances on the park, and therefore offered him a deal which, while maintaining his services, intended gradually to phase out his playing career in favour of fast-tracking younger, cheaper alternatives into the team: something which Elvis, who remains part of Walter Smith's plans with the national team, could not accept. So negotiations irrevocably broke down, and Pressley has left as a result.

Many, many clubs lose the services of valued players every season for precisely the above reasons: what makes Hearts any different? The answer, of course, is the perception beloved of the media and footballing world in general of the club having become the plaything of a mad, autocratic owner: the kind of view which holds that, were Romanov a political leader in Soviet times, Pressley would have been banished to Siberia for insubordination.

The club must take a great deal of responsibility for losing control of events, and attracting such an extraordinarily negative press: something which was certainly not the case when Hearts were the talk of British football for all the right reasons during the increasingly distant, halcyon days of early last season. If the accounts of Burley, Anderton and Foulkes' exits in Mark Donaldson's excellent new book, 'Believe!', are true, all three departures were essentially unnecessary and avoidable; and at times since then, the judgement of those in charge has been simply appalling: whether ranting about agents or referees, appointing the woefully out-of-his-depth Rix and then leaving him in charge for too long, pedantically conducting a drawn-out argument with the Scottish Football Association when it rejected Eduard Malofeev's coaching credentials instead of immediately sending him off to study for new ones, or in appointing Malofeev to succeed the unwell Valdas Ivanauskas.

When he wasn't either embarrassing himself by waxing unlyrical about media conspiracies, or disgracing himself by laying hands on fourth officials, not-so-steady Eddie presided over a succession of tactically confused, technically maladroit, shambolic performances, culminating in the worst display in an Edinburgh derby in living memory: that Romanov had such apparent confidence in the man took one's breath away. To employ the trusty old phrase, if Hearts fans never set eyes on Malofeev again, it will be too soon.

But is it not also the case that, for all the many mistakes and misjudgements of the past year and more, too many have failed to at least try and view events through the prism of those running the club? Just as fans, media and even senior players have grown increasingly unhappy and alarmed by Romanov's policies, so, surely, the perspective of both the majority shareholder and his close colleagues is of a club whose traditional way of doing things led it to a position whereby, had the Russian entrepreneur not become involved, it would have sold its cherished home and one remaining major asset, and headed for what in all likelihood would have been a long, lingering death in front of dwindling crowds at Murrayfield.

Having bought and saved the club, surely Romanov has the right to expect to do things his way? Moreover, contrary to popular perception, his way is not an untested one either: it has transformed FBK Kaunas into Lithuania's dominant club, and led to such success at the tiny Minsk club of MTZ-Ripo that the British parallel would involve Charlton continually qualifying for the Champions League. So when figures such as Burley or Pressley challenge his way of doing things, Romanov can justifiably point to both his record, and Hearts' desperately troubled recent past, as reasons for sticking to his chosen course, can he not?

What has been going on since Romanov took charge at the club has been nothing less than a clash, perhaps even a war, of wholly different cultures. The Scottish, indeed British, way of doing things is for the manager to have sole control of picking the team, making signings, and dealing with agents; but this is not Romanov's way. For the club to achieve long-term profitability (without which, there is no point in him having invested in the first place), it needs to develop young players of all nationalities through academies in Scotland, Lithuania and Belarus, loaning individuals between clubs in order to minimise cost, and ultimately selling them on for substantial profits in the future, before reinvesting the proceeds in the team. Moreover, it also requires either the redevelopment of Tynecastle, or the relocation of the club to a more cost-effective site elsewhere in Edinburgh or the surrounding areas: with the development of hotels, shops and flats on the site being just as fiscally important as the state-of-the-art stadium which is envisaged.

Romanov is, in other words, following a long-term, properly thought-through plan; but in his view, it requires all those in his employ to be fully onside. And, rightly or wrongly, Burley, Anderton, Foulkes, Pressley and a number of others have been considered either not to be, or to have flat out obstructed the chances of this plan coming to fruition. When Burley wanted full autonomy over selections and signings, it contradicted Romanov's desire to place talented Lithuanians in the shop window for reasons of economics, as well as to develop the game in the land of his birth; and the owner was also deeply unhappy about the manager's desire to deal with a select number of agents he had cultivated during his long, largely successful career, rather than work with the Russian's own network of contacts in Eastern Europe.

And Pressley's unhappiness at the same preference for certain players over others, together with his desire for the traditional, 'British' system of a manager enjoying complete control to be given sway once more, was again perceived as an obstruction: for Romanov grew up during the time of the Soviet Union. Businessmen who prospered in such an environment tend, for reasons of background, not to brook disagreement, and especially, to demand loyalty and unity above all else: when each of the individuals named above threatened this unity, they had to go.

It remains my opinion that the club has been too quick to view perfectly constructive, and potentially beneficial, criticism as simple disloyalty: and especially that it has continually failed to examine the underlying factors causing, say, Burley or Pressley to react as they did. Equally, though, there can be little doubt that those in charge have faced an astonishing degree of scepticism, obstruction and downright opposition from both the Scottish footballing authorities and the media: and while it is regrettable that they have dug their heels in even more obstinately as a result, it is entirely understandable nonetheless.

Certainly, one senses that as far as Romanov is concerned, he is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't: and while his misguided decision to remain silent for a month really just resulted in the club looking arrogant and aloof, his argument would be that he adopted such a stance in order to show that the press would continue to write nasty things about him, no matter what he did. And on that, it has to be acknowledged that he was proved triumphantly correct.

In order for things not to implode completely, there is now a desperate need for a period of real calm and stability at the club. Ivanauskas' return from sick leave has immediately led to a long-overdue upturn in performances, with Hearts' welcome 4-1 victory over Motherwell yesterday not only their first win in ten games, but also a sign that maybe, through no real fault of his own, Pressley had indeed become a problem over recent weeks thanks to his much-publicised comments. Incredibly, despite their miserable recent run, Hearts are still in fourth position in the SPL, and in strong contention for a UEFA Cup place, if not more: and Romanov can already justifiably argue that his way of doing things, however controversial, led to the club's best campaign in 46 years only last season. If he was hugely in credit as recently as May, he has hardly exhausted it less than seven months later.

It is now up to both sides to reach out and attempt to understand one another: the Romanovs to understand why the fans are so worried, supporters to empathise with the owner's desire to change a failed way of doing things in order to deliver long-term success. Just as the first casualty of war is truth, so it might be argued that the first casualty of change is trust: and while it is beholden on the club to repair and regain that trust, it is also incumbent on all those who love Heart of Midlothian not to jump to conclusions, not to react emotively, but to give those in charge the time to put things right. Romanov, indeed, earned that chance by rescuing the club in the first place. Hearts fans will know if and when the time has come to turn their fire on the man who was once considered their saviour: but in spite of all that has happened, and desperately sad as Pressley's departure undoubtedly is, that hour is still some considerable way off.

Ashes to ashes, England to dust

2006-12-06T05:00:00.000Z

What is it about English sportsmen? Why, when the going gets tough, do they time and again respond with the most stereotyped negativity: an approach which seems almost to invite their demise? The footballers' staggeringly cautious tactics in Germany saw them regarded as the laughing stock of the tournament; the rugby team became ever more narrow and predictable in the years following (and even the games immediately leading up to) their World Cup triumph; and this morning, the cricketers capped their own historically-trademarked propensity to collapse by somehow surrendering a position of apparent impregnability in Adelaide.

Laud Australia's astonishing fightback and the incomparable Shane Warne all you will: but they couldn't have done it without England. A lesson we all need to learn in life is to think and act positively: if we don't believe in ourselves, nobody else is likely to. Around the world, promising young sportsmen learn this earlier than most: for invariably, in order to rise to the top in highly competitive sporting environs, they have to fight for all they are worth. Yet when English sportsmen fight, too often it isn't through a mentality of "the best form of defence is attack", but by adopting a dour, joyless approach which results inevitably in defeat.

The saddest thing about England's capitulation is that, after more than a decade of kow-towing to Australian dominance, they finally appeared to have absorbed this lesson only last year. The bouncer which Stephen Harmison bowled to Matthew Hayden in the very first ball of the 2005 Ashes series at Lord's, and especially the astonishing, tide-turning accumulation of over 400 runs on the first day at Edgbaston, served notice to the opposition: this time, England weren't in the least bit intimidated, and were very much up for the battle. Such was the speed of their run-scoring, they managed to elevate a strategy developed by their opponents' brilliantly inventive captain, Mark Taylor, in the mid-1990s, to still another level: and Australia were shocked almost into submission as a result.

Yet on this tour, and even allowing for the absence of Michael Vaughan, Simon Jones and Marcus Trescothick, they have reverted to type, hoping for things to work out rather than making them happen. Like Nasser Hussain's notorious, craven decision to insert Australia at Brisbane four years ago, Harmison's opening ball in the First Test betrayed nothing but panic; and Duncan Fletcher's misguided belief in Ashley Giles and Geraint Jones suggests he is wedded to the past - what worked in 2005 - rather than the future.

Make no mistake: all sporting teams end up reflecting the approach of their leader. Hussain made England hard to beat, but Vaughan was the man whose creative, original approach took them to another level. In Australia, their bewildering reversion stems from muddled and simply wrong-headed thinking from Fletcher: which started when Andrew Flintoff was preferred as captain to Andrew Strauss. Alec Stewart was hopelessly compromised eight years ago when expected to captain, keep wicket and open the batting: and England only started playing to their potential when he at last handed over the gloves to Warren Hegg, leaving him far more able to focus his energies on scoring much-needed runs. Captaining an international cricket team is so demanding that it invariably exhausts most asked to do the job: which is why the admirable Flintoff, already arguably England's most important player, should never have been asked to lead the side on top of spearheading the attack and batting at number six.

Hardly surprisingly, Flintoff's batting has suffered as a result: and his captaincy has scarcely been inspired either. To make matters worse, the choice of the big-hearted Lancastrian made it almost impossible to go in with a team confident of producing the lower-order runs Fletcher seems so pre-occupied with. Surely no other international team would prefer an innocuous, insipid off-spinner like Giles to an erratic, but far more threatening one like Monty Panesar, and a palpably inferior wicketkeeper like Jones over a genuinely top-quality one like Chris Read, simply because they are thought likely to score more runs? Would Australia drop Glenn McGrath because of inadequacies in his batting or fielding? Hardly. Yet had Strauss been maintained as skipper, England could surely have selected the following side, which would have been more dangerous in attack as well as enjoying a much sturdier tail:

Strauss (capt), Cook, Bell, Pietersen, Collingwood, Joyce, Flintoff, Read, Harmison, Hoggard, Panesar

And of course, there would have been the option of bringing in either James Anderson or preferably Sajid Mahmood for Ed Joyce as and when the conditions demanded it. But no case could possibly be made for playing only four bowlers and making Flintoff skipper: hence the preference of Giles and Jones, which has wasted potentially rich assets in Read and especially Panesar, and done heaven knows what to the morale and motivation of both too.

It is a desperately negative approach, which recalls similarly bamboozling selectorial decisions of the past: notably when England all but threw away any chance they had of regaining the urn by leaving Phil Tufnell at home for the 1998/9 tour. Laughably, they were left with only the moderate Peter Such to face the hosts on a spinners' paradise at Sydney: and although England played magnificently for much of that game, it may not have been a coincidence that the three-to-one ratio of slow bowlers in the two teams (Australia fielding Warne, Stuart MacGill and Colin Miller) was also reflected in the final, wholly justified outcome of that series.

And England's batting collapse on the final day at Adelaide was horribly familiar too. The first Ashes tour I followed was in 1990/1: and in Test after Test of that series, there was a ghastly inevitabilty to Bruce Reid ripping through the tourists' final five or six wickets while scarcely a handful of runs had been added. Similarly, eight years later, England actually competed on more or less equal terms for maybe 90% of the first three matches; but threw it all away with shockingly rapid collapses, after which Australia would put on two hundred plus runs in next to no time, and bat England right out of the game.

Why? One can only conclude that it's all in the mind. However unlikely it must have seemed, the Australian dressing room believed that an implausible victory in Adelaide was, actually, perfectly possible: and the brilliance of Warne promptly made it beckon. England, on the other hand, were gripped by an absurd level of caution. The tourists could have made the game safe on a still excellent surface simply by batting normally yesterday, and adding say 240 runs over the first three hours: yet incredibly, their run rate slowed to that of a snail. The incessant desire to block, block, block simply invited pressure, and made the fall of wickets seem all but inevitable. It would have hardly been reckless for the batsmen to give bad balls the treatment they warranted, and keep the total ticking over: indeed, such a basic approach would never have allowed the pressure to develop as it did.

And bewilderingly, once seven or eight wickets were down, Paul Collingwood - who had a magnificent match overall, and like Matthew Hoggard, certainly did not deserve to be on the losing side - continued to block, and pick up the very occasional single, rather than look to score the quick runs which by this point had become England's only realistic hope. Australia showed how easy it was to score quickly when rapidly chasing their inadequate target down: but then, Australian cricketers invariably think positively. Unlike England's: and with it blindingly obvious to all and sundry that attempting to slow the hosts' run rate down could not possibly suffice, and that the only way of saving or winning the game lay in taking quick wickets, what did Flintoff do but give the desperately limited Giles over after over, employ just one slip, and keep most of the other fielders back, so allowing Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey the chance to pick off ones and twos as a matter of routine?

Confused, indecisive, wrong-headed, negative. So much of it stems from Fletcher: whose continued justification of Giles and Jones' selections after the game make him seem more and more like cricket's answer to Sven-Goran Eriksson. Indeed, one of the great ironies in all this is the sense that, when England's sporting bodies look overseas for guidance, and a bold, new approach, what they get are individuals who become so infected by the caution endemic in English sport that they end up more conservative and more English than the English themselves.

Fletcher's reign as coach is now, surely, almost at an end; and his team now face the prospect of real humiliation. Australia have threatened the prospect of a 5-0 whitewash on a number of occasions over the past eighteen years: but it has arguably never seemed as likely as it does now. Flintoff's men are shell-shocked, and unlike after Brisbane, will scarcely be able to reassure themselves with positives taken out of the game: instead, there is every chance that Adelaide 2006 will, as the wonderful Gideon Haigh writes today, come to torment and fester in English cricketing minds every bit as much as Headingley 1981 did in the heads of Australians. The baggy greens have always been vulnerable when chasing small targets ever since what happened to them at Leeds: and how can England ever feel confident of a first-innings total, no matter how great, being enough after the nightmare they have endured here?

Warne, McGrath, Ponting and company, meanwhile, are cock-a-hoop, and can impose a new, lasting strangulation over the Poms by rubbing their noses firmly in the mire in the three matches which remain. It could all have been so different; it will take a miracle to rescue this unhappy tour now. And until English sport finds the courage to confront its demons, and set out on a bold, new, revolutionary path embracing risk, change, optimism, and sheer enjoyment (a good word, that: for when was the last time you saw an English side in any of the three major sports playing with a smile on its face?) of competition, more woe for the footballers, rugby players and cricketers - and for all of us who love English sport, and yearn for it to succeed in the highest of company - is surely inevitable in the years ahead.

First rule of business: the customer is always right...

2006-12-01T01:34:00.000Z

... Except, of course, when he isn't: and that certainly seemed to be Peter Grant's opinion in the aftermath of Hull City's late equaliser against his side on Saturday. Admirably honest when publicly criticising his players in his first few weeks in the job, the Norwich City manager went a stage further last weekend in lambasting his own supporters - whose unease during the final quarter of an hour against Hull manifested itself in, at least in the view of the combative Glaswegian, an eerie quiet. And when these nerves apparently transmitted themselves to the team, who promptly threw away two points against a struggling side for the third time this season, it was too much for the manager: who labelled the fans a 'disgrace'.

The initial reaction on messageboards and among fans I spoke to was one of fury at Grant's outburst: in his recklessness, there was a great danger he had lost the faith of the supporters. All of which made Tuesday night's match against Leicester a pivotal moment in the Scot's fledgling managerial career. Had Norwich played as poorly as in their previous two fixtures against Hull and Ipswich, there seemed every chance of the frustration felt by Canaries fans at their side's decline in little more than two years from runaway league champions to an at times desperately average bunch of cloggers boiling over, with Grant bearing the brunt: mercifully, though, City responded to going a goal down with a highly encouraging fightback, three goals, and the maintenance of their position on the fringes of the play-off race. A potential crisis had been averted, and the fans can look ahead to a crucial four games prior to Christmas with optimism, rather than apprehension.

So, was Grant right? Certainly, his choice of words - and in particular, the 'D' word - left a lot to be desired, but could surely be put down to his deep frustration in Saturday's immediate aftermath at two priceless points being lost. But nevertheless, in the view of this fan at least, there was more than an element of truth in what the manager said: for as long as I can remember, Norwich fans have been known throughout the game for our docile, placid nature. Perhaps the worst example I can ever recall was when, less than four years after the Canaries knocked Bayern Munich out of the UEFA Cup, we were humiliated by lowly Barnet in the League Cup: and as I trudged in furious disbelief out of Underhill, one fellow supporter turned to another and simply shrugged, "Ah well, things can only get better".

Any other set of supporters whose side had recently been lording it in the Premiership would, surely, have risen in tumult against the manager, players, perhaps even Delia Smith's board: but not Norwich fans. Indeed, despite the season which unfolded producing some of the club's most pathetic displays in living memory (5-0 at Ipswich, 5-0 at Wolves, 4-0 at home to Charlton, 3-0 down in a must-win Carrow Road game against a hopeless, disinterested Bradford, 3-0 at Grimsby), and City flirting dangerously close with what would have been an unthinkable, catastrophic relegation to English football's third flight, at no point did the fans turn on the man overseeing this shambles, Mike Walker: whose cherished status as the conquering hero who led us to European football in his first spell at the club, and who had bailed us out by reluctantly agreeing to return following Robert Chase's long-overdue departure, spared him any opprobrium. And when he was eventually dismissed once survival had been achieved, most of us felt nothing but sympathy towards him, as well as considerable anger towards the board, whose handling of the Silver Fox' exit left an extremely sour taste in many peoples' throats.

The essential point is this: Norwich are, and have always been, a decent, dignified, family club, and our fans invariably reflect this. But the problem is the self-fulfilling prophecy it creates: with the media patronising us, players invariably treating us as a stepping stone to bigger, more 'ambitious' clubs, the board being gazumped by more ruthless competitors when signings are attempted, and the supporters being admittedly annoyed, but never turning en masse against a manager, Nigel Worthington, who should have been dismissed almost a year before he finally left. And in the utterly cut-throat world which football has become - an environment, indeed, which would make Gordon Gekko blush - such an approach cannot possibly lead to sustained success.

Molineux, St Andrews, the Stadium of Light, Ninian Park, Elland Road, even Turf Moor: all these Championship venues are notoriously difficult to win at, because the supporters create such an unremittingly hostile atmosphere. Admittedly, there is a flip-side here too: Leeds fans, for example, have hardly surprisingly turned on their own team during this miserable season for their once-proud club, and Wolves supporters can be ludicrously fickle: one even going to the trouble of constructing a banner with the immortal words, "You've let us down again!", before his team had so much as kicked off against Norwich in the play-off semi-final second leg four years ago. But while the turnout of Canaries fans at Carrow Road remains magnificent, and second only to Sunderland of any club in the Championship, too often, the atmosphere at the ground is virtually dead, with supporters expecting the team to inspire them, rather than the other way around.

The great frustration is that, over the years, Norwich fans have proved we can do it: the cacophonous, almost-celebratory din which accompanied our gallant UEFA Cup exit in the San Siro in 1993 astonished our Italian hosts, and will remain in the memory of all those who were lucky enough to be there; and similarly, the sensational colour and noise of the enormous turnout from Norfolk at the 2002 play-off final was, according to those in charge at the Millennium Stadium, simply unsurpassed in their experience of overseeing such showpieces. The crescendo which accompanied the team's fightback from three goals down against Middlesbrough two seasons ago has all but passed into club folklore; and the support of the fans never let up on that sad, sad day at Craven Cottage when we were betrayed by a shameful, spineless capitulation by players who proved they were simply not fit to wear the shirt.

Indeed, perhaps it's most accurate to suggest that away from home, when the true hardcore fans gather together, Norwich fans are at our best - but at Carrow Road, all too often it can be the exact opposite. When in recent memory, for example, have we come anything close to matching the fanaticism which Portsmouth fans have all but trademarked since their club's promotion to the top flight: support which must, surely, have played a considerable part in their continued success since? That was what provoked Delia's celebrated half-time rant against Manchester City two seasons ago: for in a crunch, must-win game, and even allowing for the poverty of the team's display in crumbling from a position of strength, too many fans had gone missing in action.

When Grant became manager just under two months ago, many of us demanded he cut through the complacency endemic in the club: a whole new, infinitely more ruthless approach was required for City to have a chance of fulfilling our potential. To that end, it is somewhat rich for supporters to applaud when the pugnacious Scot lays into the players, only to condemn him when he holds the fans to similarly exacting standards: because it's all part of the same thing. Indeed, it is arguable that in our tolerance, patience, and reluctance to lambast the pathetic inertia of the board during, for example, Worthington's final year at the helm, we get the club we deserve: and if only the fans become more demanding, and more hostile to opposing teams, the tired, craven, failed mentality of the club will at last begin to change too.

So while we can bemoan the alarming weakness of the squad, complain that the quality of football isn't what many of us were brought up to expect, and even worry that, should we somehow win promotion, Sunderland's record for the worst-ever season in the Premiership may come under serious threat, we all owe it to Grant and the team to get behind them and help them as much as possible. Whisper it, but in spite of the shambles he inherited, Grant has so far accumulated a highly encouraging seventeen points from nine games: a return which, if continued over the rest of the season, will see us comfortably ensconsced in the play-offs. It's not his fault that the squad is so weak: yet in grinding out four 1-0 wins (two of them away to sides likely to be in the promotion shakeup themselves), he has shown signs of being able to make the best of a highly challenging job.

And in this topsy-turvy, madcap, God-foresaken division, the key is not so much to play champagne football as just, somehow, to get out: you can worry about the rest afterwards. Norwich may have a desperately mediocre team: but we are also just four points off the play-offs, with all things still eminently possible. Simply for getting the team back in the hunt, Grant deserves our support: and if his much-publicised comments result in a determination among the fans never to let up in their encouragement at Carrow Road over the remainder of the campaign, it could yet prove a highly significant turning-point for the better. Time will tell - but when supporters demand an open, direct, honest manager, they can hardly complain when he turns out to be exactly what so many of them called for, can they?

From champs to chumps, in three short years

2006-11-13T02:37:00.000Z

This blog, of course, is chiefly concerned with the goings-on of the footballing world; but very occasionally, it will branch out to discuss one or two of the author's other sporting passions. For just as the fortunes of England's football team frequently provide a mixture of hope and torment, so do those of the nation's cricket and rugby union sides: and it is to the latter that we turn today. For following Saturday afternoon's humiliation at the hands of Argentina, English rugby now finds itself at comfortably its lowest ebb since before the revolution instigated by Geoff Cooke, and which would ultimately lead to World Cup glory in Sydney three years ago, kicked in during the months following England's inept elimination from the inauguaral World Cup in 1987.

Predictably, one man has been singled out as being responsible for the national team's astonishing fall from grace: head coach, Andy Robinson. Robinson, it must be acknowledged, has long borne the appearance of a man out of his depth, and promoted well beyond his station: during his time at the helm, there has never been a sense that he really knew how to reinvigorate the world champions, and take them in a new direction. Moreover, there must even be some degree of doubt as to his true coaching credentials: for although he led Bath to a glorious, one-off triumph away to Brive in the 1998 Heineken Cup final, their results during most of the rest of his time in charge were distinctly underwhelming.

But it would be woefully unfair, and entirely insufficient, simply to lay the blame for England's pathetic state wholly upon Robinson's woebegone shoulders: the causes lie far deeper, and the seeds of his side's downfall were sown before he even took over. The red rose's triumph in Australia was down in no small part to the policy of Robinson's predecessor, Sir Clive Woodward: namely, to continually select a settled, experienced side, and allow it to gain in confidence and authority by gorging itself on one victory after another. As a result, the players developed a tremendous sense of familiarity in one another: something which was never better demonstrated than during the pre-planned 'Zigzag' line-out move which led to Jonny Wilkinson's decisive drop goal in the dying moments of the final.

But Woodward's strategy also effectively barred the door to new players emerging and becoming integrated in the team. Given the desperate, yearning need for England to at last break through their historical barriers, and end the suffocating strangehold of the southern hemisphere over the game, his approach was entirely understandable: he would be judged solely on the World Cup. Had his team failed there, it would hardly have been an excuse for him to take solace in having introduced new talent; just as it wasn't one either for John Mitchell of New Zealand, or Bernard Laporte of France, both of whose sides were comprehensively exposed by far more seasoned opponents at the semi-final stage.

But international rugby is such an unforgiving environment that, for any team to remain at or near the top, it must continually embrace new blood and refresh its approach. The 1995-7 All Blacks and 1997-8 Springboks both swept all before them with similarly settled teams to that which England enjoyed between 2001 and 2003: but in doing so, they became wholly reliant on a group of uniquely talented, experienced players. So when New Zealand's John Hart and South Africa's Nick Mallett were forced to replace individuals who either retired, were injured, or simply lost form, the consequences were calamitous: with the 1998 All Blacks and 1999 Springboks among the worst sides ever to represent their two proud, rich rugby nations. And Woodward's England, comfortably the oldest team ever to win the World Cup, predictably encountered precisely the same problem: when Martin Johnson, Neil Back and Jason Leonard retired, and Wilkinson and Richard Hill were injured, their replacements simply hadn't been readied for such a demanding stage.

To make matters worse, England's attacking approach had become steadily narrower and more conservative after reaching its zenith when Australia were humbled in Melbourne in June 2003: indeed, that they were nonetheless able to grasp the Cup having already commenced the long descent back to earth is not only an immense tribute to how accomplished the team had become, but also the state of fear and deference which had been established in opponents. That England, in spite of their notorious reputation for peaking between World Cups, rather than during them, could have developed such an aura that Australia were plainly proud of having pushed them so close on their own soil in the final was a total vindication of Woodward's insistence upon taking on the southern hemisphere as often as possible: and it would hardly be surprising if, with their opponents having won an incredible eleven such encounters in a row by the time they stepped out in Sydney, and four out of four against Australia, the expectation somewhere in the back of the Wallabies' minds was that all things being equal, it was about to become twelve on the spin too.

To some extent, England's triumph had, for all its undoubted magnificence, been something close to a brilliantly-executed con trick: with opponents fooled into believing in Woodward's team's inevitable omnipotence. But somewhere along the line, the attacking brio with which the coach had revolutionised his side's whole approach in the late 1990s and earlier part of this decade had been lost: and he himself had clearly run out of ideas. Having reached the peak, Woodward should have followed Johnson, Back and (before much longer) Leonard into retirement: instead, mistakenly, he held on. And while his rivals, most notably New Zealand's newly-appointed coach, Graham Henry, rapidly absorbed the lessons provided by the World Cup, and immediately set about putting them into practice, the newly annointed Sir Clive seemed, if anything, to become still more stubbornly wedded to his stereotyped conservatism: failing to introduce new players, and insisting on the same, tired old routines in training as his team fell into palpable decline.

First the team's long unbeaten record at Twickenham was lost, against Ireland; then, in a disastrous tour of the southern hemisphere during the summer, an exhausted set of players suddenly discovered how quickly they had fallen behind. Woodward seemed to try exactly the same thing as he had successfully done a year earlier: to take the All Blacks on up front with a forward-based game, before attempting a more all-court approach against the Wallabies; but his players were tired, and the world game had already moved on. England were thrashed in all three matches: and before long, their much-decorated coach would be gone.

But the problem was that precious time had already been wasted: for any new coach needs to be appointed at the start of a four-year cycle, not least because, should he prove demonstrably not up to the task, there is still the chance to dispense with his services after, say, two years before reviving under someone else. Thus Australia were able to recover from the bewildering ineptitude of Greg Smith's miserable period in charge between 1995 and 1997 by recruiting the brilliant, and still curiously underrated Rod Macqueen, who had a full two years in which to develop his hugely impressive 1999 World Cup winners. The Rugby Football Union would not be afforded any such luxury in the case of Robinson: for just as it would be premature in the extreme to wield the axe after only a year in charge, by the time two years had elapsed, it would already be dangerously close to the next global jamboree in France, with far too little time available for any successor to have a realistic hope of putting together a team capable of successfully defending the world crown.

As a result, Robinson's period in charge has been characterised by dithering indecision, not just by the coach himself, but those who appointed him too: never being clear whether to boldly rip up an old side and start anew, or follow Woodward's lead in prioritising the result over the performance. So the exciting Henry Paul was selected to face the Wallabies in November 2004, only to have his confidence shattered by being hauled off, extraordinarily, after just 24 minutes; and the Newcastle tyro, Mathew Tait, was given his debut in the cauldron of Cardiff's Millennium Stadium in February 2005, only to be scapegoated and dropped following the inept performance of his team: much to the understandable fury of his club coach, Rob Andrew. Similarly, heroes from the World Cup such as Jason Robinson, Mike Tindall and Ben Cohen have been at times persisted with, at others dropped, even when for much of the time their lack of form and confidence has been a constant.

Remarkably, even Lawrence Dallaglio was brought back into the fold last season: even though it represented an obvious look back, and was bound to undermine the position and authority of England's new captain, Martin Corry. Given such profoundly incoherent leadership from their coach, it should scarcely be surprising that his side have played so poorly for much of his spell at the helm: with the breathtaking ineptitude of their display against an equally shocking French side in March 2005 somehow surpassed when the two teams met again in this year's Six Nations, England falling to their heaviest defeat in Paris for thirty-four years.

But it must also be acknowledged that throughout, Robinson has been forced to endure a chaotic state of off-field affairs which would have sorely tested even a combination of Woodward, Henry and Bob Dwyer in their prime. In the years before the World Cup, Woodward had enjoyed an unprecedented degree of time with his players: some twenty-two training days in total, on top of the week leading up to each international. Given the narrowness of his side's triumph, he wanted this period increased to twenty-four days: but their clubs felt differently, successfully insisting on just sixteen days being allowed. This precipitated Woodward's resignation, and has hamstrung Robinson too: not least because the ferocious nature of English club rugby has resulted in injury after injury to key players.

The club versus country dispute, so familiar to followers of football in this country, reached its nadir when the RFU was taken to court over its highly provocative and utterly needless decision to, at short notice, organise a fourth international this autumn to coincide with the opening of Twickenham's new south stand. As a result, Robinson, assuming he remains in charge, will not be able to select his best players for both the remaining games of the autumn series against South Africa; for under the Elite Player Agreement which so incurred his predecessor's wrath, players can only be selected for a maximum of three internationals during the autumn. Given, if a player is involved for less than half a match, it is not considered to count towards the total, perhaps we may even witness the farcical situation of individuals hauled off after 39 minutes: but in any case, it is hardly a background in which any international coach can be expected to prosper.

With Andrew, formerly the RFU's most vociferous critic, appointed in the summer as its elite performance director (and in effect, Robinson's boss), there are some encouraging signs of peace breaking out: but nevertheless, the fact that Twickenham should have deemed yet another international to be necessary, and indeed, that Premiership rugby ludicrously continues while top players are away on England duty (a bizarre situation which effectively punishes those clubs which have either signed or developed the most accomplished individuals), is simply a demonstration of the greed which continues to undermine the English game - with the needs of the players shamefully treated as the lowest priority of all.

There is one further line of defence for Robinson to hold up to his many critics: put simply, England are enduring a particularly fallow period in terms of the availability of world-class, game-breaking players. Like all sports, rugby is cyclical: and just as Woodward, for all his qualities of leadership, vision and genius, could not possibly have succeeded without the mountainous talents of players such as Johnson, Wilkinson, Dallaglio, Back and Hill, it is almost impossible to see how his successor can be expected to emulate his achievements with a far more inferior group of players. Corry, for instance, is a wholehearted leader who gives everything to the cause: but this observer can scarcely recall a more limited player becoming England captain during the past two decades.

But it must still be seriously questioned whether Robinson has made the best of a bad job: and concluded, regrettably, that he has not. The 2005 Six Nations revealed such an array of problems within the team that Robinson should, surely, have drawn a line, given up the next World Cup as a hopeless cause, and thrown his weight fully behind a new generation of players looking to build for 2011: instead, fallibly, he stumbled on, not knowing whether to stick or to twist. And when this year's International Championship proved, if anything, even worse, the RFU, caught like a rabbit in the headlights by the proximity of the fast-approaching World Cup, took the easy way out by firing Robinson's defensive coach, Phil Larder, and kicking coach, Dave Alred, rather than the man himself.

A coach who stayed too long, and failed to plan for the future; a shambling, incompetent successor; an indecisive, greedy union; a brutally demanding domestic game; a dearth of world-class players. All of this has led to where England now find themselves: and never mind retaining the World Cup, the real question on current form is whether they will even qualify from their group next autumn. Mindbogglingly, reports this morning suggest the RFU will resist the urge to dismiss Robinson, which if so, would be unadulterated folly: not least because two games against a bedraggled, weakened Springbok team may yet lead to a perception of false paradise, with the coach subsequently retained through the Six Nations, by which point it will be far too late to make a change.

Whether by merely reshuffling the England coaching staff, with Andrew given the job, or by boldly looking overseas to Mallett, Warren Gatland or Eddie Jones, it is now imperative that Robinson's contract is terminated: and even more so that the RFU and the clubs find a way to stop killing the goose which laid the golden egg. Otherwise, it may prove many years indeed before England return to the summit which took so much effort to reach, and led to such public rejoicing on that increasingly distant November morning.

Glory, Glory to the Hibees?

2006-11-09T05:26:00.000Z

Given the enormous amount of football-related blogs which have appeared over the last year or two, finding a good one can be a tricky business. The fact that so many fans are now able to give voice to their opinions is one of the very best things about the worldwide web; but equally, without commercial expertise in publicising a particular blog, too often these opinions are invariably drowned out in the midst of so many others.

One such blog which doesn't appear to have been publicised much, but represents an excellent read, is We Love Fitba, a round-up of the weekly goings-on north of the border. Its articles are frequently well-written, amusing and thought-provoking, and given its author was kind enough to review my blog a week or two back, the least I can do is return the favour.

The man behind We Love Fitba is a Hibernian supporter - though thankfully, he doesn't go in for the tiresome, childish "ma team's bigger/better than yours" nonsense which frequently disfigures messageboard debate. Admittedly, there are one or two regular digs in the direction of Hearts: but even this Jambo would cheerfully acknowledge that the constant Romanov-inspired chaos down Gorgie way can hardly be ignored by any budding journalist or blogger. And there will surely be more in the way of this when his blog is next updated: because Hibs fans awoke this morning with the delighted feeling inspired by their team dumping a sorry excuse for a Hearts side out of the CIS Cup at Easter Road last night.

In some respects, Hibs have become everything that Hearts are not over recent years: accepting that, in the absence of a sugardaddy suddenly emerging, any attempt to challenge the Old Firm would represent financial suicide, they are now a byword for economic stability in the Scottish game: posting a profit in their most recent set of financial results, and concentrating their energies in bringing through young Scottish talent, to be sold on for profit to bigger clubs when the time is right. Derek Riordan, Garry O'Connor, Ian Murray and Gary Caldwell have all rapidly developed at the club, before leaving over the past eighteen months or so; and although, thanks to the Old Firm's continued capacity to poach players from rival clubs, only O'Connor actually fetched a fee, it is to Hibs' credit that they have largely been able to maintain their on-field progress in the absence of these individuals.

Much of this has been down to Tony Mowbray, who arrived at the club in Summer 2004, at a time when its supporters had been left deeply disenchanted both by the results and dreadful quality of football presided over by his hapless predecessor, Bobby Williamson. True, a talented group of youngsters had begun to emerge during Williamson's final year at the club, but it is inconceivable he would have led them to the same degree of success as Mowbray would enjoy: the former Kilmarnock and Plymouth boss being as clear a case as one could imagine of a square peg in a round managerial hole, with his notorious remark that those Hibees who wanted a more entertaining style of play from their team should "go to the cinema" proving the straw that broke the camel's back.

Into this breach stepped Mowbray, who thanks to his lack of prior experience in management represented a considerable gamble, and whose appointment was regarded as deeply underwhelming by many fans: but he won them over in no time with a brand of exciting, attacking football which, against all predictions, rapidly turned his side into the 'best of the rest' (an epithet which continued to apply even as Hearts detached themselves from the pack last season: although the reward was now merely 4th spot in the SPL, rather than third). Mowbray's classy, dignified manner also impressed, and represented a refreshing change from the kind of graceless whingeing which all too many managers are guilty of nowadays, both north and south of the border.

Of course, he was only able to prioritise in producing an attractive product above all else by deliberately keeping expectations low, and emphasising how large the gap to the Old Firm remained: it is questionable whether such a strategy would have been as successful at a club with a more demanding board or set of supporters. We'll soon find out, though, given he has recently been recruited by West Bromwich Albion: and despite an unconvincing start, this writer strongly suspects he will prove the man not only to take the Baggies back into the top flight, but - thanks to the football he believes in being far more ambitious than that presided over by Gary Megson or Bryan Robson - keep them there as well.

Hibs, meanwhile, are left trying to build upon the legacy Mowbray has left, in the guise of their new boss, John Collins: a wonderful player and deep thinker on the game, but who once more must be considered a risk given this is his first job in management too. For the question remains whether it was merely Mowbray's success which was responsible for the stability and excellent reputation the club now enjoys, or in fact, that it is much more deep-rooted, a consequence of chairman Rod Petrie's clever stewardship, and bound to continue seamlessly under whoever the manager might be.

Thanks to last night's victory, Collins now has an immediate and wonderful opportunity to make his mark: indeed, to cast himself in the fans' eyes as not just a playing legend, but a managerial one too. For with both halves of the Old Firm and Hearts now out of the competition, Hibs must surely be considered clear favourites to go on and win what would be only their second piece of silverware in the last 34 years: indeed, only Jim Jefferies' equally cheaply-assembled and attractive young Kilmarnock side appear capable of stopping them. But then, Hibs are also the club who, having played brilliantly in eliminating both Celtic and Rangers from this same tournament three seasons ago, then fell listlessly in the final to little Livingston; and missed glorious opportunities to reach the final of the Scottish Cup - the competition which has tormented the club for more than a century - in both 2000 and 2005 by losing to Aberdeen and Dundee United sides which had spent their seasons battling relegation.

Whenever Hearts fans have gloried in their team's second-place finish and triumph in the Scottish Cup last season, Hibs supporters have invariably retorted that in the first case, Rangers were (indeed, still are) a shambles; and in the second, that the Jambos were enormously fortunate both in their draw, and in scrambling past tiny Gretna on penalties in the final. True - though this argument has always struck me as a little strange, considering it was their own team which was summarily dismissed, 4-0, in the semi-finals, in what had been billed as the biggest Edinburgh derby for over a century. But now the boot is on the other foot: for it is inconceivable that any Hibee could continue to refer to their great rivals' 'easy' path to Cup glory last season if their club does not now take advantage of a draw which would appear just as simple to negotiate.

There is only so long a set of supporters (and especially those of a club with the status of one of Scotland's unquestioned big five) can continue to settle merely for attractive football, but no silverware: and one can't help but wonder how the fans will react if their team now fails once more to deliver something tangible. The defeat of Hearts, although hugely important in terms of bragging rights in the city, will essentially mean nothing if it does not lead to ultimate triumph in the competition. Although it pains this Jambo to say it, the prudent policy followed by the club in recent years, and the entertaining, promising side developed by Mowbray, deserves real reward: it is up to Collins and his team to ensure that the gaping opportunity provided by the remainder of this season's CIS Cup is now grasped.

Shepherd must carry the can for the shambles at St James'

2006-11-05T03:03:00.000Z

Thus far, this blog has focused largely on the two clubs closest to this writer's heart - but over the weeks and months ahead, it will be branching out into covering all aspects of the footballing world: starting here, with an analysis of the appalling state of affairs at Newcastle United, one of England's truly great clubs, and one for which the author has more than a soft spot too. Last night, Newcastle's inept home defeat by Sheffield United plunged them into the Premiership's bottom two, and resulted in hundreds of fans calling for the resignation of Freddy Shepherd's board. Given the shocking degree of failure which Shepherd has presided over for the best part of a decade, the wonder is that the figure calling for his head did not in fact number several thousand; for the loyalty and patience of the Toon Army has, surely, been pushed to breaking point by his stewardship of their proud, famous club.

Shepherd, by way of reminder, is the man who was once notoriously recorded referring to the women of Newcastle as 'dogs', while lampooning the naive loyalty of the supporters, before incredibly being able to worm his way back onto the board and become chairman; who preposterously described the Magpies - a club with not a single piece of domestic silverware to its name for more than half a century - as one of the three biggest in the country, and the manager's position as one of the eight most sought after in the world; who callously dismissed the idea of sympathising with the financial predicament of the nation's smaller clubs with the words, "when we have 52,000 fans at each game, the last thing we are worried about is the Third Division"; who publicly boasted of being about to sign Wayne Rooney, only to be entirely predictably gazumped by Manchester United, leaving his club once more held up to universal ridicule; and who cut Sir Bobby Robson off at the knees by publicly announcing that 2004/5 was to be his final season as manager: so removing any authority Robson might still have had, and making inevitable the disastrous start which resulted in his exit.

Yet the above pales almost into insignificance when we begin to explore the far deeper problem: the profound lack of even a semblance of a long-term plan at the club, and constant sense that it has preferred the publicity and glamour offered by making big-money signings to the nitty-gritty of building a strong, successful squad. For Shepherd certainly cannot be accused of having failed to back his managers: Robson and Graeme Souness, to name just two, spent close on £120m between them. But all too often, vast quantities of this budget were thrown away on attack-minded, often flaky acquisitions, seemingly in a constant effort to demonstrate the ambition of the club: £10m on Laurent Robert, £9.5m on Albert Luque, £8.5m on Hugo Viana, £7m on Carl Cort, £4.1m on Christian Bassedas. And this is before we even consider the money spent on players who either were, or could yet prove a success, yet were always liable to render such expenditure a dangerous hostage to fortune by picking up a long-term injury: £6m on Craig Bellamy, £6m on Kieron Dyer, £16m on Michael Owen, £10m on Obafemi Martins.

Invariably, other top clubs use their transfer budgets in a far more measured way, with top-quality defensive signings regarded as just as important as their counterparts at the other end of the field, and above all, with the aim of ensuring that the squad is able to cover all foreseeable eventualities. Yet an injury to one mere (albeit key) player, Bellamy, derailed Newcastle's title challenge in 2001/2; a rash of them involving Bellamy, Dyer, Jermaine Jenas, Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate scuppered their UEFA Cup dreams, hopes of qualifying for the Champions League, and indeed, Robson's chances of staying in the job in the final months of 2003/4; and this writer's jaw dropped in disbelief as the club - one of England's big five - entered a critical UEFA Cup quarter-final/FA Cup semi-final double-header the following season dependent on the likes of Amdy Faye, Charles N'Zogbia, James Milner and Steven Taylor. Talents these four players may very well be - but put simply, none of Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea would have ever found themselves relying on such inexperienced individuals in a pair of such hugely important games.

It is tempting to put all of this down to bad luck: indeed, such an explanation proved irresistible to Robson and Souness when explaining the defeats and disappointments they oversaw. But it completely misses the point; for a policy of spending huge amounts of money on glamorous, 'big name' players, but ignoring the need for quantity as well as quality simply invites such a scenario. Robson, for all the vast improvement he oversaw during his first four years at the helm, never seemed prepared to tackle his team's obvious defensive deficiencies: when they met Manchester United in April 2003, for example, a game which the Magpies had to win in order to maintain their flickering title aspirations, the limitations of players such as Titus Bramble, Aaron Hughes and Olivier Bernard could not have been more ruthlessly exposed. United won 6-2, and in so doing underlined that, for all their immense expenditure, the gap between Newcastle and the championship was as big as ever: perhaps shell-shocked by this realisation, Robson's side never recovered during his remaining time at the club.

So why has the club continually pursued such a brazen, carefree strategy: one which, after another £15m was spent on just two players this past summer, has left it ludicrously undermanned in both defence and attack, and with an astoundingly thin squad overall? The answer must surely be that Shepherd is himself a fan, and buys into that romantic, widely-held idea that Newcastle supporters want an emphasis on out-and-out attacking football above all else. Kevin Keegan, of course, once suggested that the Toon Army would prefer to lose 4-3 than win 1-0, and endured the scars at Anfield in March 1996 to prove it; yet after a domestic trophy drought of what will shortly be 52 years, is this really the case?

To be sure, like all supporters, Geordies want to be entertained, and would probably prefer to win 4-3 than win 1-0; yet the mark of title-winning sides is an ability to play gloriously and expansively one week, and grind out a result the next. To have one but not the other simply does not work: so for example, Gerard Houllier's Liverpool made hay in various cup competitions, but came miserably unstuck in the league thanks to a predictable, inflexible strategy; and Arsene Wenger's Arsenal have discovered in recent years that all the most beautiful, flowing play in the world isn't going to win the championship unless it can be matched with fight and steel. Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United were best able to combine these two qualities in the 1990s, and Jose Mourinho's Chelsea have been so more lately: yet for some strange reason, Newcastle, whether under Robson or Keegan, never appeared to cotton on to basic footballing reality.

Still more disastrous was Shepherd's attempt in the earlier part of the decade to do much the same as his counterpart Peter Ridsdale at Leeds: to spend big in an attempt to gatecrash the Champions League, only to find that, once there, failure to match the inevitably higher wages and anticipated budget in the seasons ahead would have catastrophic results. David O'Leary's job was untenable after his Leeds side failed to reach the Champions League for two straight years; and Robson suffered the identical fate after his team floundered to fifth spot in 2003/4. True, they had finished third a year earlier, but their elimination on penalties to Partizan Belgrade in the qualifying round - in arguably the most pivotal game in the entire modern era of the club - meant that the writing was already on the wall: failure to finish in the top four in the season which followed would have horrendous ramifications.

And the thing is, Shepherd's policy was bound to fail. Just as Leeds had done before them, Newcastle were competing for Champions League spots with three exceptionally stable, well-run clubs in United, Arsenal and Liverpool: none of whom had broken the bank in achieving their pre-eminence over the English game. Newcastle could perhaps hope to take advantage of, say, one of them slipping up in any particular season, but there was already little margin for error, and once Roman Abramovich arrived at Chelsea in Summer 2003, the rules of the game completely changed. Newcastle, who had believed they were moving closer to United and Arsenal step by step, were simply blown out of the water, and left with almost no room to breathe: for even had they managed to pip Liverpool to the fourth and final qualifying position in May 2004, it would only have been a matter of time before the Reds inevitably reasserted themselves.

When you combine all this with a strategy based around signing expensive, exotic stars, rather than developing a robust squad, it's a recipe for short-term success, but long-term disaster. The only way for clubs to break into what is now an established Big Four is to build gradually, and never risk spending money which can only be recouped if the team proves as successful as is hoped. Such are the financial realities of football nowadays, failure to reach the Champions League when budgeting to do so is even more disastrous than being relegated from the Premiership when expecting to stay up: and if a club does not immediately recover the following season, the repercussions are both harsh and long lasting.

Unlike at Elland Road, Newcastle's debt is based on secure, long-term loans, and the Magpies are therefore highly unlikely to experience the horrific off-field problems which have crippled Leeds in recent years; but at differing points during this decade, Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester City have all chronically overstretched in an attempt to 'live the dream', and all three have suffered the on-field consequences: City, indeed, didn't even get near the top four, despite a wage bill under Keegan designed to catapult the club back into the big time. And it is no coincidence that they, like Newcastle, now face a season-long relegation battle: for Stuart Pearce and Glenn Roeder are both dealing with problems sown well before they took over in the hot seat.

But there have been other mistakes under Shepherd too: for while Robson's failure to reach the top four in 2003/4 made his position untenable, it was simply ludicrous to keep him in place only to sack him (and then, disgracefully, drag the settlement of his contract through a protracted legal process: Robson, remember, being the man who, as a Geordie himself, had identified perfectly with the supporters, had transformed the team from being one caught in a death spiral when he first took over to achieving successive finishes of fourth, third and fifth, made the club so popular that it was once more the second favourite team of much of the public, and conducted himself with typical class, grace and dignity throughout his entire time at the helm), a handful of games into the following campaign.

This not only left the club with a far narrower range of possible successors to choose from, but compromised whoever that figure would be: for any manager needs a full pre-season in order to get his own ideas across, and make his own signings too. For this to happen once would be bad enough; but at St James' Park, it has happened no less than three times over the past decade: Kenny Dalglish, Ruud Gullit and Robson all packing their bags within weeks of a new season being underway. To make matters worse, Shepherd's idea of the man to lead the club back to success turned out, incomprehensibly, to be Souness, who was in the process of failing with Blackburn, had a record of hounding out of various clubs anyone who said boo to a goose (and for Andrew Cole and David Dunn at Ewood Park, read all too quickly Bellamy and Robert at St James'), and never appeared to have the faintest inkling as to what Newcastle United were all about; and, it must be said, the choice of the combustible Scot's successor left more than a little to be desired too.

Glenn Roeder is, without question, a thoroughly decent, likeable man: but his record in management is not only atrocious, but has followed an alarming pattern. After almost taking Gillingham into the Conference, Roeder's subsequent spells with Watford and West Ham resulted in false, flattering seventh-placed finishes based on late-season runs achieved against teams already safe in mid-table and with little else to play for, followed by relegation the following year. And where did Newcastle finish last season, after a surprising late-season run mainly achieved against teams already safe in mid-table and with little to play for? You've guessed it: seventh.

Roeder can only do what he can: but the real question is, why is such a profoundly under-qualified figure in charge of a club which, given its unparalleled levels of failure over the past half a century, must be regarded as the most difficult to manage in the entire country? And that brings us back to where we began: Shepherd, who thanks to the complete failure of his stewardship, needed as cheap an option as one could possibly imagine; Shepherd, whose appalling mismanagement of the club's finances has led to a loss of over £12m over the past year, and a state of affairs so absurd that last night's game against the Blades - one which could have massive ramifications come the end of the season - was played less than 48 hours after a UEFA Cup trip to Palermo. And why? Because Newcastle - unlike any other club in the same situation - failed to ask the Premier League to move the game back to Sunday: they needed the money provided by SKY's screening of it on pay-per-view.

In their astonishing passion and devotion to the cause, despite enduring decade upon decade of heartbreak, Newcastle supporters are, along with their partners in under-achievement from the blue half of Manchester, simply the finest in the land: put simply, they deserve far, far better. But sometimes one can't help but sense that their loyalty is taken for granted; and indeed, that they can't bring themselves to even criticise, let alone condemn, a figure who continues to be revered simply because he owns the very thing which they hold so dear. But this time, surely, enough must be enough.

Over the past decade, this writer has seen more than his fair share of poor Magpies teams under Messrs Dalglish, Gullit and Souness; but never before has he genuinely believed that the club faced the real prospect of relegation. But with Sheffield United, Charlton, Fulham and Bolton already faced at St James', a pathetic one point having been taken from these games, none of the Big Four having even visited yet, and with a frighteningly thin squad which cannot be reinforced until January, Newcastle are in dire trouble. It is not a question of simply blaming the manager: the problems go far deeper, and start at the top.

Shepherd, the man who, lest we forget, has not so much fiddled while Rome burned as taken over £5m out of the club in share dividends while awarding himself a hefty half-a-million pound plus salary year on year, must either resign or the supporters must force him out; for given the shambles his policies have led to, to allow him to remain would be to tempt a truly horrendous fate. In football, when a fan thinks things cannot possibly get any worse, they quite often do: Magpies fans would do well to bear this in mind when deciding how to respond to the massive crisis now engulfing their great club.

Reality bites at Carrow Road

2006-11-01T19:14:00.000Z

When this blog last reported on events at Norwich City, Canary fans were enjoying a rare bout of optimism. Peter Grant's tough, relentlessly positive approach to his new job was exactly what City supporters everywhere had been calling for: his openness and honesty being the very opposite of the tired, tactically inept, cliche ridden nonsense for which his once-successful predecessor had become notorious. Grant even presided over a clean sheet and away win in his first match in charge, leaving Norwich fans wondering whether maybe, just maybe, the last year had all just been a bad dream; and that a mere change at the top could have us surging back into contention for a return to the land of milk and honey.

Of course, unless your club happens to be Crystal Palace and Iain Dowie has just taken charge, life is rarely so simple. For subsequent events have illustrated the immensity of the task facing the new manager, as well as once more underlining the incompetence of the Canary board ever since Norwich were relegated. Fiddling while Rome burned, that they could find themselves presiding over a situation whereby, only nineteen months since the club beat Manchester United and embarked on a late, gallant attempt to avoid the drop, and with it still enjoying the privilege of parachute payments, the first team squad is so pathetically thin is an appalling indictment, both of Nigel Worthington's transfer policy and of Delia, Michael and co for sanctioning it seemingly without a second thought.

For while City's first choice XI is top six material at the very least, the lack of depth in the squad is frightening to behold. The season may still be relatively early, but statistics already tell a very clear story. Norwich were able to deploy an unchanged side which virtually picked itself in our first five league matches, and ten points were accrued; but as soon as injuries occurred to players like Darren Huckerby, Carl Robinson and Adam Drury, the team plummeted down the table, leaking a disgraceful 17 goals in six league games.

Grant was fortunate enough to have a full-strength side to select in his first two games in charge against Birmingham and Cardiff, and six points out of six immediately followed - but without Lee Croft last night, his side failed to beat Colchester in the kind of game which represents a routine home victory for any team harbouring even the slightest aspirations of challenging for promotion; and in the absence of Huckerby, Robert Earnshaw and Youssef Safri - arguably his three most important players - at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday, City collapsed to their heaviest defeat in the second flight since that day of ignominy at Portman Road in February 1998.

The facts may be simple, but they bear reiterating. When able to field our first choice side, Norwich have taken an excellent sixteen points from seven games, and conceded just four goals; but when affected by any absences at all (taking, for the sake of the argument, Huckerby's fourth-minute injury at Coventry as a game in the second category, and bearing in mind that it is as yet unclear who Grant considers to be his preferred goalkeeper), the result has been a shocking three points from eight games, and an unbelievable 23 goals lost: relegation form by any definition.

If it wasn't for the fact that, by all reports of his interviews for the job, Grant was astonishingly well-briefed on the team's strengths and weaknesses, he would surely be stupefied that a club so recently in the Premiership (and one which, remember, supposedly budgeted that year to finish bottom), could find itself in such a state: and it would be outrageous to attach any responsibility to him for it. Instead, real and searching questions need to be asked of a board who, with a spineless combination of myopia and inertia, have imperilled City's Championship future were the kind of injury crisis which bedevils many clubs each season to strike; all Grant can do is keep fingers, toes and everything else crossed that one does not.

That said though, there are a few small criticisms which can be made of his stewardship at this very early stage. The first is to remind him that, while his breathtakingly honest comments on a number of players' performances following the defeat of Cardiff were admirable, and in many ways exactly what the doctor ordered, it is still a highly risky strategy to publicly criticise individuals before he can be confident that he has them onside. When such an approach backfires, it is often more because of the attitude of a player rather than anything his manager might have done; but this observer cannot be the only Canary supporter who remembers rumours of many players celebrating when Martin O'Neill departed on that dark December morning eleven years ago. Given all that O'Neill has gone on to achieve, the joke, ultimately, was on them; but it would be a terrible pity were Grant's eventual exit to provoke a similar response.

Secondly, there may be a danger that the manager is expecting his charges to run before they can walk. At Stoke, not only was he forced by circumstances beyond his control into playing square pegs in round holes, but to judge by his thoughts afterwards, he is already demanding an ambitious combination of creative football and quickness of thought: even when considerably understrength, and adopting an alien 4-1-4-1 system with Gary Doherty in a wholly unfamiliar role shielding the back four. If he is ultimately to develop a side capable of not just getting back to the Premiership, but staying and establishing itself there, such an approach will certainly be necessary - but given the severe limitations of his current squad, shouldn't he be focusing on getting the basics right first before attempting anything more challenging?

My final point, though, is really just a nagging doubt which has peristed in my mind ever since Grant's appointment was announced. During his brief playing spell at Carrow Road, he talked a very good game: pointing, gesticulating and geeing up his colleagues on the park, and speaking confidently of his ambitions for the club off it; but in truth, even as part of a desperately poor City side, he too often completely failed to live up to his words, and few supporters were sorry to see him depart Norfolk in Summer 1998. One can only hope this does not prove an omen for his spell in the hot seat - and although it is very early days at this point, given the stark gap between publicly making immense physical and mental demands of his players, and overseeing a humiliating defeat last weekend, there are already superficial comparisons which can plainly be drawn.

Essentially, Grant is on a learning curve: which is of course inevitable, given his lack of managerial experience before taking over. What has been most encouraging has been the palpable sense that, while learning the ropes at Bournemouth and West Ham, he was literally grooming himself for this position: not least because it represents far and away his best opportunity of one day walking through the Parkhead doors in his dream job as manager of Celtic. In his highly refreshing approach thus far, he has already demonstrated that he will leave no stone unturned in his quest to lead the club back to success, and it will be fascinating to see how he gets on - but the reality is that, given the paucity of resources he has to play with, he is in much the same position as Worthington was on his appointment almost six years ago.

Barring a miracle occurring between now and May, at least two out of three of Huckerby, Earnshaw and Safri will surely depart by the summer; and with the parachute payments running out, Grant will be forced to totally rebuild the side. In truth, given all we've seen so far this season, this is really no bad thing: but the club finds itself back at square one, and it will take some considerable time, and require a great deal of patience and frustration on the part of the supporters, for it to begin to contend once more.

Tynecastle on tenterhooks

2006-10-30T06:33:00.000Z

So in the end, the 'Tynecastle Three' of Steven Pressley, Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon were indeed selected to face Dunfermline on Saturday - and the worst fears of Hearts fans everywhere thankfully weren't realised. Not that it helped much, with the Jambos' first game under interim manager Eduard Malofeev resulting in a depressing 1-1 draw; but after the utter chaos of what occurred on Friday, perhaps we should be grateful for small mercies.

What is increasingly clear, though, is that the club now faces a truly pivotal moment. Ever since the mercurial, impetuous nature of Vladimir Romanov first became evident, Hearts supporters have been terrified of a scenario whereby, were they to turn against him, the majority shareholder would up sticks, and leave the club completely in the lurch: indeed, it may well explain why his behaviour over the past year has attracted so little opprobrium. But over the weekend, there has been a perceptible change in many fans' attitudes: with even the most optimistic of supporters, who'd believed all those stories of Romanov interfering in team selection to be little more than media mischief-making, and put the side's frequently poor displays this season down to players simply being out of form, rather than as a consequence of a far deeper malaise, totally unable to defend the owner's rant at Riccarton; and accepting that clearly, given a trio of such well-regarded players felt the need to go public about their anxieties, Romanov needs for everybody's sake to listen.

In this context, that the rebel three weren't punished and frozen out of Saturday's team has to be considered a small step forward. But the patience of many fans is now at breaking point: with Romanov, for all the huge good he's done for the club, in danger of being seen as a liability. For if he fails to heed the warning shot fired across his bows by the players, if he continues to meddle with the selection of the side, and if the team continues to be picked not by virtue of meritocracy, but with certain players all but guaranteed to start no matter how badly they might be performing, it is not difficult to imagine how it could all unravel: how key players, sick at having to work in such a chaotic environment, could either leave of their own accord or be sold by their furious owner, how the team's fortunes could crumble, and how the fans could turn in fury on the man once regarded as their saviour.

Yet there is another, rather happier scenario: for Romanov is, if nothing else, a highly accomplished businessman, who remains, as he confirmed on Saturday, deeply committed to the club. The theory behind his long-term plan: namely, to focus on young players progressing into the first team via the youth academies of not just Hearts, but FBK Kaunas and MTZ-Ripo too, makes considerable economic and footballing sense - but he must surely have hugely underestimated the effect a policy of favouring certain players over others would have on team morale. In yesterday morning's newspapers, a number of highly alarming stories emerged of cliques and factions in the squad, with senior players such as Pressley, Hartley and Gordon joined by Roman Bednar, Julien Brellier, Takis Fyssas, Michal Pospisil and Bruno Aguiar in one camp; and figures recruited as personal favourites of Romanov such as Edgaras Jankauskas, Saulius Mikoliunas, Deividas Cesnauskis and Marius Zaliukas in another.

Hardly surprisingly, the Lithuanian contingent, who have often benefited at the expense of the likes of Brellier and Aguiar, have been felt by many in the squad to simply not be pulling their weight; with Gordon's impassioned plea following the defeat by Kilmarnock nine days ago for "everyone to pull in the same direction, take responsibility... and step up to the plate" a clear sign of his frustration that a number of players were continually required to carry the rest of the side. Of most concern of all has been the ease with which journalists have been able to secure damning assessments of how the club is being run from either players or figures extremely close to the top brass: with Moira Gordon's piece in Scotland on Sunday quoting a whole host of different, deeply unhappy (albeit unnamed) sources.

Taken together with Pressley's decision to go to the media with his many concerns, the picture all this paints is of not merely a bitterly divided dressing-room, but a club in a state of near meltdown, with the right hand not having the faintest clue as to what the left one is doing. Indeed, the ultimate example of this occurred at around 5pm on Saturday: for while Malofeev insisted to Radio Scotland that his boss never meddled in team affairs, and there had been no mutiny among the players, Charlie Mann, Romanov's official spokesman, not only confirmed on Five Live that the Tynecastle supremo did interfere, and that he had threatened to sell the entire squad should they fail to defeat Dunfermline, but he also expressly supported the dramatic response of Pressley, Hartley and Gordon.

Mann's words were by far the more significant: for in common with Lord Foulkes, the former chairman, his perspective was one of relief that everything was at last out in the open, and that it provided a long-overdue opportunity to lance the boil, and bring everyone at the club together again. It may also indicate a concerted attempt, on the part of not just the rebel trio, but other key players, club officials such as its Director of Operations, Campbell Ogilvie, and Mann himself, to finally persuade Romanov to take heed of the gravity of the current situation. If not exactly a putsch, it is certainly a challenge to the Hearts owner to listen and understand: for there can be no question that it is his actions which have led to such a perilous state of affairs at a club he genuinely believes he can lead to success.

Romanov is expected to meet Pressley for face-to-face talks later this week: and there he has the opportunity to truly demonstrate the depth of his commitment to the club. For his plan is no longer working: it may have delivered 2nd place and the Scottish Cup last season, but it has led to a rapidly deteriorating side on the park, and mayhem off it, this. Having gone to so much effort to involve and immerse himself in football, and embark on a project intended to help develop the game in his own country, topple the Old Firm with Hearts, and profit personally from the success this will bring, for him to now stubbornly stick to his guns and fail to heed the warnings of his captain would not merely be folly - but utterly inexplicable, and wholly counter-productive to his own twin causes of profit and popularity. And his decision not to punish the players who spoke out against his running of the club may well be a sign that he at last understands this.

None of what I have written should be regarded as a prediction: the author has learnt a chastening lesson over the past week that, where Vladimir Romanov is concerned, even to predict his behaviour from one hour to the next represents the ultimate in fruitless causes. And many other issues - not just his interference in the selection of the team - require resolution: not least the widespread feeling that Malofeev's training methods have resulted in the players being chronically overworked and left devoid of any enjoyment or inspiration in their performances.

But there is a sense that things have, at last, begun to move in the right direction: that the players' revolt on Friday may at length have woken Romanov up to how divisive his methods were proving. If he does, as we all assume, cherish the adulation which has poured forth from Jambos everywhere since his arrival at the club, and if he is truly serious in his ambitions for the future, it would behove him to listen and act upon what Pressley has to say: for if he does the right thing, the light at the end of the tunnel may prove, after all, not to be an oncoming train.

Tynecastle update: 'Events, dear boy, events...'

2006-10-27T19:08:00.000Z

Harold Macmillan's words, of course, have often been employed as a stark rejoinder to politicians and statesmen of the world's infinite capacity to spring a surprise when least expected - and lay waste to even the best-laid plans. But given the events of recent days, perhaps they should also now be applied to budding new bloggers seeking to explain the behaviour of their football club's mercurial owner: especially when that owner is Vladimir Romanov. Because to be sure, where Mr Romanov is concerned, there is, as the old saying goes, never a dull moment.

To recap the goings-on of the past week: on Saturday evening, immediately following an abysmal Hearts display against Kilmarnock, and a thoroughly deserved 2-0 home defeat, rumours began circulating as to the future of head coach, Valdas Ivanauskas: and this, of course, within hours of my posting on here that barring a total collapse in the team's fortunes, and given Romanov's desire for stability after all that went on last season, Ivanauskas' job was safe. The comments of David Southern, the club's press spokesman, that Ivanauskas didn't want to talk to the media after the game because he had "bigger things to worry about" were widely assumed to mean only one thing: Ivanuaskas, like Robertson, Burley and Rix before him, was history.

In fact, when Ivanuaskas flew to Lithuania to meet Romanov on Monday, what transpired was something rather different: the manager was in poor health and desperately needed a break, which his boss, who has worked with him for a number of years and continues to have full confidence in his abilities, happily granted. The ailing Ivanauskas was placed on a fortnight's sick leave; and the highly experienced Eduard Malofeev, the club's Sporting Director, placed in temporary charge of the team. But the revelations didn't stop there: indeed, what has followed may well explain just why Ivanauskas was suffering so much in the first place.

Ever since George Burley departed the scene just over a year ago, it has long been assumed both in the media and among many fans that Romanov interferes in the selection of the team: many Jambos resigning themselves, however reluctantly, to the view that it was the price to be paid for his investment in and subsequent success with the club. Indeed, this writer acknowledged it surely to be the case in my last post. On Monday, further evidence emerged in this direction when Jim Duffy (a man who talks so much sense that it makes his dreadful record in management all the more baffling), who briefly served as Hearts' Director of Football last season, told the BBC that during his time at the club, he and Graham Rix would fax their preferred team to Romanov, who would run the rule over it and often send it back with certain names deleted, and others put in their place.

Duffy, of course, could be accused of having an axe to grind with the club given the court case Rix is currently pursuing; but there is no reason not to believe what he said. Indeed, in a meeting with fans the following evening, Charlie Mann, Romanov's personal spokesman, acknowledged as much himself, and made clear that he had tried to let his boss know that such an approach plainly wasn't a good idea. And when asked to deny it when personally addressing a number of supporters' groups yesterday, Romanov himself totally failed to do so: indeed, it quickly became clear that his interference was actually part of a (however ill-conceived) strategy. Namely, that the club had put its faith in a number of talented young players, many of whom have been placed on five-year contracts: the idea being that, as explained in Part 1 of my series on Romanov, only by investing and believing in youth, allowing these players to grow and develop together, and not spending beyond its means, could the club hope to achieve its goals of ending the domination of the Old Firm.

But the problem is this has plainly resulted in certain players being continually favoured, with the selection of other more senior pros (notably the highly popular Julien Brellier) vetoed by Romanov. Not only does this chronically undermine the authority of the manager, but it also totally de-stabilises team morale: for why would someone give their all in training when they know that, however well they might be playing, they cannot expect a consistent run in the team? And conversely, why would someone else give their all when they know they are bound to be selected, no matter what?

Hardly surprisingly, this has resulted in factions emerging in the dressing room: with senior players in one corner, and those brought in personally by Romanov in another. All this was effectively confirmed by captain Steven Pressley earlier today, when he, flanked by Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon, laid bare to the assembled media his deep unhappiness with the constant instability at the club, and especially, with the chronic interference of its owner. Pressley, one of the club's greatest ever skippers, has served Hearts magnificently for over eight years, and conducted himself with astonishing grace and dignity during the many traumas of last season: for him to have been driven to such a move means that something must be very seriously wrong.

It is surely not difficult now to understand why Ivanauskas' health has broken down; nor why the team has played so disappointingly so often this season. Unfortunately, the one man who appears unable to comprehend this is Romanov himself: for the event which triggered Pressley, Hartley and Gordon's decision to go to the press was the owner's astonishing attack on his players at the training ground this morning, at which they were told in no uncertain terms that unless they beat Dunfermline tomorrow, the entire team will be sold, and a bunch of reserves picked to face Celtic next weekend. Malofeev then immediately cancelled the club's scheduled press conference; but understandably, this was just too much to take for three players who have given their all, and are sick to death of constantly being undermined by the actions of their boss.

So, not for the first time under Romanov's command, the club finds itself at a crossroads. The supporters are likely to be hugely divided tomorrow: some backing Romanov, others fully behind the players. If, as is rumoured, none of the three individuals concerned are picked, that will only make matters worse, and further infuriate the fans - and if they turn against the owner, how will he respond?

One of the strangest things about all this is I am, still, genuinely convinced of Romanov's long-term commitment, almost in spite of himself, to achieving success with Hearts: indeed, I continue to stand by what I wrote both about his motivations, and the background to events over the past year (albeit with the rider that, however much Burley and Anderton were spending beyond the club's means, and however awful a manager Rix was, all three found what many others have too: that their boss was, to put it mildly, an incredibly difficult man to work with). But as a man with a background in the former Soviet Union, and as a ruthlessly successful entrepreneur, Romanov is plainly not used to being challenged in any way; and to be frank, his reaction to it is frequently petulant, childish and deeply alarming. It might even be that his lambasting of the players this morning was prompted by being seriously questioned by fans last night: which if so, would be both pathetic, and an appalling indictment of his character.

For Romanov appears to want it all ways: not merely to own a club and help bankroll its future, but to have a very large say in which players it signs, and who is picked too. Surely, as a successful businessman, he must realise that his behaviour puts at very real risk the future success of his investment? And while the vast majority of Hearts fans have tolerated his many eccentricities and pecadilloes given all he has thus far done for and achieved with the club, there will surely come a point when his tendency to behave with such extraordinary impetuousness and lack of forethought may ellicit a rather different response: for in his actions, he all too often totally undermines the club that we all love so dearly.

This is now Romanov's greatest test. To continue blindly asserting his authority, and fail to listen to what Pressley, Gordon and Hartley have said would not just represent footballing folly, but financial folly too: it would not merely undermine the team's prospects, but were Gordon, for example, to be forced out of the club, it could hardly expect to receive the kind of transfer fee which would befit one of the most talented young goalkeepers in Europe. The owner's obstinacy would, in other words, begin to threaten his entire long-term plan. He may well have succeeded in business without listening to others up to now; but this is a very different situation, and calls for him to display long-overdue signs of dignity and humility.

Only Romanov has the power both to stop events continuing to spiral out of control, and the fans from beginning to turn against him: he needs, at long last, to cease his interference, and allow the team to get on with things in peace, under an entirely autonomous manager. It is an almighty tribute to the players that, in spite of everything, they have achieved what they have over the past fifteen months or so: the greatest frustration of all being that if only Romanov would learn from his mistakes, they might well be able to accomplish so much more.

Vlad the Mad? Part 2: Burley, Rix, and the question of 'interference'

2006-10-19T15:36:00.000Z

So we've covered the reasons why Vladimir Romanov invested in Hearts, and what he hopes to achieve. Now it's onto the more meaty stuff: the various controversies he's been involved with during his time at Tynecastle. There's no better place to start than with George Burley: for it was his exit - together, just days later, with those of George Foulkes and Phil Anderton - with Hearts still top of the league which first got Jambos like myself worrying about the future under Romanov's command; and it also led to an abrupt change in what had previously been almost universally positive media coverage about the transformation the Lithuanian had overseen.

From very early on in Burley's brief, but astonishingly successful stewardship, a perception grew among Hearts fans that he wasn't fully committed to the job: that he would be off as soon as a bigger club came calling. In common with the vast majority of people in football, he may well have felt that what Romanov ultimately hoped to achieve was little more than a pipe-dream: that Hearts had no realistic hope of catching up and overtaking the Old Firm. With such a mindset, he probably viewed his time at Tynecastle as a mere stepping stone in order to raise his profile, and secure a job with a top Championship, or better still, Premiership club.

Of course, such a mindset would have been perfectly sensible in the years before Romanov's arrival: Hearts had tried to cling on to the Old Firm's coattails before, with disastrous consequences. But it must have been completely at odds with the ambitions of his boss, with whom his relationship quickly became more and more fractious. Briefing the press that Romanov was telling him which players to pick - as he began doing after Hearts' 3-0 win at Tannadice in August 2005 - can in hindsight be seen as Burley beginning to get his excuses in early, and laying the groundwork for his ultimate departure: his failure to move his family to Edinburgh providing more grist to the mill that his heart just wasn't in it for the long haul.

The straw that broke the camel's back, though - as it would with Foulkes and Anderton too - was Burley's belief that if Hearts were genuinely to challenge, signings of the quality made immediately following his arrival in Summer 2005 had to be continually recruited on a regular basis. In a nutshell, he wanted a short-term fix - which Hearts simply could not afford to commit themselves to. Romanov is certainly ambitious - but as explained in Part 1, his aim is to build the club up slowly and make it self-financing: otherwise, why would a successful businessman like him invest in the first place? And to make matters worse, Burley had key allies for such a strategy in Foulkes and especially Anderton, both of whom continued to boast in the press of the kinds of figures Hearts were now interested in: figures who would cost money the club simply did not have.

With the manager's strategy so wholly different from that of the majority shareholder, a parting of the ways rapidly became inevitable. Amid the uproar which followed, Foulkes resigned, and Anderton was also dismissed: the latter, both because he had failed to achieve much progress in negotiations with Edinburgh City Council (crucial to Romanov's plans to redevelop the stadium), and also as a result of wildly overspending his budget: in effect, Anderton had been the catalyst for a 'speculate to accumulate' policy which would prove ruinous if pursued in the long run. Key members of the board were pulling in totally different directions: and in any organisation, if the man at the top fails to act in such circumstances, either he or the business concerned is likely to suffer terribly as a result. Romanov's response was swift: quickly increasing his shareholding in order to have more control over boardroom decisions, and bringing in his own men. The chain of command at the club was dramatically tightened: probably because Romanov himself had been unaware as to the levels of expenditure Anderton had overseen.

All this, of course, was a public relations disaster of unmitigated proportions: Foulkes labelling Romanov a 'dictator', the media wondering what kind of madman could possibly be presiding over such utter chaos, and Hearts fans themselves suddenly realising the extent of the Faustian pact they had entered into. For if Romanov did decide to cut and run - indeed, if he was the asset stripper conspiracy theorists now made him out to be - there would be little or nothing ordinary Jambos could do about it. And Romanov himself - used to running clubs in the former Soviet Union where coaches traditionally had a far more limited shelf-life than in Britain, and little fuss was made when they and their clubs parted company - probably underestimated the furore which Burley's exit would cause. Hence, at one point, in a story broken by the Telegraph's Roddy Forsyth which was much disputed by Hearts supporters, but actually made considerable sense in the circumstances, he seriously entertained the possibility of asking Burley back: but only if the manager was far more prepared to accept his boss' advice over the kinds of signings which would be made (and especially, not to bring in the kinds of expensive purchases which Burley deemed essential to maintaining a serious title challenge). Not surprisingly, Burley wasn't interested.

So Romanov was left in a bind. With most of the UK football community now convinced that he was a megalomaniac, telling his manager what team to pick and prepared to dismiss him for no good reason, who in their right mind would be prepared to take over? For if the man who had led Hearts to their best start in 91 years could prove expendable, how could any ambitious coach worth their salt feel confident about taking up the job? In this context, the Tynecastle supremo made a disastrous blunder. Based on the hunger and desire to succeed he could 'see in his eyes', and on the strength of one mere interview, Graham Rix - whose conviction for sexual intercourse with a minor had made most clubs totally unwilling to employ him - was given the position. Much of Scottish football was outraged: and those Hearts fans who weren't disgusted by the prospect of such a man becoming manager could only note Rix' dreadful previous record in charge of Portsmouth and Oxford. The feel-good factor, which only weeks earlier had so many Jambos believing the title could be won, and had led to Romanov basking in enormous levels of popularity, had now totally vanished.

Sadly, the misgivings felt by many Jambos about the new manager would be vindicated. A hitherto fluent, confident side rapidly took on the appearance of something altogether different; and what had at one point been an enormous lead over Rangers in the battle for 2nd spot began to be rapidly whittled away. Rix' allegation - made with the club about to face, curiously enough, another trip to Tannadice - that he wasn't in control of team selection, gave the club the motive it needed to dismiss him: indeed, that the decision wasn't taken earlier was probably because of the board's reluctance to further destabilise the morale of the side.

Of course, with Rix lasting barely four months in the job, it all added more fuel to the critics' fire: 'Vlad the Impaler' had done it again. Had he not fired Rix, the likelihood is that 2nd place would have been lost, and the Scottish Cup would not currently grace the Tynecastle trophy cabinet; but a perception of a crazed Eastern European autocrat was now embedded in the consciousness of practically all non-Hearts supporters (not to mention a good few Jambos too).

On the positive side, the board appear to have learned from their mistakes: there is now a deep unwillingness to sack Valdas Ivanauskas, the current coach, unless the team's fortunes totally collapse. Romanov himself recognises the damage which last season's managerial chaos did to both player morale, and the club's profile more generally: and only a prolonged period of stability can begin to address this. Moreover, ex-CSKA Moscow coach Anatoli Korobochka, and former USSR manager Eduard Malofeev, have arrived in order to assist Ivanauskas: just as at boardroom level, Romanov's aim being to ensure that, by bringing in men he has previously worked with (Malofeev, for example, has coached at Kaunas, and worked with MTZ-Ripo's youth academy), and therefore knows he can trust, everyone at the club is pulling in the same direction.

Whoever has been in charge at the time, though - be it Burley, Rix or Ivanauskas - one accusation has continually been made: that Romanov rather fancies himself as a manager, and chronically interferes in team selection. Many Hearts supporters now accept this as almost certainly true - and take the attitude that, given how much the team's fortunes have improved thanks to his largesse, it's just a question of taking the rough with the smooth as far as the owner's tendency to meddle is concerned. Indeed, in an admission predictably portrayed by much of the media as 'Vlad: I pick the team!', Romanov recently acknowledged asking 'searching questions' of the manager when the side is picked (for example, about the fitness levels of one player over another); and Hearts have often fielded seemingly bizarre selections over the past year, in many cases apparently favouring individuals from the owner's native Lithuania over other more deserving, reliable players: not least with an eyebrow-raising XI fielded at Easter Road last Sunday.

So, is it true? Does the owner 'interfere'? In the opinion of this fan, in all probability, yes. I seriously doubt he openly insists on certain players being picked over others: he spends much of his time at home in Lithuania on other business, and is on record as stating that, given his relative lack of time spent at the training ground, he couldn't possibly possess enough expertise of players' current form to advocate one being picked over another. But there must be a serious doubt whether the manager has either the ability or confidence to out-argue his charismatic, impassioned boss whenever he raises an objection: for how could he be sure his contract wouldn't be terminated were he to continually go against the owner's apparent wishes? You might call this subconscious interference: it isn't Romanov's explicit intention, but for understandable reasons, his manager may well be too timid to stand up to him.

Moreover, it has to be said that it is almost impossible to explain some of Rix or Ivanauskas' selections in any other light - especially when part of Romanov's motivation for buying a club in Scotland in the first place was to showcase young Lithuanian players. What is he to do when some or all of these players are either out of form, or simply not up to the standard required? In such circumstances, it is not difficult to imagine Ivanauskas feeling under pressure to pick them regardless.

That said though, one other key point should be borne in mind. Romanov's aim is to win the SPL title, and qualify for the Champions League group stages, within five years of initially taking over: in other words, by 2010. But he is not interested either in a short-term fix, or achieving too much too soon: for to reach these objectives now before the club has grown sufficiently would dangerously inflate expectation levels among the supporters, lead to far higher wage and bonus demands from players, and ultimately run the risk of torpedoing the whole enterprise. This sort of success can only be pursued with a young side developed through the youth academy: for if it isn't achieved at a profit, it defeats the whole point.

Bearing that in mind, I don't think Hearts were ever that serious about reaching this season's Champions League group stages: investment in the team which would have endangered the club's long-term health would have had to have been made in the summer in order to achieve this. And similarly, I don't believe the club to be genuinely going for this season's SPL championship either: too much still needs to be changed at all levels for such success to be viable. This may well help explain the extraordinary extent of squad rotation seen already this season: the aim is to beat Rangers again to 2nd spot, rather than wresting the title from Celtic, and given such an approach, the stronger and fitter the players are kept by being regularly rested, the better. Once Hearts are truly ready to win the league, I seriously doubt we will see anything like the same disruption to the team: for while it is indeed a squad game nowadays, Ivanauskas, Malofeev and Korobochka surely understand the need for continuity in a successful team. It just may take another two or three years for such stability to be pursued as far as selecting the side is concerned.

And it has to be said: despite the chaos of last season and a worrying start to this one, despite the doubts many supporters continue to hold about Romanov, and his portrayal as a madman by much of the media, Hearts went on to achieve 2nd place and only their second trophy in 44 years last May - and are already five points clear of Rangers and once more in second this time around. The positives of Romanov taking control continue to vastly outweigh the negatives: and there is plenty more to come.

This isn't to say, though, that he doesn't continue to make bizarre comments about media and refereeing 'bias', and further add to his megalomaniacal image in so doing. So, why does he frequently behave in such a way? It's to this question which we now turn in Part 3.

Vlad the Mad? Part 1: Romanov's motivations

2006-10-19T04:21:00.000Z

Much of this blog has, so far, focused on events at Norwich City: partly because of the dramatic changes going on there in recent weeks, and also, given my Oxford base, because of my closer proximity to them. But at this point, I'm going to turn to the other club which I'm just as passionate about: my Scottish team, Heart of Midlothian. Hearts, of course, have had a pretty high profile over the past year or so: at first, such was the breathtaking start we made to last season, it genuinely looked as though the strangehold of the Old Firm on the Scottish game could be broken at last. But then, with Hearts still top of the league, manager George Burley abruptly parted company with the club - and was soon followed by chairman George Foulkes and chief executive Phil Anderton.

As a result, the attention of fans and the media across Britain turned towards the man running the club: Hearts' Lithuanian owner, Vladimir Romanov. Romanov, it was said, had interfered with Burley picking the team and forced him out; and when Graham Rix, the new manager, lasted only a few months before himself being dismissed, it all added to the stereotype rapidly gaining ground of an Eastern European megalomaniac, intent on getting his own way at all costs. Moreover, many inevitably posed the question as to just what Romanov could hope to achieve at Hearts - a club which, while enjoying an immensely proud tradition, continues to be dwarfed and dominated in terms of fanbase and resources by the twin behemoths of Celtic and Rangers.

At times, Romanov has been depicted as an asset stripper, out to destroy the club - even when he has no discernible motive for doing so, and all the evidence points in a very different direction. It is a pity that many fans and observers have allowed their prejudices about a successful businessman from, to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain, "a faraway land of which we know little", to obscure the facts - and still more curious that the Scottish footballing press have indulged in an easy, overly simplistic caricature of his motives, rather than make a genuine attempt at piecing together the evidence. For it's all out there - in Romanov's past, in statements made by close colleagues of his, and elsewhere: and it's all just a matter of joining the dots. Part 1 of this four-part piece on his stewardship will look at his background, and the reasons for his investment in Hearts; before we go on to begin examining the various controversies of his time at the helm in Part 2.

Romanov first became involved in football in the early 1980s, by helping to sponsor FC Banga, a local Lithuanian works team. In time, by paying higher wages to attract the best established players as well as talented youngsters, Banga - which morphed into FB Kaunas around the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union - became the dominant club in Lithuania. But along with MTZ-Ripo of Minsk, another club with which Romanov (together with his increasingly successful bank, UKIO) developed close links, Kaunas found themselves hitting a glass ceiling, unable to achieve anything more than domestic hegemony in a country where basketball remains far and away the most popular sport.

So, together with the young President of the Lithuanian Football Federation, Liutauras Varanavicius, Romanov hit upon a plan. By buying a club in Scotland, he and Varanavicius could aim to showcase and develop young Lithuanian talent in a country with a far higher footballing profile: and by selling the best players on to clubs in major European leagues (which Scotland, unlike Lithuania, has close geographical proximity to), he could look to reinvest in and gradually grow the club he had bought. Moreover, UKIO's investment arm, UBIG, would look to help redevelop the stadium - just as it either already had done or was seeking to do in Romanov's home city of Vilnius and in Minsk, in order to help further MTZ-Ripo's prospects.

New, shiny, state-of-the-art football stadiums and facilities don't just enable a club to progress by attracting better players, and more fans: they also provide an opportunity for investment groups like UBIG to, in conjunction with local government, develop the surrounding areas by building flats, shops, offices, leisure facilities and so on. That is what UBIG did in Vilnius, and is also what they will be looking to do at Hearts: whether by redeveloping Tynecastle, or moving elsewhere. And Edinburgh, of course, boasts some of the highest land values in Europe.

It is true that Romanov made approaches to Dundee, Dundee United and Dunfermline before turning his attentions towards Hearts; but in any case, both the Jambos' traditions and geographical location mean they have far more potential as a club. And of course, with Lithuania having recently joined the European Union, it makes sense for UKIO to develop business links with the UK too - with Edinburgh providing a far better opportunity for doing this than any other city in Scotland. To that end, UKIO will shortly be opening its first branch in Edinburgh: it's just another step in Romanov's overall plan.

All of Romanov's existing football-related investments were consolidated into one fund before he took over at Hearts: the idea behind this being to use the assets as collateral in order to help fund further investments. I don't have an exact figure, but it's clear that Romanov's personal fortune comfortably exceeds a quarter of a billion pounds; and not difficult, therefore, to see how easy it is for him to raise further funds.

So that may help explain some of the commercial rationale: what of the footballing ones? Well, the ultimate aim is to turn Hearts into a profitable, self-financing club. Given the lack of resources in the Scottish game, not to mention the inherent disadvantages of any club outside the Old Firm (whose dominance is based as much on unique factors of history and religion as anything else), this might well seem deeply far-fetched. How can a club like Hearts seriously hope to first compete with and eventually outstrip the Old Firm without spending the kind of money it simply cannot afford? How does any club compete with others boasting three times its fanbase without chronically overstretching, and suffering the pernicious consequences it brings?

Here's how. Shortly after Romanov took over, Hearts briefly embarked on a number of signings of players previously well outside their wage bracket. The likes of Rudi Skacel, Edgaras Jankauskas, Takis Fyssas and Roman Bednar arrived at the club in order to both stimulate interest amongst the fans, and dramatically improve the team - but they are not the kind of buys which will be made on a regular basis. Such short-term investment was critical to enable the team to break through previous barriers, and compete near the top of the Scottish league - for the minimum aim each year for Hearts is to qualify for European competition. Europe brings in vastly increased gate receipts, and significant television revenue: it is an all-too-rare source of free money. Moreover, of course, it increases a club's profile, helps it attracts better players, not to mention major sponsors too: Hearts' UEFA Cup game against Schalke, for instance, was watched by more German fans than there are adult males in Scotland! Hardly surprisingly then, it's in Europe that the big money is made.

Hearts' early European exit this season, both from the Champions League qualifiers and the UEFA Cup before its lucrative group stage, was therefore inevitably seized upon by the media and rival fans as a sign that Romanov's plans were crumbling: surely, the higher earners would have to be released, and Hearts learn to accept their place in the world by living within their means? But while it was hardly an ideal outcome, and revenue the club could certainly do with had been lost, the key is that Hearts are in no danger whatsoever: Romanov's immense personal fortune means he can occasionally bail us out when inevitable setbacks occur, but there is no short-term fix being attempted - for the future will be built, and not bought. Of course, one or two higher-grade signings will occasionally be made, out of Romanov's own pocket if necessary - again, in order to stimulate interest, and keep the team near the top of the league, as well as investments to be sold on for considerable profit to bigger clubs further down the line - but the real key to Hearts' future plans is in youth development.

Hearts' extensive youth system now scours not just the whole of Europe, but Canada and Australia too. If the club is successful, it will be able to attract more and more talented young kids, with the first team effectively driving the youth academy; and moreover, if youngsters don't fit in for whatever reason at Hearts, they may be able to do so at other clubs owned or part-owned by Romanov such as Kaunas and MTZ-Ripo. We have already seen a sizeable number of players loaned to Hearts from Kaunas; it is quite likely that, in time, others will head in the opposite direction too. Ultimately, all Romanov's clubs will be able to share in an increasingly large pool of talent: with the best players at Kaunas and MTZ sold on for considerable profits to bigger, more established leagues in, say, Russia, Ukraine or the Czech Republic; and the best players at Hearts sold onto bigger clubs in, say, England, France, Belgium or Holland.

Recruiting young players is, if done correctly, not only cheap at source, but the provider of huge amounts of revenue if these players go on to become established and successful. Hearts will only be able to wrest the SPL title off the Old Firm by building the club from grassroots upwards - for success will not be bought at a loss. There is simply no point: it would store up huge trouble for the future, and be totally at odds with everything Romanov has put into practice in his business career to date.

And ultimately, of course, all the above factors go together and feed off one another. Redeveloping the stadium attracts new sponsors and business partners, enabling UBIG to expand; provides a focal point for the local community; and enables Hearts to attract better players with the promise of state-of-the-art facilities. Developing the youth academy enables Hearts to recruit more and more talented youngsters, with the aim of ultimately turning them into successful players which will both benefit the team on the park, and help the club continue to build off it by being sold on to more prominent leagues. The more successful Hearts are, the more prominent Romanov's bank becomes, and the more UBIG is able to further expand its assets and interests: it's a win-win situation. And all done at no risk to the club's future, and with its profitability being key: so unlike in the past, there's no danger of it overreaching itself either.

Quite why this has all proved beyond the collective wits of the Scottish footballing media, I cannot even begin to speculate. For although I found it somewhat complex to begin with, actually, it's pretty simple really. One can only assume that it's a whole lot easier to sell papers with stories about Mad Vlad's conspiracies and megalomania than it is to put together a rather more sane explanation of his motivations. Of course, the Scottish media have also been busy discussing Romanov's predelictions for interfering with team selections, not to mention his many rants at the press and officialdom: and it's to these events and controversies which we now turn in Part 2.

A new dawn breaks over Carrow Road

2006-10-18T23:14:00.000Z

So in the end it wasn't a young manager on the way up like Mike Newell, Steve Tilson or Dave Penney; it wasn't one of the more highly touted ex-Canaries such as Mark Bowen or Ian Crook; and it wasn't Alex McLeish or Joe Royle either. Last Friday, Peter Grant - once of Celtic and, briefly, Norwich - was prised away from his assistant manager's position at Upton Park in order to take up the post from which, we all hope, he will oversee a dramatic revival in Norwich City's fortunes: and, ultimately, a return to English football's promised land.

Most fans were pleased enough by Grant's appointment: although he isn't the 'big name' many were hoping for, he's young and hungry, and to judge by the highly talkative role he once played in City's midfield, is hopefully the kind of character who won't stand for the kind of wastefulness and complacency which characterised his predecessor's final year or so at the helm. All too often over the past forty or fifty years, Norwich have fallen into a stereotype of playing attractive, entertaining football, but providing a comfort zone for players lacking the motivation and drive to achieve the absolute maximum of their capabilities: whether while residing in mid-table of the top flight under John Bond and Ken Brown, or mid-table of the second flight under Mike Walker and Bruce Rioch. Even when the club dramatically overachieved in the late '80s and early '90s, there remained a nagging sense that, if anything, the players were under too little pressure: and that, just possibly, the 3rd place finish of 92/3 and 4th position achieved in 88/9 might have been even more had the team had the energy and desire to really go for it.

Ron Saunders was the first City manager to really cut through this culture of under-achievement: with the team he led into the top division at times painful to watch, but achieving success thanks to the timeless virtues of hard work and fitness. Such is the incredibly competitive nature of the Championship, such qualities are just as necessary now as they were 35 years ago in Saunders' time; and while for a period, Nigel Worthington appeared to be doing something similar, there was a point around midway of our Premiership season when the old problems started rearing their heads again: with Norwich attempting to buck the 4-5-1 trend and play attacking 4-4-2, when we simply didn't have defenders of enough quality, nor midfielders prepared to do enough defending, to make such a strategy work. If anything, we seemed to be seeking to emulate what Crewe were doing a division lower; and while Dario Gradi has achieved miraculous levels of success at Gresty Road, it could never last forever. Crewe were relegated last May thanks to leaking too many goals, and being just too much of a soft touch; with the same fate befalling Norwich for much the same reasons a year earlier.

Indeed, it's tempting to suggest that Norwich fans were spoilt by the football on offer under Messrs Bond, Brown, Stringer and Walker, and consequently have always demanded something similar since. But while we all ultimately want to see an entertaining, positive team playing football the way it should be played, sometimes success in the Championship - and even, for that matter, survival in the Premiership - demands a more pragmatic approach. Any manager looking to navigate his way out of this God-forsaken division needs, in my view, to understand this above all else: for put simply, you can't play like Brazil if you defend on more than the odd occasion like East Stirling.

Bearing all this in mind, Tuesday night's victory at St Andrews was a highly encouraging beginning for Grant: his composed, cohesive team playing a familiar brand of neat football, but at last demonstrating qualities of real steel too. The result? Only our second away win of the whole of 2006, and a long-overdue clean sheet too - with the added bonus of ushering Birmingham manager Steve Bruce (a hero during his playing days at Carrow Road, but with an infuriating tendency to look down on and patronise us since) further towards the exit door. That said, it would pay not to get carried away by one result: Bryan Hamilton's ignominious reign began, for example, with a breathtakingly impressive victory at Portman Road, before a pathetic humilation at the hands of already-relegated Swindon provided a rather more accurate barometer of the dispiriting events to come.

And Grant has inherited, to say the least, a curate's egg of a team. At QPR on Saturday, I watched a side that, at times, outclassed their opponents with bewildering ease; but at others, whose embarrassing inability to press the ball and close the opposition down made a limited Rangers outfit look dangerous whenever they were in possession. As Alysson Rudd put it in The Times, Norwich managed to resemble both a side who should be in the Premiership, and which could even be relegated: the inherent class of many of its individuals could not be questioned, but its ability to attack, defend and especially work as a team most certainly could.

Inevitably, it will take Grant time to sort out what appeared to be alarming deficiencies in City's basic teamwork; but the fact remains that our first XI is, on paper at least, very good, and top six material at the least. No team boasting the attacking threat of Huckerby, Croft and Earnshaw, not to mention a surprisingly effective Dion Dublin to call on from the bench, can be discounted at such a relatively early stage of the season; but then again, we will need far higher levels of workrate and sacrifice from players like Etuhu, Robinson and Croft if the side is to perform to its true potential. To reach the play-offs after such a poor start is a tough ask, and is bound to require luck in terms of injuries (when they hit in early September, the team's dramatic decline was all too predictable); but while I would suggest that Cardiff, Preston, West Brom and Wolves are all stick-ons to finish in at least the top six come season's end, I certainly don't think that applies to anyone else. Birmingham, if they make the right choice to succeed Bruce (as, surely, will shortly become necessary), may yet fill one of the remaining two spots - but Norwich are more than capable of filling the other one, provided Grant gets everyone at the club pulling together again in much the same way as Worthington did during his first three or so years in charge.

Should we fail, though, a rebuilding programme will be necessary, with high earners like Earnshaw, Huckerby and Safri released as our parachute payments run out. Grant's three-and-a-half year contract suggests the board are bracing themselves for such an eventuality: for if it happens, we can't realistically expect signs of clear progress until around Christmas 2008, and can't anticipate the Canaries again knocking on the Premiership's door until the final season of Grant's deal in 2009/10. All of which only adds to the sense of urgency for the remainder of this campaign: disappointment come May will mean things will surely get worse before they get better.

I'll end this piece with an omen and a prediction. Remarkably enough, Grant has been involved with clubs whose campaigns have ended at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff for the past four years in succession: Bournemouth winning the then Third Division play-off final in 2003, West Ham losing the then First Division final in 2004, winning it in its new-fangled Championship incarnation in 2005, and then going on to lose so unluckily in the FA Cup final last season. All Canaries fans must dream of this run continuing (not least because the win-loss-win-loss pattern suggests triumph this time around), even if it turns out to be at Wembley, rather than Cardiff: though that, of course, requires the miracle of the national stadium actually being completed before hell freezes over in the meantime...

And having surprised myself with the eerie accuracy of my forecast of the likely outcome against Burnley (take a look for yourself if you don't believe me: it's in only the second post made on this blog), here's another one: Norwich will beat league leaders Cardiff on Saturday. Cue much excitement, and a feel-good factor returning to the club - but it is, of course, on awkward trips to places like Stoke, Burnley and Luton, far more than in showpiece affairs such as Saturday's, that the real fate of the Canaries' season will be decided. Over to you, Peter: and good luck!

Why England will NEVER win a major tournament - until they do the following things... Part 1: Tactics and formation

2006-10-12T01:03:00.000Z

Last night, as our nation's football team subsided to a shambolic defeat in Zagreb, something strange seemed to be happening. On the radio phone-in I listened to, and on messageboards I've browsed since, more and more England fans seemed to have reached the depressing conclusion that actually, we're nowhere near as good as we think we are. The hype about our 'golden generation' of 'world class' players is, plainly, just hype - for England have produced roughly one impressive performance a year for the past 5 years, and all too often, bear the appearance of a bewildered rabble, fumbling around while being outplayed, out-thought and even out-fought.

And - perish the thought - Sven-Goran Eriksson didn't 'underachieve' with the players he had at his disposal at all: actually, given our obvious lack of technical ability, and the improvement of more and more nations previously thought of as little more than cannon-fodder, three consecutive quarter-final exits represented not just par, but perhaps even slight over-achievement.

This certainly wasn't a demonstration of the fabled arrogance and over-expectation of which England fans are so often accused: quite the opposite, in fact. So, are they right? Should we just accept our lot as eternal quarter-finalists, and leave the game's true powers to get on with it as we disappear stage left at the business end of major tournaments?

In my view, no - but there are a number of huge factors which must be addressed if England are ever to add to that solitary major trophy of forty long years ago. These factors are often underestimated, still more disputed, by fans, players and journalists alike: but if anything, the culture of excuses adopted by pundits, and the culture of blaming the manager adopted by fans and journalists, is really part of the problem: it's simplistic and short-termist. In truth, England's difficulties are an awful lot more complex and deep-rooted - but there's no question they can be successfully overcome, as long as there is the will to do so. Over the next few weeks, I'll be outlining my opinions of these problems, and suggesting solutions - and as ever, would hugely appreciate the input of all those who share with me a desperate desire to see England playing well, fulfilling their potential, and making the country feel proud of its football team again.

First up today, it's formation. Predictably, Steve McClaren has been almost universally derided (not least by Alan Hansen and Alan Shearer on Match of the Day) for adopting the alien 3-5-2 system last night. 4-4-2, we are told, is what English players are used to - so how can we abandon it before such a difficult game? But the thing is, if 3-5-2 is an outmoded, failed system, then so - whenever England use it, at least - is 4-4-2. As far back as sixteen years ago, John Barnes, Chris Waddle and Gary Lineker were all telling Pete Davies (author of the timeless 'All Played Out', which remains for my money the best book ever written about football, and light years ahead of 'Fever Pitch') of the problems 4-4-2 caused: that two rigid banks of four led to no creativity, no movement, and worse, England being overrun by technically superior teams in midfield. This invariably forced the team backwards, resulting in Barnes and Waddle abandoning their roles higher up the field to help out the defence - and consequently, the team posed increasingly little offensive threat.

Bobby Robson switched to 3-5-2 because he saw it as more defensive: an essential measure needed to counter the threat posed by European Champions, Holland at our second game at Italia 90. But funnily enough, by shoring up the defence, the whole team was suddenly far more confident and robust: and what could at times be almost a 5-4-1 recoiled instantly into attacking 3-5-2, with the Dutch players (in a position wholly unaccustomed to them) finding themselves outpaced and overrun. In short, England suddenly looked like a contemporary international team - and although there were many hairy moments in the knockout stages against Belgium and Cameroon, it simply cannot be a coincidence that we went on to enjoy our finest-ever World Cup on foreign soil after ditching (or at least, ditching our obsession with) 4-4-2.

And with football far more based on pace and fitness than it was then, if anything, England's deficiencies have shown up all the more whenever we've played 4-4-2 at major tournaments since. Portugal and Romania at Euro 2000 stand out as particular humiliations: with the Portugese substitutes on the touchline openly laughing at the poverty of England's tactics. The likes of Adams, Ince, Beckham, McManaman and Scholes unquestionably gave their all at that tournament - but if anything, the real miracle was that, thanks to their passion and pride, we came within a minute of qualifying for the quarter-finals. For they were betrayed by a woefully inept manager, and a system which, whenever England adopt it, simply does not work.

Sven-Goran Eriksson was certainly a vast improvement on Kevin Keegan - but before long, the complaints about our long ball game, chronic lack of creativity, inability to keep the ball, and tendency to sit deeper and deeper when protecting a lead, had started. Against Portugal at Euro 2004, England managed sixteen shots on target to their thirty-five: once again, the miracle was that we came so close to going through at all. But that we were so utterly outplayed should hardly have come as a surprise: for Portugal, a technically better side than us anyway, flooded the midfield - leaving our strikers isolated too high up the pitch, and our defence under more and more pressure. And whereas any footballer will tell you that he never feels tired when in possession, continually trying to win the ball back is an exhausting experience - which probably explains why poor Frank Lampard looked a virtual skeleton by the end of extra-time, so much running had he been forced to do.

It's not the fitness of English players which is at fault: it's the system which they're forced to play. And given the fact that, like their contemporaries from the rest of Britain, Scandinavia and Germany, our footballers plainly lack the technical abilities of their counterparts from hotter climates, it's frankly preposterous that we continually play in a formation which leaves us a man short in midfield against dynamic, flexible sides like Portugal, Argentina or Holland. The reason our defenders are so often forced into booting it aimlessly long is because our midfield is so often outnumbered: the consequences, as we saw all too often in Germany in the summer, being the ball coming straight back at us and tiring us out more and more.

Of course, even McClaren seems to have understood this: hence his change last night. But actually, he didn't play 3-5-2 at all: he played a ludicrously cautious 5-3-2, which if anything, meant we were on occasion more undermanned than ever. 3-5-2 demands two dynamic, attack-minded wing backs - or even, once properly practiced, and the team has become more accomplished, pure wide midfield players - and ideally, a libero to sweep up behind, too. Mark Wright performed such a role expertly at Italia 90, and Rio Ferdinand is perfectly equipped to do the same now; but if it's as part of a flat back five, with a right back and left back far too defensively minded to get properly forward, and three central defenders all going for the same ball, it's hardly surprising the team looked so confused, is it?

It's also strange how all those commentators who frequently describe 3-5-2 as a discredited relic of the past ignore the constant success Guus Hiddink has enjoyed with it. Hiddink, of course, has done a magnificent job with Holland, South Korea and Australia - and frankly, given most of the Australians share exactly the same technical limitations as their English counterparts, if he can make the green-and-golds look so comfortable with it, then England are perfectly equipped to succeed with it too.

Above all, though, the emphasis must be on getting away from our traditional, direct, predictable way of playing, and especially on abandoning, once and for all, 4-4-2. It can get you to quarter-finals, certainly - but a simple glance in the history books reveals a constant glass ceiling for sides playing this 'British' style whenever they ran into more technically accomplished opposition. Not only England, but the best sides ever to emerge from Wales, Ireland (north and south) and Scandinavia, have almost always found themselves escorted to the exit door when quarter-final time arrived. The only side in living memory to buck this trend were Sweden at USA 94: largely because they got lucky with the draw, and didn't have to face a genuine power until the semis, where Brazil stopped them in their tracks, and the Swedes hardly mustered a shot in anger.

Moreover, England's lack of technical expertise already makes it especially difficult to succeed in hot weather at tournaments played in summer months: put simply, given our temperate climate, most English footballers have little or no experience of playing in such conditions. Which is yet another argument against 4-4-2: high tempo, direct football cannot possibly work against the most accomplished sides in the world in stifling heat. Yet that is what we constantly expect England to do - and once again, it cannot be a coincidence that all our games at Italia 90 were played in cooler, evening conditions - just as our best performances at Euro 96 were produced at night too.

It doesn't have to be 3-5-2: the key is to choose the best system given the players available, and above all, to ensure the midfield is never left outnumbered or exposed. So the 4-5-1/4-3-3 which is all the vogue in the Premiership is a perfectly realistic alternative too (provided genuine attacking wingers are deployed on the flanks, and that the lone striker is, unlike Wayne Rooney, someone naturally suited to the role).

And on occasion, Terry Venables' fabled 'Christmas tree' might be still another option: another system lampooned at the time, but which was actually the key to our memorable defeat of Holland at Euro 96. Perfectly demonstrating the profound lack of tactical understanding in English football, most commentators at the time believed we beat the Dutch with 4-4-2; but not according to the man himself. Actually, by playing Teddy Sheringham in central midfield (which resulted in fans and commentators alike grumbling about him playing so deep during the first half), Venables did what Dennis Bergkamp had been doing to opposition defences for years: Sheringham drew the Dutch centre backs out, leaving their full backs hopelessly exposed by the rampaging Anderton and McManaman on the wings. England played 4-3-2-1 that glorious night; and showed that, with the right manager, and hungry, ambitious players willing to be flexible and try something different, we are just as capable of successfully implementing new systems as anyone else.

You can argue all you want about players making systems work, and not the other way around, not to mention the continued successful use of 4-4-2 by the world's top club sides. But the international game is something entirely different, at times more akin to chess than the sport English fans are used to watching every week: it requires profound levels of tactical and technical intelligence from managers and players, and a system that enables a team to make the most of its resources. And in the absence of some miracle of evolution whereby English children grow up with the same array of skills as Brazilian kids enjoy, we simply cannot continue to expect our players to succeed while in a tactical straitjacket. 4-4-2 must be ditched, immediately - for no change equals no chance.

Where now for Ireland?

2006-10-09T20:05:00.000Z

I first started really getting into football in the mid- to late-1980s, with the first major championship I can vividly recall being Euro 88. As an Englishman, my own team's performance was hugely depressing - though, in stark contrast to a number of occasions since, one I had seen coming for several months. England, of course, began our ill-starred campaign against a Republic of Ireland side which was widely ridiculed in the British media: its manager, Jack Charlton, portrayed as a loveable eccentric who didn't know what day of the week it was, let alone how to manage an international football team; and the side itself written off as consisting of a bunch of journeymen, most of whom didn't even know the words to the Irish national anthem, and who had qualified to play because one of their grandparents had drunk a pint of Guinness.

Much of the coverage leading up to the game was patronising and even racist, playing up to the appalling, lazy cliches so many English people had held about Ireland for so long. Yet in truth, it all played into Charlton's hands: he was able to maintain a cheery underdog's demeanour, and keep all the pressure off his players: players he had moulded into an indomitable, passionate, increasingly impressive outfit. For the truth about Charlton was a million miles away from his much-parodied image: in fact, this was a man who, like his mentor Alf Ramsey, believed in the team above all else - and unlike Bobby Robson, or Sven-Goran Eriksson, took the attitude that if a player, no matter how talented, didn't fit into that team, there would be no place for him. Liam Brady was merely the most celebrated victim of such a policy; but others, such as Ronnie Whelan and David O'Leary, would suffer too as the Charlton era gathered momentum.

Ireland, in fairness, were utterly outplayed that day in Stuttgart - but with England's key players either exhausted or injured, were able to take advantage and stage an astonishing smash-and-grab raid. Ray Houghton's winner ushered in the age of Jack: one which would see a nation with a shocking record in international football suddenly grow up and begin to impose itself. A breathtaking performance against the Soviet Union - in which the Irish were desperately unfortunate not to win - was followed by a gritty rearguard action against the brilliant Dutch side of the era, which came within seven minutes of success: before a freak Wim Kieft goal sent Holland on the road to triumph, and Ireland back home to a tumultuous reception.

And at Italia 90 two years later, things would get even better. Ireland were still derided for their caveman attrition, and crass long balls: indeed, in many ways, they represented the very worst aspects of British football of the time. But paradoxically, even their staunchest critics had to respect what was being achieved - because the puzzle Charlton set their many opponents proved almost impossible to solve. England and Holland were both frustrated in Italy; the Irish going on to the second round, and a meeting with Romania in Genoa: a day which changed history.

Someone should attempt a sociological study on Ireland before, and Ireland after, David O'Leary's decisive penalty hit the back of the net that memorable Monday afternoon. Before it, the fans had happily embraced the boorish football of their team: because it got results, and they had grown heartily sick of being everyone else's whipping boys for so long. Charlton, indeed, had really only been able to get away with imposing such a disagreeable style of football upon the world because expectations among Irish fans had been so low. But after Ireland won the shoot-out, the world had already begun to tilt on its axis: Charlton had shown that, as long as you believed in yourself, literally anything was possible. In short, not just Irish football, but the very Irish nation, perceived itself as winners at last.

Much of this was healthy, and an entirely natural corollary to the progress being made. But in many ways, it also constituted an end of innocence. Suddenly, all future Irish sides would be judged by the (often highly fortuitous) success of the Charlton era, and the 1990 team in particular; and with success now forthcoming, fans gradually began to demand more attractive football, and a more genuinely 'Irish' team too. Expectation had replaced simple hope; and the excuses of the past would no longer be tolerated. So much so that when Mick McCarthy - the Irishman from Barnsley - replaced Charlton in 1996, the Irish footballing nation he took charge of must have borne little resemblance to the one he captained to World Cup glory merely six years earlier: and none at all to the absurd stereotypes still cherished by far too many on this side of the Irish Sea. Sure, the Irish fans were marvellous, and sure, they loved the craic - but above all, they wanted to win.

But the problem was that gradually, expectations began to outstrip the resources McCarthy was working with. Persevering with a young group of players who had emerged together, the Yorkshireman oversaw gradual, incremental improvement, which culminated in the astounding achievement of not just qualifying for the 2002 World Cup Finals, but knocking out Holland - a genuine European power - in the process. In most other 'smaller' footballing nations, the manager would have been hailed for such an achievement - yet McCarthy received remarkably few plaudits: at least not from Irish football scribes, anyway. For the aim was no longer merely to be at the party: it was to accomplish great things while there too.

What happened next is known, surely, to all those reading this. In England, the vast majority of football enthusiasts stood full square behind McCarthy as Roy Keane, his captain, and far and away his best player, took umbrage at what he perceived to be his country's amateurish, unprofessional approach, subjected the manager to a torrent of invective, and flew home. But in Ireland, the reaction was rather different - for what happened in Saipan seemed to divide the country in two. Some fans - many of them older, who had seen the dark days of the pre-Charlton years - felt McCarthy had been monstrously betrayed; but many others sympathised with Keane, reasoning that there was no point in Ireland even being at the tournament if they weren't genuine in their ambitions to win the whole damn thing.

In many ways, the chain of events set in motion by O'Leary's spot kick twelve years earlier had now fully crystalised. A large bulk of Irish supporters were sick of their underdog mentality; exasperated by the team's apparent satisfaction in merely matching the best, rather than trying to beat them; tired of not having one of their own in charge. And even when the marvellous morale which McCarthy had engendered - an esprit de corps which Keane had seemed all too likely to destroy in the days before his departure - resulted in his depleted side defying the odds, outplaying both Germany and Cameroon, and taking Spain all the way to penalties too, it did little to assuage the feelings of these fans, in particular.

Ever since, the divide illustrated by Saipan has not just remained, but practically poisoned Irish football from root to tip. The national side's decline has been startling: from being within a shoot-out of returning to the World Cup quarter-finals, the Republic now boast the miserable record of not having enjoyed a single competitive win against a nation ranked inside the world's top 50 since September 2001: a run which has seen them surrender ineptly in Switzerland, throw away leads both home and away against Israel, and on Saturday, unforgivably subside to a disgraceful, spineless, 5-2 capitulation in, of all places, Cyprus. Things have now come full circle: Ireland's display and result in Nicosia being indisputably their worst since they began taking their first baby steps towards respectability in the early 1970s.

To be sure, Ireland's football fans have every right to expect to win convincingly in places like Cyprus; and moreover, for their team to play with the kind of passion and spirit which was for so long its trademark. They also have a right to demand that their team is placed under the guidance of an experienced, proven manager: something which the enthusiastic, but hopelessly over-promoted Steve Staunton palpably is not. But there may be a lesson somewhere in all of this. For even amid the rapidly deteriorating fortunes of the Boys in Green over the last four years, expectations have remained high, perhaps even dangerously so; with the demands of the increasingly belligerent Irish press doing much to suffocate morale, and ultimately performances, under Staunton's predecessor, Brian Kerr. Healthy expectancy is a good and necessary thing; but unhealthy, unrealistic expectancy can be the total opposite.

For the simple fact is that Charlton's extraordinary achievements - attributable to luck, bloody-mindedness, and a combination of circumstances which will not be repeated in the future - may well be impossible to even equal, let alone surpass. Charlton was blessed with the finest crop of Irish players in the nation's history; a fanbase starving for success, and prepared to let him employ literally any style in order to achieve it; and a peculiarly negative era in international football which - in days before the tackle from behind and the goalkeeper handling a backpass were outlawed - both encouraged and even rewarded defensive, safety-first play. None of this applies now: not least the fact that Staunton plainly has an obvious scarcity of resources to work with.

Whether, though, it has a knock-on effect on expectation levels remains to be seen. Because for Irish football to bottom out and begin to move forward once more, the wounds of Saipan need at last to be healed, and everybody to pull together: whether behind Staunton, or more likely someone else. Reality bit on Saturday night, and it was most certainly not a pretty sight; and if Ireland are to commence the long, painful ascent back towards the summit, the fans - or at least, the more demanding ones - surely need to accept that reality, and curb their wilder ambitions: for now, at the very least.

Deeply disconcerted by Delia

2006-10-03T23:49:00.000Z

To fans of most other clubs, Delia Smith is Norwich City. Although this often results in tiresome culinary cliches being trotted out by the national press on the rare occasions when they deem the Canaries to be worth covering, not to mention continual references to that half-time rant against Manchester City, there can be no doubt how much she and her husband have done for the club. Even considering our still-worrying debts, City are an infinitely more stable, progressive, forward-thinking club than when she first appeared on the scene in the months following Robert Chase's long-overdue departure; and the positive, classy, dignified profile that the Canaries enjoy is down in no small part to the work which Ms Smith has put in.

That said though, she has made plenty of mistakes during her time here - and continues to say and do things which are both revealing and extremely worrying. At the press conference organised by the club on Monday, to explain the process ahead following Worthington's exit, Smith admitted to not understanding why a team "has good patches and bad patches" (even in the current case of West Ham: er, I imagine it might just have something to do with their manager and the morale of his team being chronically undermined by a pair of Argentine World Cup stars brought in completely over their heads, Delia!); and her husband described the two-game ultimatum of the previous weekend (which was regarded by most supporters as, in effect, having hung the manager out to dry) as a statement "as much by fans as by board members". Perhaps most alarming of all was Worthington's comment in the hours following his sacking that the club had given him no specific targets before the season had started: this in the context of having just presided over a wretched campaign of directionless drivel, which divided the fans, and led to a horrendous, poisonous atmosphere at home games.

And what it all appears to reveal is this: a well-meaning, positive, highly optimistic board who want the best for their club - but whose lack of basic footballing knowledge leads to at times, deep naivete, and at others, startling blunders. It is astounding that the board didn't reflect long and hard before releasing a statement which cut its manager off at the knees; and even more so that, in our final year of parachute payments, and with supporters more unhappy about the state of the club than for many years, Worthington apparently wasn't told plainly and simply in the summer that anything less than a top six finish would be completely unacceptable.

And there are echoes in all this of past misadventures, too. Delia's almost blind support of Bryan Hamilton during his calamitous spell in charge in late 2000 infuriated fans and the local media alike, and appeared to have its genesis in a majority shareholder who had simply developed too close a professional relationship with the manager. Perhaps Hamilton fooled Smith through recourse to the same myopic, relentlessly optimistic nonsense which totally failed to fool the fans: otherwise, how can we explain her bizarre hostage to fortune uttered that summer that if City didn't reach the play-offs, something would be seriously wrong? Moreover, this writer was told by a highly prominent, and very recently departed ex-employee of the club that Bruce Rioch had, in effect, been a victim of 'constructive dismissal': that gradually, Hamilton had gained more and more influence over Delia and Michael, and Rioch was left increasingly out in the cold.

Of course, any fan with any knowledge of the game would have noted not only Rioch's excellent track record in charge of Middlesbrough and Bolton, and the perfectly adequate attainment of a UEFA Cup place during his solitary year at Highbury, but Hamilton's disastrous spells in charge of Tranmere and Leicester, not to mention a period at the helm of Northern Ireland which - one surprising European Championship campaign apart - was pretty much in keeping with what he had already achieved (or rather, failed to achieve) in management. Always allowing for Rioch's increasing unhappiness, and the sense that the club simply didn't hold the same ambitions as he himself had, at the very least, he surely deserved considerably more of the board's ear than his rather less accomplished Director of Football. But how much basic knowledge of their respective achievements was there among the board? Precious little, one can only assume.

The fact that Delia and her board maintain a principle of keeping out of the manager's affairs as much as possible has, surely, to be a good thing; as is the reputation for continuity and stability which the club now enjoys after Worthington's long period at the helm. But there is a flip-side to all this; for without having access to real footballing expertise, how can the board be expected to tell when things are going stale, and a change is becoming necessary? And moreover, such is the friendly, homely nature of the club, were Delia and Michael just as blinded by closeness and loyalty to Worthington as they were to his predecessor?

One can only hope that lessons are at last learned. Because while any new manager deserves a fair crack of the whip, and time to bring in his own players and develop his own tactics and coaching techniques, we simply cannot ever again afford a repeat of the appalling stagnation and sense of drift of the past year. There must be a clear professional divide between board and manager, to prevent loyalty once more triumphing over sense; and moreover, if they don't already have access to such a figure, those in charge of the club must lose no time in bringing in an adviser with real, demonstrable experience and understanding of how the football world works - because had a similar man been able to help Delia and Michael in recent years, the damaging mistakes outlined here could easily have been prevented.

And however grateful we all are to the board for the success we've enjoyed in recent years - even to the point where the club felt reborn on that glorious 2002 evening at Molineux as we reached the play-off final - there have in recent days been a worrying number of bona fide Canaries expressing not just fury at the recent incompetence of their club, but a desire for real change amongst its leadership too. And while this correspondent certainly wouldn't go that far, it is imperative that Messrs Smith and Jones take heed of this sentiment - for if they fail to learn from their mistakes, the journey back to the mutinous, faction-riven club we were in the mid-1990s could prove a lot shorter than many of us would like to believe.

"Get a reputation as an early riser, and you can stay in bed til noon..."

2006-10-03T00:21:00.000Z

... Or so the saying goes. And it probably applies more to Norwich City than most other clubs. Fans like myself might complain about the way the club patronises itself as cuddly, little Norwich - but for as long as I can remember, the Canaries have had a reputation as a well run, family club based on good husbandry, which believes first and foremost in playing attractive football on the ground. Even when the complete opposite of this was true in the frightening final months under Robert Chase, or under the dreary negativity of John Deehan, Gary Megson, and in parts of Rioch and Worthington's reigns too, the cliche still seemed to apply whenever national journalists deigned to cover the latest events at Carrow Road.

The question is, though, are we really that 'well run'? Goodness knows, however frustrating our constant selling off of our best players was in the early 1990s, pretty much all of us at least assumed that the future was safe under Chase's apparently cautious, conservative leadership - but, as I'm sure we'd all now agree, just how wrong can you be? And whenever other smaller clubs have been equally lauded for punching above their weight - Burley's Ipswich, or O'Neill's Leicester, for example - as soon as things on the pitch began to go wrong, a very different and deeply alarming reality was revealed, with the very survival of both clubs suddenly in real question.

Having seen my club come within literally a couple of days of closure, I'll always be wary of assuming all is well behind the scenes. And there is a rather different, revisionist way of explaining our success between 2001 and 2004 - which also throws some light onto the questions of first, why did it take the board so long to finally wake up, smell the coffee and dismiss Worthington; and second, why has so little money been spent in strengthening what is now an alarmingly thin squad since relegation?

I studied at UEA between 1997 and 2000: three deeply dispiriting years to be a Canaries fan. Back then, as the club struggled to rebuild after the chaos of the Chase era, all the talk was of its mounting debts, inability to sign new players, and a break-even figure of 16,000 attendances which, amazing as it might seem now, we weren't even close to achieving. As Rioch departed with City marooned in mid-table, and things immediately became even worse under Hamilton, the club seemed to be shrinking: outspent by clubs it had left in its wake for most of the preceding decade, and caught in a slow spiral downwards which seemed destined to end with us back, after more than 40 years away, in English football's third flight.

Moreover, such had been the fiasco of Hamilton's ill-starred spell, and the absurd way in which the board backed him, and blamed the local press for forcing him out, the supporters' faith in Delia and co was at an all-time low. Add to this the fact that Ipswich were enjoying their best season in decades in the Premiership, and something clearly had to give: the board needed to get it right, or else. Into this breach stepped Worthington: who immediately stood up to the board, forcing them to back him when they still appeared to be hedging their bets over whether to give him the job permanently, and even more significantly, insisting they release substantial funds to strengthen the team too.

Of course, this was also at precisely the point that the Football League had secured a lucrative deal with ITV Digital, leading to many clubs spending money up front before they were actually due to receive it: which probably explains how, in Spring and Summer 2001, highly encouraging acquisitions such as Adam Drury, Gary Holt, Mark Rivers, Clint Easton and Marc Libbra came to arrive at Carrow Road. Thanks to a combination of past failure, a desperate need to get the fans back on board, and the ITV Digital money, the club's strategy had palpably changed.

No longer were we merely cutting our (rather thin) cloth to suit our (depressingly meagre) means. The board had concluded that, after getting it so wrong with Hamilton, it had to gamble on Worthington getting it right: and I suspect it was a considerably greater gamble than most realised at the time. So while City's arrival in the play-offs in May 2002 was a pleasant surprise to most observers, it probably represented a minimum expectation on the part of the board, which was now gambling that promotion could sort out most of our continued underlying financial problems. But it only had a limited window - say, three years - in which to achieve this: otherwise, the better players would have to be released, and we'd not only be back to square one, but in a worse financial state than ever. And moreover, the disastrous collapse of ITV Digital in Summer 2002 made the need to succeed within this window even more urgent.

In my view, this explains why the club were - contrary to the expectations of so many fans - prepared to fork out the money to sign first Huckerby, Crouch and Harper on loan; and subsequently to buy Huckerby and McKenzie. Without the loan signings, we wouldn't have even been in contention to go up - and buying Hux and Leon turned possible promotion into probable promotion. And given they were now in their third and final year of the window I've identified, the board's attitude was effectively one of "in for a penny, in for a pound": they had to secure promotion in 2003/4, for the consequences of failure would set the club back many years.

Yet this whole strategy was, in essence, based on using the money earned from a year in the Premiership to stabilise things - but I don't think it was ever to really transform Norwich into an established top-flight club. Of course, it was hoped that we could survive, and gradually build: just as Charlton and Bolton had before us. More money would surely have been used to strengthen the team had we somehow scrambled to safety in 2005 - but we never really expected to do so. Resources remained tight: meaning relatively limited amounts were spent following promotion in Summer 2004, and popular players such as Malky Mackay were released. And it also meant that, when we were relegated, we simply didn't have the means to use our parachute payments in creating a side that would, as so many City fans anticipated, bounce straight back up: in fact, with debts increasing, we needed to hold the payments back for a rainy day: not least to pay off a certain manager's contract should things go pear-shaped...

So here we find ourselves now: once again budgeting for a mere mid-table finish in the Championship, and with what remains a very good first XI, but pathetically little cover. And we can't budget for anything more - because the gamble of the earlier part of the decade was in order to buy time, and certainly won't be repeated at any point in the foreseeable future.

I guess the thrust of my whole (immensely long and rambling: for which my apologies) piece is this: Norwich's success was built on sand. At no point did we substantially reduce our debts: in fact, they've more than doubled since the turn of the decade. And far from being a club which somehow mustered its resources in a brilliant, clever way in order to over-achieve in 2003/4, in fact, we'd speculated to accumulate, and simply had to go up that year, or else. Certainly, what Delia has done in using her catering expertise to bring in much-needed resources has been terrific; and to be sure, she, Neil Doncaster and especially Nigel Worthington all deserve a huge pat on the back for increasing our gates by more than 50% since the dire days of the late '90s.

But we're not so much an example of a superbly run club as one that, quite simply, spent money in order to succeed - and now, back in the Championship, and having just given our ex-manager a substantial pay-off (the avoidance of which was surely the main factor behind the board dragging its feet for so long over the past year), we just don't have the will or the wherewithal to spend similar amounts again. Whoever takes over as the new manager should be warned: City are pretty much back where we started, and - barring him emulating Iain Dowie's miraculous transformation of Crystal Palace three years ago - it could be a number of years before we're in a position to return to the top flight.

So, who's next for the Canary hotseat?

2006-10-01T21:15:00.000Z

Football being the callow, fickle beast that it is, no sooner has one long-serving manager departed the scene than attention immediately turns to who is likely to replace him. As I see it, there are five obvious candidates, each with their own pros and cons, and this article will briefly summarise each one, before reaching a conclusion.

Before we go any further, one man should be immediately ruled out. Some fans have allowed hope to get in the way of reason, and demanded Alan Curbishley be given the job. Curbishley, of course, enjoyed over a decade of success at Charlton: a club with a similarly friendly and family-based ethos as Norwich, and is known to be on good terms with Delia Smith. But frankly, he's done his time in the lower leagues, and is already dangerously close to being pigeonholed as a 'tu'penny ha'penny' manager, without the ambition to succeed at a genuinely big club: a man who was a decent contender for the England job is hardly going to return at a moderately-sized club without much money to spend, and which has sunk to 17th spot in the Championship. Curbishley, surely, is waiting for a decent-sized job in the Premiership to present itself, be it at West Ham, Fulham or perhaps even (given their surprisingly poor start to the season), Tottenham; but he certainly won't be popping up at Carrow Road.

The five individuals who I believe are realistic contenders are, in turn, Mike Newell, Steve Tilson, Martin Allen, Mark Bowen and Martin Hunter. The first three are the kinds of individuals your correspondent would like to see the board focus its attention on: all are ambitious, hungry, up-and-coming young managers who would view Norwich as a clear step up. Success at Carrow Road would leave their reputations enhanced, and the prospect of a Premiership club coming in for them all the more likely: it would, in other words, be a win-win situation. Newell has done a marvellous job at Luton, taking over after an absolutely shambolic close season, in which the popular Joe Kinnear had been dismissed, and only receiving the job after a bizarre contest by telephone vote; yet he led the Hatters to the League One title within just two years, and has safely established them in the Championship, playing some exhilarating football at times (as all those privileged to watch their thrilling FA Cup encounter with Liverpool last season would surely concur with).

But if anything, Tilson has done even better. Following their collapse back into English football's bottom tier in the late 1990s, Southend had endured nothing but stagnation and mediocrity, barely even achieving a single top-half finish; yet astonishingly, Tilson led them first to promotion, and then immediately (with many observers tipping them for relegation), to the League One championship. Things have started to look more difficult for his side over the last couple of games - but if he kept them up, it would arguably be even more remarkable than what he has already accomplished at Roots Hall. Like Newell, though, it is hard to see how he can take his team much further: making him amenable to offers from bigger clubs higher up the ladder.

Allen is an engaging, passionate, popular character who led Brentford to back-to-back appearances in the League One play-offs, and a memorable FA Cup run too. Indeed, it was this Cup run which ultimately ruined the Bees' chances of promotion last season: thanks to his brilliant display against Sunderland, striker DJ Campbell was snapped up by Birmingham, and his former club never recovered. Brentford have always been a club struggling for resources, and likely to sell their best players: with this likely to continue, Allen surprisingly left in the summer for a club a division lower, but with considerably more money to spend: MK Dons, who are already in contention, and surely, if Allen stays, will (to the dismay of all right-thinking football fans everywhere) come straight back up.

That leaves two figures with credentials as coaches, but not yet as managers. Bowen is a Canaries legend: a wonderfully combative and talented left back who famously scored our second goal on what remains the greatest night in the club's history: the 2-1 victory away to Bayern Munich in October 1993. Bowen has coaching experience at both Birmingham and Blackburn - and it is noticeable how Blues' fortunes suddenly deteriorated, and Rovers' improved, as he moved from one to the other. A fans' favourite, he would be a highly popular appointment - but as Brian Kidd among many others have proved, being a great coach does not necessarily make you a great manager. Without proven experience as a number one, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that giving him the job would represent a huge gamble.

And much the same could be said of Hunter: the former England under-19s coach, whose appointment in the summer was almost universally credited with transforming our style of play, and - very briefly - our results too. As caretaker manager following Worthington's departure, Hunter is the man in possession, with a chance to stake his claim for the job - but barring a dramatic resurgence in the team, it has to be said that giving him the position on a permanent basis would be the easy option: just as both Worthington and Bryan Hamilton's appointments after periods in the caretaker's role were before him. Of course, if we suddenly embark on a run of victories, it will be difficult for the club to stand in his way - but he must prove he has what it takes, before the club takes, I can only repeat, a gamble it can scarcely afford.

So this observer leans towards any of Newell, Tilson or Allen - with Newell being my slight personal favourite. That said, of course, it would be just like Norwich City if - taking the easy way out - either Hunter or Bowen get the job instead. There is, though, one other man who may yet appear under the radar: rumours circling tonight suggest that Paul Sturrock was at today's game. Like all gossip and tittle-tattle, there may well be nothing in it - but Sturrock, who boasts an excellent record with St Johnstone and Plymouth, and has done marvellously well at Sheffield Wednesday to end their frightening spiral of decline, take them back into the Championship and keep them there in a total absence of money to spend, would be an excellent appointment.

He was outrageously treated during his brief spell at Southampton, and may well have concluded that his only hope of getting another crack at managing in the Premiership will be through taking his own club there. And while Wednesday are unquestionably a big club with a proud tradition, their lack of resources is already making it difficult to envisage how Sturrock can turn them from relegation battlers into promotion contenders; Norwich, on the other hand, boast a good if rather thin squad of players, recent experience of playing in the top flight, and at least some of our final year of parachute payments to invest too. And if Owls fans were upset at losing Sturrock, they'd probably be delighted were Worthington - a favourite son of theirs - to return to Hillsborough, and replace him.

Again, I repeat: this is only a rumour. But a Sturrock/Worthington swap would make a lot of sense - and certainly keep this fan happy, at the very least. We can only wait and see as to what unfolds over the forthcoming days and weeks - but (your correspondent cringes as he shows immediate and disturbing signs of developing the very worst traits of your standard attention-seeking journalist), if it happens, remember: you read it here first!

Thanks for the memories, Nigel - and goodbye

2006-10-01T20:05:00.000Z

So, the inevitable happened. Following Delia and Michael's statement on Monday, which turned an already lame duck into a dead man walking, City played atrociously this afternoon, were humiliated 4-1, and the board finally acted. The Worthington era - which initially saw Norwich at last emerge from our seemingly interminable years of drift and struggle, briefly return to the big time, and once again become renowned and respected as a well-run family club punching above our weight; before imploding as the manager ran out of ideas, the players grew stale, and the board proved itself hopelessly incapable of making a decision which most of us realised had become necessary many months ago - is at an end.

Nobody will forget the good times Worthington led us to: the marvellous late-season run in 2001/2 which took us into the play-offs, and ended almost a decade of miserable mediocrity; the superb defeat of Wolves in the semi-finals, and gallant, brave display in the final in Cardiff; going top of the league at Portman Road, and signing Darren Huckerby (the moment all of us knew we were heading back to the Premiership at long last); and the shock defeat of Manchester United which kick-started our late, brave attempt to escape relegation: these are the memories all Canary fans will carry with us.

But we should also remember the way things went wrong: the failure to win a solitary away game in our year in the top flight, the shocking inability to hold onto a two-goal lead at home to Manchester City, and away to Crystal Palace, and the pathetic pacifism and surrender of our final-day capitulation at Fulham: a performance which was nothing less than a betrayal of the fans who had lit up Premiership grounds across the country with their passion, optimism and deep love of the club. The appalling drift of last season, in which our style of play degenerated into the most risible, directionless rubbish, and the excuses of our increasingly complacent manager, who knew he was at a club with a deep, almost pathological reluctance to commit the brutal, but entirely necessary measure of dismissing him.

And perhaps worst of all, the increasing polarisation amongst the fans: between those who felt we 'owed' Worthington for what he had achieved, and wanted him given more time; and those who were sick to death of the club's constant and chronic lack of ambition, watched as other recently-relegated sides such as Southampton, Leeds and West Brom felt no compunction in changing their managers, and wanted to know why we weren't prepared to do the same, and above all, felt that a club with average gates of 25,000 should at the very least be just as demanding and desirous of success as all its equivalents with similarly large and loyal fanbases. This division almost resulted in open civil war at times: something which, unforgivably, Worthington only added to with his deeply misguided comments that those who had stayed behind to applaud the team at the end of last season (while many others, quite understandably, showed their displeasure by simply leaving at the final whistle) were the "true fans" of the club.

So poisonous did the atmosphere become that on a number of occasions, Norwich fans openly supported our opponents: knowing that defeat could at last force the board to act, and end the depressing drift of the club. Many reading this will wonder how on earth any true fan could even consider rooting against their team: the answer is that, quite simply, the almost unbelievable indecisiveness of the board forced them into it. I doubt even one person cheering Burnley's goals today did not have the interests of Norwich City Football Club at heart; but they knew things were likely to only get worse as long as Worthington - who lost the faith and commitment of most of his players long ago - clung on. In essence, it had reached the stage where we all just wanted this nightmare to end: meaning relief was the primary emotion many of us felt when the end, at last, arrived.

Norwich fans are amongst the most placid and tolerant in the country. As our team displayed all the collective will of purest marshmallow last season, most merely resorted to a jovial enough chant of "Come on, let's be sacking you!" (a play-on words of our joint majority shareholder's memorable, and somewhat inebriated half-time rant against Manchester City during our year in the Premiership); but only a few made their feelings about wanting the manager out perfectly plain. Only because of the board's chronic dithering - even to the point where they neither backed the manager by giving him sufficient funds in the summer, nor had the bottle to sack him - did we become more and more angry and frustrated. Indefensibly, a moronic few became personally abusive towards Worthington - but in truth, the fans' ire should have been far more directed at the board, whose inaction and plain incompetence led us to this deeply unhappy situation.

Now, at last, all City fans can unite once more, and get back to doing what any other group of supporters does every week: cheering on our team. But whoever the new manager turns out to be, it is absolutely imperative that the board learns from the cul-de-sac they've led us down over the past year. Failure to take tough, decisive decisions, and failure to match the passion of the supporters with real, demonstrable ambition will - by this fan at the very least - simply no longer be tolerated.

The end of an era?

2006-09-30T09:00:00.000Z

Tomorrow afternoon, Norwich City face Burnley in front of SKY's TV cameras at Carrow Road. It's fair to say that my beloved Canaries have been enduring a pretty sorry time of it of late: favourites to be promoted straight back to the Premiership at the start of last season, an absolutely appalling campaign of miserable, directionless football, poor signings, and excuses from both Delia Smith's board and the manager, Nigel Worthington, followed. Things got so bad that, on two or three occasions, Worthington was probably only a game from the sack: leading to the bizarre sight of Norwich fans actually cheering QPR goals at Carrow Road back in April. Defeat then might well have meant the end of Worthington, and a desperately-needed fresh start; instead, we scrambled through, the hapless manager survived, and on we drifted, to where we find ourselves now.

This season began encouragingly - but has already foundered on the twin rocks of our desperately thin squad (a pretty remarkable state of affairs for a club which received at least £15m to £20m of Premiership money in 2004/5), and our absolutely shocking away form - which now reads, get this, a disgraceful six wins from our last 47 games on the road. So shambolic was our display at Plymouth last weekend that even Delia - a woman who could never be accused of a knee-jerk reaction - was moved to issue a statement on Monday, in which she and her husband (and fellow joint majority shareholder, Michael Wynn Jones) bemoaned the "lack of passion and commitment" of the team at Home Park, and demanded that the situation "be rectified in our next home game on Sunday, and in our next away game" (at QPR in a fortnight).

But the trouble is, no-one quite knows what this means: what happens if City play poorly in both games, but scramble two undeserved victories? Or alternatively, what will be the consequences if we do at last play with real passion, but are unlucky in either or both matches? For myself, my take on it is that this statement is the beginning of the long-overdue end game: the board have been slowly distancing themselves from Worthington for some time now, stating to a meeting of supporters before the season began that he was "on borrowed time", and palpably failing to back him during the August transfer window. But if they sack him, he'll be entitled to considerable compensation; so they're hoping he'll jump instead, and are trying to engineer such an outcome: we might indeed regard it as tantamount to 'constructive dismissal'.

It's desperately, desperately sad that it has come to this. When Worthington took over, Norwich had been gradually shrinking as a club and drifting towards a hitherto undreamt of status in English football's third tier for several years. With the help of some real money being made available at last, he initially transformed us, taking us first to the play-off final, and then to the title, and with it, promotion to the promised land two years later. But there, things began to go wrong: he bizarrely chose to release the club's talismanic skipper, Malky Mackay, reasoning he wasn't good enough for the highest level (yes, that's the same Malky Mackay who we're seeing every week on our television screens strutting his stuff for Watford in, you guessed it, the Premiership): meaning that the team lacked both leadership, and just as importantly, height too. We failed to sign the top-class striker we urgently required until January, after a first half of the season peppered with good performances, but draws which should have been wins; and then began to leak goals alarmingly too.

Even then, we could still have escaped. But all season long, the club patronised itself with a ridiculous, embarassing, "we're just happy to be here" mindset: and this reached its nadir on the season's final day at Fulham, when with our fate in our own hands, playing a team with nothing to motivate itself but pride, and with neutrals across the country cheering us on, we proceeded to be humiliated, 6-0. And I honestly don't believe the club has recovered since: that annihilation at Craven Cottage is like the most monumental hangover which just will not go away.

So we started poorly last season, and were flirting with relegation by the early winter. At this stage, any Championship club with a modicum of ambition - and especially one which had just been relegated, and with only two years of parachute payments to help it return to the top flight - would have turned to the manager, said thanks for the memories, and moved on. But not us: not cuddly, inoffensive little Norwich. Never at any stage did we look like recovering: players were just hoofing it long, and the manager was a shadow of the man who had arrived with such a refreshingly tough, positive attitude all those years before. He was past his sell-by date, and the team had gone stale - yet still, the board refused to act.

It beggars belief that, in circumstances whereby we'll inevitably release our best players should we fail to go back up this season, the board have dithered to such a degree: and is symptomatic of a club which wallows in its perenially 'nice' image, in a football world in which - as in life - you have to fight tooth and nail in order to achieve what you want. Thanks to the board's inertia, Worthington has gone from being successful and hugely popular to a widely reviled figure - and Delia and her inept leadership have presided over a depressing ebbing away of the goodwill and trust which she and the club had worked so hard to build up. Carrow Road is a poisonous place to be at the moment - but that's down to the board, not us. Whisper it, but sometimes, the club behaves in such a craven, backwards kind of way that it simply does not deserve the passion and devotion of its supporters: supporters who, incidentally, continue to provide the largest average attendances in the Championship, despite the drivel the team continually serves up.

My best guess about tomorrow is the players - who have plainly lost faith in Worthington, and need a change as much as anyone - will effectively down tools; and that Burnley, who will be looking to perform in order to persuade their excellent manager, Steve Cotterill, not to join a bigger club he's been linked with such as West Brom, will do a job on us. Meaning, after almost six years, exit Worthington - but really, it needn't have come to this. One can only hope the board has learnt from the shocking inadequacies of the past year: otherwise, the road back to the Premiership could be long indeed.

Welcome, one and all

2006-09-30T05:00:00.000Z

Dear all,

Welcome to the bigfeller's blog: home to random musings on all things to do with the beautiful game. I'm a fan of both Norwich City and Heart of Midlothian - so inevitably, a number of posts will be geared towards the on and off-field happenings at Carrow Road and Tynecastle - but in general, the blog will feature all sorts of takes on whatever is going on in the football world: be it the Premiership, Champions League, the international scene, or off-pitch politicking and controversy. I hope you find it entertaining and thought-provoking - and welcome feedback from all fellow travellers.

A little about me: I'm currently in the final stages of a PhD in History, but having always wanted to be an academic, have found myself gravitating towards... well, you guessed it, writing about football. So my current plan is to seek a job at a sports science department somewhere in the country as a researcher - with the long-term goal being to establish myself as a full-time freelance book writer. If anyone reading this has any advice, contacts etc, it would be hugely appreciated.

I already have a couple of projects in mind: one, a book entitled "Why England will never win the World Cup (until they do the following things...)", which I'll be working on in my spare time; and the second, an investigation into possible bias towards the Old Firm in Scottish football. You'll be seeing plenty of references to both these topics in the months ahead...

And incidentally, although football is and has always been my first love, I'm pretty much a sports nut in general. So if you'll allow me the luxury, there will also be occasional posts on many other sports: be it rugby, cricket, baseball or snooker. International sport especially excites me - and both the Ashes and the Rugby World Cup are likely to result in my keyboard being pretty busy.

So without further ado, it's on with the show. Thankyou for taking the time to read this: and I hope you find what I have to say enjoyable and worthwhile.