There’s a reason why things haven’t happened to halt this poor run of form.
When you’re in the type of run that Norwich are in there need to be reasons why they haven’t parted company with David Wagner. He could have been sacked, let’s be honest.
Performances have been awful. Wins aren’t there – they’ve lost their last four. They’re closer to the relegation zone than they are to the play-offs.
I think the board would have been justified to have got rid of him before now. I think there are reasons – maybe they haven’t got anybody in the pipeline.
But it seems as if everything’s coming to a head and Ben Knapper has been rushed into his new position with Stuart Webber leaving after the Cardiff game.
There is a new owner coming in and he’ll want his own people there in the football club.
The new sporting director is coming in early – and he’s got a big job, by the way. People think he’s going to come in and wave a magic wand, and everything’s going to be great. All the best for that!
He has still got the same players, the same players that are not tracking back and not staying with their runners. I watched the first half of the Blackburn game.
I’d been out for a run, got in the shower, the game had just started and by the time I had come out, they had scored their first goal.
I’m like, ‘what’s going on?’ I couldn’t believe it. But when you see the amount of yellow shirts around when Norwich conceded… for the first goal Blackburn have got two players in the vicinity, Norwich have got five or six, but they still score. And that’s either because they’re not trying for the manager or they’re scared of making mistakes. They are not taking responsibility.
It’s embarrassing. The second goal – the defensive line’s all over the shop, Shane Duffy tries to nick it in front of the centre forward, he gets a touch to it but not enough, they break, he’s basically walking back to his defensive position… where’s the midfield runners, the midfielder who’s supposed to be picking up Sammie Szmodics?
There’s no characters, no leaders. They can say whatever they want, I think there are players in the comfort zone there – and I’ve said it before; great training facilities, good stadium to play in, everything is handed on a plate for you. They get good money, but they’re not earning it.
The manager doesn’t send them out there and tell them not to work hard. He won’t send them out there and say, ‘don’t close down, don’t stay with your runners, track your right back, track the left back, if he goes back you’ve got to go back track, track your midfield runner’.
Communication – there’s no talking. At the minute they’re playing like a bunch of strangers who were just picked randomly. I don’t see a pattern of play, I don’t see a style of play. I see other teams in the Championship and they’ll drop off and they look solid.
I see other teams in the Championship where they’re a bit braver and they’ll squeeze and they’ll press and they’ll press as one unit in the opposition’s half. They won’t let them have time on the ball in their own half. Norwich don’t do either. They don’t press. As soon as they lose it they drop off, but it’s still too easy to play through them. And that’s either because they are not trying or it’s a lack of desire or they don’t know how to do it – and I’m not having that – or they’re not working hard enough at it on the training pitch.
Whatever people think of Stuart Webber, and I know his reputation has been tarnished over the last two or three years, he did a fantastic job to start off with and he got the big decisions right early doors, which bought him a lot of love and rightly so.
I don’t know much about Ben Knapper, but there’s a big difference between running a whole football club – your responsibility is pretty much everything – and the job he’s leaving a job at Arsenal as loans manager, making sure players are okay at their loan clubs. Neil Adams had the role here for a few years. It’s a bit of a made-up role – we’d never heard about it 10 years ago.
I heard there were far more experienced ex-players in for the job. Rob Newman would have loved it. You look at the experience Rob has got – worked at Manchester City with Pep Guardiola, and West Ham but wasn’t given the opportunity. That’s the thing these days. They’d rather people who are more like school teachers.
Cardiff City are a far better side than they have been for the last two or three seasons.
The manager is Erol Bulut. His recruitment has been spot on and they have not spent a penny because they had a transfer embargo, which meant he had to go out and get free transfers and players in on loan.
