None of it ever made sense. Sorry....bit of a long one.

Appointing Manning in the first place doesn't make any sense. It never made sense. As per title, apologies, this is a bit of a long one, but it helps me get it all out.

When the reaction of the fanbase of the old club that the new manager is leaving is basically "thank f**k he's gone", you're missing a key red flag. Within a few days of surfing the message boards serving the Brizzle community, we knew that they thought:

- he was tactically limited in key ways
- particularly inability to change games with subs
- a rigid approach when it came to formations, including a preference for 3/5 at the back that they didn't like
- dull, defensive, slow football

Brizzle fans general view was they got to the playoffs DESPITE Manning, not because of him.

I know that fans are fans, and many of them are permanently stuck with a f**k off Selwyns attitude. But everything we were warned about has come true. And as a list of managerial facets, that lots above is a pretty hopeless fit for Norwich. When I read all of this on the wrath and elsewhere, I felt the alarm bells wringing.

Also, think about the shortlist they produced for the role. GON, Steve "face like a smacked arse" Cooper, Jack Wilshere, Pep Lijnders. If you're looking for "pragmatic", surely Manning is third on that list? If you're looking for "potentially exciting sex ball", then Manning might well be joint last with Cooper?

How do you get to that short list and end up with Manning? In a world where you have to also shell out a load of compo? I mean....what we're they thinking? It doesn't make any sense, just at face value.

Manning as boss doesn't and didn't make any sense if you think about our squad as it was.

To play 3/5 at the back, you need top WBs (plus cover), as its the WBs who usually carry the main attacking threat. Players really able to cover ground....pace....creativity, a bit of quality on the ball. We didn't have any players naturally suited to the role. In the main our FBs were classic FBs used to playing in a 4 at the back formation. Of course attacking is still a key part of the role, but FB vs WB is so different. None of our FBs seem to have the attributes or the raw stat evidence to suggest they could do it. Stacey runs around a lot and might superficially look like a good prospect as a WB, but has exactly ZERO end product. Schlupp was maybe brought in to play that role, but has looked unfit since he arrived, even if his last couple of performances (before he broke) looked promising. This system basically takes Fisher (one of our better players from last year and someone we thought was a key prospect) and kills his path to contribute.

Obvious question...if Manning wanted to play 3/5 at the back, why didn't we invest in quality in that department? Everton were allegedly in for Fisher....so take the money and invest in a WB then. It doesn't make any sense.

The CBs don't seem a great fit for 3/5 at the back. Mostly not good enough on the ball to be able to step forward and initiate attacks. Mostly lacking the pace to cover out wide when the WBs push up? Mostly unable to press high up into midfield and get back to cover.

Ditto the midfield. With 5 at the back, the common problem is getting over run in midfield. Do we have the kind of athletic players you'd need to deal with that? No, we didn't and don't. Do we have a box-to-box midfielder? No, we don't. Do we have a creative midfielder able to pick a pass. Nearest we have is Marcondes....say no more. We just didn't have the players to make it work, having been set up entirely to support Hoffball.

If you were looking for a manager that might conceivably fit with the squad then Manning, just from my incredibly superficial knowledge of football, looks flat wrong. Or at least you'd think, we need to really turn the squad over to sign players that WILL fit with the new coaches desired formation.

But....instead, generally, we then signed players that seemed to be handpicked to support Hoffball, not Manningball. Diallo doesn't really have a home in 3/5 at the back does he? Is he going to be defensively sound enough to play WB? Or fit enough to cover the ground? Or strong enough? Chris Goreham maybe works 2 up top, but was often out wide out of position, and didn't look like he had a natural home. Pelle looks like the kind of tidy midfielder Hoff might have used, but fish out of water in Manningball, and just yet another bog standard midfielder to go alongside all our other bog standard midfielders. We signed the slowest CB in the world (Medic) unable to cover group like you need (always easily beaten with a simple ball over the top), and then the slowest DCM (Topic) in the world unable to cover any ground, and lacking the technical ability to carry the ball or thread a pass. None of it makes any sense.

The one player that might have actually made this 3/5 thing kind of work a bit better was Whonez, as a key pivot in MF. And we sold him. To the scum. Because Knapper thought the money was good. And, apparently, because Manning said he didn't need him/wasn't planning on using him. Despite the fact that he made us play SO much better every minute he was on the pitch this season compared to ANY and ALL of our other midfielders. I mean, what a pair of prize f**king morons LM and BK really are for that, for so many reasons.

So everything that has happened since he joined has felt entirely predictable, and should have been predictable if you were a SD doing your job. We, the fans on here, started spotted the problems incredibly early and throughout.

Here's a post I made in August.

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Here's a great post from 51teve from around the same time.

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Here's a post Jim made during the home stuffing from Southampton in the little cup. Straight to the point Jim, and spot on!

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Posts made by us keen fan amateurs so early in his tenure, spotting glaring, predictable problems. Problems that quickly became really f**king obvious to anyone with half a brain. Just so much evidence that we have a limited manager with the wrong squad, saddled with signings that were either mostly s**t, or had no natural home in the preferred formation.

His tactical limitations also emerged very quickly. From that early s**t show vs Millwall. His insistence on playing 3/5 at the back so rigidly in all the early games, with players obviously out of position and basically in roles than players to all their WEAKNESSES, not their STRENGTHS. His inability to change the game. On the rare occasions when he did actually influence things, his inability to know what he'd done and then to f**k up any positive impact really quickly - I'm thinking of the defeat vs Swansea, where he made a great change before HT, and then completely undid it at HT leading to another defeat.

Even yesterday...we got ahead, it was going okay, even if we'd had a bit of luck. Yes, Chris Goreham was blowing, but f**k me he removed him so early and from that moment the game totally changed. From being the side in the ascendancy, we suddenly lost all momentum, and had 30 mins to defend with nothing going forward. In a must win game, immediately before a break where the players can recover. Fucking stupid.

Duffy being basically bombed out in the summer, and only still her because nobody wanted him. Duffy back as the saviour. McConville unable to get any minutes, to being thrown in. I mean there's so much that's gone wrong, it's hard to wrap you're head around it.

Can you name me one player that has improved under Manning? No, because there isn't one. He hasn't got a single player playing well, everyone has gone WAY backwards. The nearest I think I can get, is Makama, who at least tries his heart out every game, looks like he's got something, even if he's a bit raw.

The wheels haven't come off the Manning bus. They were never properly attached in the first place. I'm not even sure now there was even a bus there to try to put wheels on in the first place. It was, with the benefit of any amount of foresight, and even more obviously with hindsight, a really f**king terrible appointment, surrounded by a raft of further terrible decisions around the squad. It all points to a level of incompetence in the executive team that beggars belief. Mainly, all of this is on Knapper, but Adams is to blame too, as he will have sat through endless meetings and presentations on the new manager and had a f**king DUTY to spot and say some of these things. We, the fans spotted these things so early - how can a man that's been in football for so long, in an extremely important and powerful position at the club, have allowed THIS appointment to proceed.

As a concluding thought...thank GOD its finally over, but what the f**k took you all so long to see what was so obvious? I can only hope that MA is seeking outside advice on who to appoint next. I wouldnt trust BK to go to the newsagents for a paper and come back with the right change.

Posted By: Under soil heating, Nov 9, 13:27:36